Thistleblooms Rambles

[Bruce]

Wouldn't it be nice to have enough money to own a summer place with a guest cottage?

 

[thistlebloom]

Wouldn't it be nice to have enough money to own a summer place with a guest cottage?

I'm pretty certain I'm not up to the complexity of being wealthy .
But it is interesting being in an outer orbit of that lifestyle.

Don't know if I mentioned it before, but this big job is my favorite.
I used to have 18 accounts back when I started this business 14 years ago. Kids #1 and #2 helped me a fair bit back then, but these days I'm down to two accounts, plus a handful of little spring and fall cleanups for a few favorites. And except for a bit (small bit) of help from dh and occasionally my boys when I whine enough I'm on my own.
This "big job" as I always refer to it, takes me 3 or 4 days per week.

The property is beatiful, very park like in the summer when I have it whipped into shape and since I spend so much time there when no one is living there it feels like my personal garden space.
The house was built by the former occupants whom I worked for first. It's timber frame with a slate roof and copper trim. The window frames are all copper and all the materials are the highest quality. The lower story is granite stone with cedar board and batten above. The new owners purchased it 4ish years ago and inherited me as gardener.
They just purchased the property in front two years ago (the "guest cottage") so the grandkids wouldn't have to sleep on airbeds in the (beautiful, finished, walk out ) basement. Poor little grandkids! I'm sure it was a tough two weeks for them!

Anyway the guest cottage is a mere 4000 sf, and they remodeled the exterior with the same granite and cedar as the big house so they complement one another. I cannot even begin to imagine how one deals with that degree of wealth, and personally I'm not envious in the slightest. In fact I kind of feel sorry for them.
But they are very nice people and are always friendly to me and treat me well. Which has not always been my experience gardening for the super wealthy. I have been treated as a non entity by a few, and they are in the rearview mirror now.

I forgot why I got off on this tangent, except it's a rainy day and I've been indoors most of it. Sure got verbose there!

 

[Bruce]

Sounds truly beautiful, do you suppose they would mind if you posted pictures of the exterior and the grounds?

Anyway the guest cottage is a mere 4000 sf

Probably 99%+ of the people in this country don't have a permanent house that big!!!

 

[farmerjan]

Wouldn't it be nice to have enough money to own a summer place with a guest cottage?

Surprising, no I have no interest in having enough money to own a summer place with a guest cottage.... especially if the guest cottage is bigger than alot of houses....
I just don't get the whole thing of the rich having houses here there and everywhere. Where is "HOME" after while????
And I grew up in an area in CT where there were alot of people with money..... seems like most were not any happier than us poor folks.... just had problems that were fixed with more money being thrown at them. Which mostly didn't fix anything in the long run.

 

[Baymule]

If I were super wealthy, I'd just have a big ranch. Living the dream, I dang sure wouldn't need a summer house--or any other house for that matter.

Thanks for the insight into your work. It sounds lovely, what an environment to work in!

Syringa looks proud of her new saddle, it's perfect. She's perfect. And what a perfect day.

 

[thistlebloom]

Sounds truly beautiful, do you suppose they would mind if you posted pictures of the exterior and the grounds?

I don't think it's a problem.

This is an old photo. The former owners lived here year round and in the fall we would take the annuals out of the containers and make a winter display. That was always fun. Nobody is there in the winter anymore so I don't get to do that now.

This is also not recent, it's the back side of the house.

Fourth of July dinner party on the lawn. There are fireworks from a barge out on the lake.
There are a lot of those drystack stone walls on the grounds that you can see in the picture below. I put up hot wire every fall to keep the winter deer traffic off them. The deer jumping up and down breaks them down and erodes the banks.

Guest cottage remodel finished with landscaping designed and installed by me. Everything is much bigger now. It's been longer than I thought.

 

[rachels.haven]

Wow, fancy. Beautiful landscaping!

 

[B&B Happy goats]

Nice place to work or call home ...

 

[Bruce]

Lovely place. Someone does a nice job taking care of the landscaping

Surprising, no I have no interest in having enough money to own a summer place with a guest cottage.... especially if the guest cottage is bigger than alot of houses....

But Jan, if you had that much money you could buy the farm of your dreams!! No one says you HAVE to spend it on an "estate"

 

[thistlebloom]

Looking at the dates on those pictures I got whiplash. I have been gardening there for 9 years! It will be 6 for the "new" owners this summer. Oh. My. Lanta.
How did that time warp happen?

I also thought I should point out that I have nothing to with lawns anywhere. Except my own house. I'm beds and borders exclusively, leaving the lawns to the army of mow blow and go guys.