What must it be like to be Farmbeau, to come home to his yard and his house full of people and so different than it was?

First, he walks past the pots of petunias and marigolds blooming outside the door. Inside the porch, there’s a pretty, quilted tablecloth on top of the deep freeze.

Then, hanging on the wall where he mounts the stairs into the hallway, there’s the framed image of Barney proudly holding a miniature unicorn on the palm of his hand. As Farmbeau passes by the bathroom door, he can glimpse a countertop jumbled with bottles and boxes and baskets and baubles.

In the kitchen, things have migrated to a new order and often there is the warmth and aroma of something in the oven or atop the stove. Every shelf in the fridge is full. There’s a tablecloth on the table, and a fancy-cut, stemmed, green glass bowl in the centre of it. Four wooden chairs are tucked in neatly around the table itself.

The living room is now an office. There are several plants. On the wall is a framed picture of flowers, made of square tiles. In a vase there are flowers made of macaroni. There are new curtains. There are bookshelves and neatly stacked books. There is an antique china cabinet displaying colourful dishes behind a delicate door made of wood and glass.

No need to go on about bunkbeds in the boys’ room and brass pieces and beeswax candles on the window ledges and a loaf of homemade bread on the cutting board. I just hope he’s happy about it all, that it still feels like home.