A Moving Story... Part 3

Wednesday might possibly have been the hardest day of our 3 days of moving. It was cold, blustery, and with a slight depressing overcast air about it. But it would have been much more difficult (or impossible) if it hadn't been for some wonderful new friends that came with their large trailers to help us move some of the last big stuff.

One of the items to be removed to the new property, was our "little" chicken coop. Well this "little" coop was built like a rock. The family joke was that "if a tornado came, we would abandon the house and go stay in the Chicken coop." :)

So moving it was going to be no small task.....

Even with straps, and big trucks and lots of strong guys.. it was still quite the effort. :)

But... Where there's a will.....

... There's a way.

Kitten and Sadie Rose hung out together inside. (on our super dirty carpet....)

Another family arrived with their trailer (which took one of Josiah's hoop houses... everything has to go! :) ) and were super useful grabbing all the extra items off the deck, and from the garage.

Once everything was loaded, all of our helpers along with all of us except for Mom and I, once again headed North.

Mother and I were left behind to clean up the building that we had called home for the past 7 years....

Leaving it looking oh so empty.  This house holds many, many, memories... mostly good ones, but some hard ones. 

Here at this house we first branched out into the world of farming. 

Our first batch of chickies ever, scratched around in the now shockingly bare garage. 

It was from this house that the first of the Sauve's left the nest to their own lives. 

Here, along the back path sheltered under our whispering pines, is buried our Baby dog, along with a few special chickens, ducks, and baby goats. 

In this house Grandpa Learned lived with us, and it was here that he passed from earth to glory.  

Yes... many memories... but they aren't held in the walls now bare of pictures, and the rooms empty of furniture only. They're imprinted on our hearts, and minds too.. so we're not leaving them behind entirely, we'll always have the memories, and now we have a chance to make a new set of them for the next 7 years (at least) in our new Castle!

~Chs

A Moving Story.... Part 2

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

A Moving Story.... Part 1

(Even dividing this by each day, these posts are going to be long.. there's just no way around it. :) )
 On Sunday, December 27th we received the keys to our new house!! So "on our way home" from church we stopped by the newly acquired and now vacant abode to walk through.

The french doors in the dining room are one of the many things we love about this cozy quad.

The wood stove insert in the family room would definitely be another favorite!!

This is what our living room at the old house looked like Sunday evening. Kitten and Sadie Rose weren't quite sure what all was going on, and Kitten wasn't sure she liked it. But she did enjoy climbing all over the boxes! :) We had the van trailer and truck all loaded up on Saturday and there were just a few things to do Sunday night in preparation for the first journey the next morning.

Monday morning dawned cool but beautiful, with clear skies and a stunning sunrise.

Josiah proved the "old adage" about duck tape fixing everything - true. :)

This first trip we handled on our own, and beside from the insides of the van and mini-van being filled with boxes, most of the stuff we took were outdoor items.

The truck and big van each pulled a trailer. Josiah's truck had this adorable baby trailer which we filled to the brim with Cinder blocks. You never know what you might need and we brought everything we could: cinder blocks, pallets, fencing, metal posts, and an entire wood pile! :)

The van among other things carried our 70 plus puzzles. :) Mom had come up with this great way of organizing the garage using a colored dot system and pallet stations.

One thing we wanted to do before the big move the next day, was ripping up the "living room" (now dining room) carpet. It was an old shag carpet and desperately needed to go.

You know how hard it is to take a photo of yourself working?? :D This is the best I could do. The floor was absolutely gross underneath the carpet; stinky and dirty.

Oh, and there were all the fun nails and staples left in the wood that we had to pull out manually....

We headed back around noon, eating lunch on our way, and met 2 good friends back at the old house to re-load. Mr. Reiche was so kind to come help us out, and Josiah's boss Jim (who had been so wonderful to let us borrow and pack his stock trailer) was there too. We loaded one of our freezers in the van, and

Oh, yeah straw... that has to come too. :)

Our caravan of trailers. Once again heading north.

We had loaded the stock trailer well... which of course meant it took a while to unload. :) And then we had to find places for everything in the new pole barn. It's amazing how fast you can fill up buildings!! Thankfully our friend Stu Eddy met us up at the new house to help unload.

Had to take a break for "sustenance" as Faith would say, in our newly carpet-less dining room.

After dinner Faith and I painted the floor to seal it and cut down on the smell. (Oh look I'm actually working! :) Thanks to Theresa for this photo)

Meanwhile in the family room Josh was goofing off working around the fireplace...

With the floor painted, and everything unloaded, the tired group (us) headed back "home" for the night, hoping to get a good nights sleep to prepare us for the next leg of the venture - the main move on Tuesday.

~Chs

HAPPY BOXING DAY!!

If you had asked us pretty much at anytime in the last week what we were doing, the reply would have been some variation of "Packing..." or "Boxing..." Each day our to-do-list was long, and each night we would wipe what we could off and fill it up for the next day.

Josiah's boss was kind enough to park his large stock trailer in our driveway and let us pack it full. So that is what we did. We sure have enough stuff! :)

See? 

Our garage has become a staging place of boxes, boxes.....

and more boxes... :D And that's not even a recent photo! You should see it today!

Big ones, small ones, square ones we have every kind of box you could think of.

We are trying very hard to label them properly, and our very organized mother has had us relabel/sort things a couple times.  Of course there have been those moments where we have had to unpack a box due to the question "Hey! Where is my ____?" Oh whoops! Yup, packed away already.. :P

Pretty much anywhere you go in the house there is just a walk way between rows of boxes.

A lot of them are filled with books....

And one with a Kitten! (Don't worry this was only temporary)

 Of course, the more boxes were piled about, the more places we are able to label as "EMPTY"!

So this year finds us on December 26th actually celebrating "Boxing day" :) Because that's what we are doing... boxing up anything in sight.

So from our house to yours.....

HAPPY BOXING DAY!!!

:)

If anyone is interested in helping us move, the main move is planned on Tuesday Dec. 30th. We will be beginning around 9. Just contact us and let us know if you want to join the fun!! :) (We will also be doing preliminary and extra moving on Monday and Wednesday.)

~Chs