Andrea Swiedler

Jump on the hay wagon for the Annual Hayrides On The Green! Mark your calendars and come join us for tons of fun for all ages! I thought I would give you a heads up, with all the activities scheduled around December, so you could make time to attend the Annual Hayrides on the Green in New Milford CT!

When: Sunday, December 20th, 2009, from 1pm to 3pm
Where: New Milford CT Village Green
What: Annual Hayride Around the Green! Admission is FREE!

Prudential Adams & Associates, REALTORS, and Housatonic Valley Insurance Agency (HVI on the Green) are proud to present the annual Hayrides On The Green. This years hayrides will be conducted by Utopia Percherons of Goshen, CT. Hayrides, hot chocolate, candy canes and of course, Santa on the bandstand.

This is the 11th year Prudential Adams & Associates, REALTORS has brought the hayride to the Village Green in New Milford, CT. A good time is always had by all. Yes, I plan to be there, camera in hand, handing out hot chocolate, helping people on the wagons, giving the horses water or something just as fun. I do hope to see you there! This is our way of saying thank you to the community, so please do come by, say hello, drink some hot chocolate, take a ride around the green and see Santa, all on us! The New Milford Annual Hayrides On the Green.

Speechless Sunday complimented with a few words! Although the scenery leaves me speechless, the temptation of the keyboard is just too great.

Our leaves have pretty much fallen off the trees, the stark branches rising skyward bring promise of much colder days and snow in its time. There is still color to be seen, one of my favorites is all the bittersweet around. I have been looking for some to wind into a wreath for the front door, but somehow think that it looks far better exactly where it is now.

Three dogs and the Ship of Fools. And how was YOUR day showing homes today?

I had hoped to have 3 homes to show my clients today. A beautiful fall day in New Milford, CT, it was a perfect day for house hunting. Just before leaving my house to meet up with them I got a call confirming my showing for the third home from the home owner. Yes, of course it was fine to come and see the house. Her dog would be in the house loose, and he "should" be fine. He is only possessive of people, not the house. I opted to skip that showing. The agent called me back on the second house, the tenants left the door open, but there would be an older German Shepherd in the house, loose. He is a bit blind, senile and barks a lot. If we are uncomfortable going in, perhaps we could look in the windows??? The first house on the list was holding an open house, so that was a no brainer at least.

We got to the second house, there were two dogs in the house and they went crazy while we were peeking in the windows. NO WAY were we going to walk inside. But my clients are very interested, and we have a showing set for tomorrow, the tenants have promised to remove the dogs when we are there.

When I spoke with the listing agent to confirm the showing for tomorrow and ask a few questions, I did explain that we already have a "deal breaker" if we get to the table. The pirate ship in the front yard needs to stay.... There was a pause, silence at the other end of the line. Pirate ship? What pirate ship? Why the Ship of Fools sitting in the front yard, larger than the house! I asked him when the last time was he actually saw the listing, and he said he drove by today but never noticed it.

OK, tell me, would you notice this if it was in the front yard of one of your listings???? I'm just sayin...

And as a side note, although the "Ship of Fools" just might clinch the deal, all these loose dogs in the homes are preventing anyone from even getting to the deal table! As much as I love dogs, I will not walk into a home with dogs running loose in the house. If you want to get the house sold, take the dogs out for showings! I have been known to do it myself for my clients if they are unable to, dog permitting. So unless you have access to a pirate ship, TAKE THE DOGS OUT! And to think, I thought the 6 llamas I had to find homes for were the strangest deal breaker going!

Change is always inevitable. We all know time marches on, with that brings change we are not always willing or happy to deal with. But they change despite our efforts. Some change is good, some change we are sure is terrible, and some change we don't know what to do with.

Change happens in real estate. The market changes, homes bought and sold, homes lost. Change has come in the form of how homes are bought and sold, yet the end result is that people will buy homes, move in and sell them again. People have lost much in the price of their homes over the past two years with the changes, and yet prices will make a climb up again as things continue to change.

Just like these 2 photographs, some change cannot be stopped. The first photo is the moon setting this morning. I looked out the window and realized that the moon was setting exactly where the sun had been setting a few short months ago. The view has changed, the leaves are going going gone, the colors are different, yet the landscape remains basically the same. The next photo is sunset a few short months ago. And another change is in the wind, the seasons will move on, the landscape will look a bit different again, yet it will be there as always.

There is one constant thought all the changes around us that we can count on, change is always inevitable.

Speechless Sunday does leave me (a bit) speechless.

The sunset reflecting on the moon rising tonight

Bittersweet silo

Cornfields

Remnants of another time

I am still playing with HDR, bracketing and fusing exposures together and test driving the Photomatix program, hence the watermarks on the end result. The above photos are all HDR, fusion comes later!