this old house

I thought I'd share some snaps of my home that I took the other day. Neighbors have told me that when the previous tenant lived here, the front yard was so overgrown that it was almost impossible to see the house from the street. I've also heard that he had over 500 potted plants and was even growing grapes in the backyard! (I actually wouldn't mind if the grapes had stayed behind, but oh well) 

The kittah is spoiled as all heck here. A huge fenced-in yard to run around and stalk the local lizard population (if she brings one more cut-off lizard tail into the house, I'm gonna lose it), and as seen above, plenty of outdoor scratching posts. Living the life I tell you. If I believed in reincarnation, I would totally want to come back in my next life as a spoiled rotten house cat.

Reason #478 I love living in an old house? Mature fruit trees! And we've got four! This is the avocado tree on the side of our property. What a beautiful, glorious thing that is. The only downside is that we have to bust out our ladder to pick the avocados, because they're usually way up high. And see that twisty, Tim Burton-looking tree in the back right corner? That's our persimmon tree, even though it's not looking so pretty right now. When we moved in, it was bearing leaves and fruit, but I'm guessing it's out of season now? At least we had the chance to pick and taste them. I had to do a little research though, to find out that our persimmons are the astringent type, which means that they'll turn orange and look ripe long before they actually are. So I picked some off when they were still firm, and let them ripen on my kitchen counter until they were soft and squishy to the touch. Then they're ready to eat!

Other odd quirks of this house: Some of our windows have to be held up with bamboo sticks. Some people might find this annoying and inconvenient, but I don't really mind.

And glass door knobs! How awesome are these? We've got a few of these around the house, on my bedroom closet door, and in one of the bathrooms. They add a nice vintage touch, if I do say so myself.