Tuesday proved to me more than ever the blessings and care of God, and the amazing love and generosity of His people!!
When we went to bed on Saturday, as far as we knew we had a max of 7 people for sure helping us. That will be fine, we can manage, we said, it'll be good.
By Tuesday morning we had over a dozen people we were expecting, and as the morning wore on people kept on calling or just arriving.
In the end we had 21! people come and donate their time, muscles, energy, and vehicles. And that was on Tuesday alone!
While we did try to move a lot of the big outdoor stuff on Monday, we left most of the heavy appliances for when we had help. Hey, gotta make use of all that extra strength right? :)
Sometimes we had a bit of overkill... :D Or, maybe it takes 5-6 guys to move a Piano.. who am I to say??
Not to mention Couch sectionals!
One thing about moving, is all the little odds and ends that you, being familiar with your surroundings, tend to completely miss! The clock on the wall, the flowers, the knickknacks on the window sill, the Bible on the end of the couch.... Oh you mean those have to come too!?! :) Thankfully my awesome friend Nic and her amazing Mom were there to help us out and took charge of grabbing all those bits and pieces we overlooked!
Finally all the smaller vehicles (read everything but the U-haul) were packed, and we set off with a caravan north-wards. Josiah and a group of energetic young men were already at the new homestead unloading his trailer and truck load of wood, and we left another group of folks back at the old place to finish packing the U-haul. Once our entourage of vans, mini-vans and other miscellaneous automobiles landed, it was all fast movement as we shuttled boxes from cars to the garage. With all the help, things were done quickly and efficiently and we were done in plenty of time for the big truck to arrive.
One wonderful thing about having large french doors, that just happen to have a deck off the back of them, is that you can back the U-haul truck right up to the deck, pull out the ramp and...
... there you go! Right in the house! :)
And the advantage to a split level house is that there are shorter levels of stairs to take large objects down.
The disadvantage comes when you need to
put these items on the lowest level, meaning a sharp turn to traverse
before reaching the other short flight of stairs. :)
The U-haul was unloaded as fast as humanly possible, and a quick lunch was grabbed in shifts during the process. As soon as they could, a group ran back down with the U-haul to grab the big items that hadn't fit, before the time for returning the truck came. Meanwhile up at the house, some serious cleaning went on... :)
We even unpacked a "few" boxes and tried to figure out where they went in the little kitchen. (those dishes have been moved at least twice by this point... :P )
After this I am afraid my photo documentation ceases. Thing just got too busy. The truck came back, we unloaded, Dad ran it down and returned it. Most of our helpers left, with many thanks from us, but a few overly dedicated ones (you know who you are!) stayed and helped us set up bunk beds, and chicken coops.
We had a quick dinner, and then gratefully said goodbye to that last group of friends, while we headed back home to pick up a load of poultry to put in the newly finished chicken coop.
Somehow, in the middle of it all, Josiah had managed to section off a part of the back room in the pole barn, which we had planned to use as a chicken coop.
It turned out very nice!!
The first flock of chickens arrived and were settled into their new home, then tired, exhausted, but happy we all crashed into our newly re-constructed, and re-located beds for a quick night's sleep, before heading back at it the next day.
.....to be finished. :)
~Chs
