Boerne TX House-Sit "Bobcat Ranch"
If I were to look back through all of our past house-sitting experiences, I’d have to say we’ve had some doozies (“Doozie” = You catch yourself saying frequently, “When is our last day here?”) You would think for as long as we’ve been doing this, we’d have it down to a science. But I think it really just comes down to sheer luck. And though statistically, you could probably fit most people into categories percentage-wise, for the limited amount that you can talk with people prior to actually committing to them, it’s a roll of the dice most of the time. You can have a long conversation with them on the phone, maybe several. But you don’t really know whom you’re dealing with until the day you drive up the driveway and meet them face to face. With this particular house sit in Boerne Tx, we had the opportunity of meeting the homeowner a few weeks in advance because we were close by (Sisterdale) at another house-sit. Thankfully, when we met the new homeowner, it was a good feeling right from the start.
"Frankie" the cat making a "counter" offensive. Hmmm...
The Boerne house-sit involved watching the house, and one of the most personable cats to date, right alongside Parker (See Smithville Blog Post) our other favorite cat. If Don Rickles came back as a cat, he would come back as Frankie. Frankie probably loves everybody, but what a comedian. He always kept us laughing throughout our stay and at times was a bit of a “Dennis the Menace”, especially around 6 AM. His morning pounces on my face and getting under our covers will be missed. "Easy fella, watch where you put your paws!"
The house was gorgeous. A chef’s kitchen with everything one needed to cook everything under the sun. We also learned about the “Sonos” sound system which was a wireless speaker system piped all over the beautiful twenty-five hundred square foot home. The homeowner left us her iPad which controlled all of the music. The music library was endless and with Spotify, Pandora and many online radio stations programmed in, we had more than enough music all day long and late into every evening. I whipped up some "Pho" and "Singapore Chicken" among some other tasty dinners. One cool spin-off from house sitting is all the neat stuff you get to try out.
Great gas stove with griddle. Salt and pepper station to the left of stove. Very well equipped.
Great to experiment with different combinations of seasonings. Plenty of tools to work with.
"Pho Bo" is a Vietnamese soup that I like to make whenever we get the chance. I made it twice at this house sit. It's a pretty involved process so if your interested in the recipe, I put the link HERE. But, unless you've already tried it, go to a restaurant that makes it to be sure it's something you'll like. Though most people do.
One of the things I take note of are all of the different types of mattresses. How many times have you gone into a mattress store to buy a mattress but can't take it home just to try it without laying out any cash for it? In all the house-sits we’ve had so far, I’ve only run across two mattress types that I would ever buy again. Once this adventure of a lifetime is over, I'll have the perfect mattress in mind, a very firm Tempurpedic...maybe.
And, we were fortunate to have the opportunity to drive a fairly new Lexus SUV and a 2006 Porsche Boxster.
It's nice to be able to try different things at a house-sit. Both of these performed admirably. I only exercised the Porsche a few times, but it was as you would expect. Great handling, smooth shifting.
Though I’m sure I would never be in a position to purchase a Boxster in my lifetime, it was nice to be able to shift manually for a change. A pretty zippy car and it was great to put the top down and take it for a spin after dinner. The weather here was certainly favorable with highs in the 80's during frequent cloudless days.
After dinner drive.
I was able to wash the Tiger and the Turtle though the cleanliness was short lived as the pollen moved in as soon as I put the wash bucket aside. The Ashe Juniper down here really can pump the pollen out. If you sit on the steps on the weekend and carefully listen you can hear people throughout the neighborhood sneezing. And all the while sitting there, herds of deer pass through munching at anything green as they go. In the time we were here, many of the oaks have leafed out, and the redbuds have gone through an entire bud leaf cycle.
Outside living space for relaxing. Sunsets were all pretty much the way you see it here.
We took a few side trips one of which was to Fredricksburg and another to the LBJ Ranch. Yvette has been busy planning and plotting our next moves and it looks like we’re heading to a place called Inks Lake State Park. We’ll hit a few other parks before moving on north and west out of Texas. Our next house-sit, at this point anyway, won’t be until about May. They’ll be lots of things to see and do for sure.