Are we ready for the movers?

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We have another day before the movers arrive to load the truck. Are we ready? Other than the short list of things to do tomorrow – I think we are. We packed 3 boxes today with 2 of them still open to receive the small items (mostly light bulbs) still in use.

We’re in the mode now of cleaning up – getting extra packing materials carted away and vacuuming. I am beginning to put painters’ tape to indicate ‘do no move.’ Most items we are not moving are small and in closets out of the way so I can close the door and put the tape on the outside of the closet but there are some other items like metal shelves in the garage and basement that are larger….and the television which will be on the hearth….ready to go into my car shortly after the movers are done; I’ll be leaving for Missouri the following day.

My husband is going to make a video of the rooms to document the contents (just in case something arrives damaged)…and also as a keepsake.

The list for tomorrow includes putting our computers into a closet (since they will be going in our cars)…folding up tables. We already prepped the floor lamps – a day before I had that task on my schedule.

 I also have a list for the morning of the day the movers are due (mainly removing bedding)!

Goodbye to the Wheelbarrow

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We made the decision to not move our wheelbarrow to Missouri over a month ago. It was rusting and the tire had never managed the heavier loads very well. We took it to scrap metal collection at our county landfill after we finished using it for the yard work and moving other items headed for trash/recycling from the basement around to the front of the house.  

The wheelbarrow was a legacy from my mother-in-law…one of the items that continued to remind me of her through the over 30 years since her death. I don’t remember her buying it during the year or so she lived with us, so it must have been something she moved from Texas to Maryland. She did a lot of gardening that year, but it seems improbable that she could handle the wheelbarrow physically. We still have miniature daffodils and day lilies in our yard from the bulbs she bought/planted; I moved them with us from our previous house. I’ve decided not to dig up bulbs to take to Missouri…concerned about introducing some invasive insect or worm that is common in Maryland but not in Missouri. I’m going to buy some new bulbs next fall and when they bloom – I’ll still be reminded of her.

Plans and more plans

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As it gets closer to the time the movers will arrive at our Maryland house, I find myself making detailed plans for just about everything: food, clothing, how the cars will be loaded, internet service.

I’ve managed to use up things like protein powder and eggs. I have the milk planned to be gone before I leave for Missouri and the closing of our new house. I have one leftover that will go with me as my ‘meal in the hotel’ but otherwise the refrigerator will be mostly empty except for items my husband will need for the time he will be here monitoring the re-carpeting and the house being listed for sale. We may or may not come back for when this house closes so all the food in the house will be gone when he leaves.

The weather has gotten hot and is likely to stay that way. I have one light weight jacket…otherwise I am wearing summer clothes and flip flops (although just in case I am taking a few pairs of socks and a pair of regular shoes). I’ll do laundry a day or so after closing on our Missouri house. With the warm weather…the space needed for clothes is reduced; most will be on the truck.

Space in the car is at a premium because we are minimizing the driving between Maryland and Missouri. I will do it twice but my husband will only make the drive once…..unless be both decide to come back for a last goodbye to the house as it transitions to a new owner. My Prius Prime is small so I have mapped out where items will go in the car…how I will organize the loading. I’ve already made adjustments to my plan by delaying the loading of my car somewhat to avoid 90-degree temperatures!

My husband is handling the utilities; both of us are keen to minimize the time we are without internet service in both locations! Doing everything on our phones at a time when so much is happening makes us anxious.

Overall – the planning has reassured us that everything that needs to be done….is on track (so far).

Our Maryland Neighborhood

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I took an early morning walk in our neighborhood – down to the water retention pond…savoring the familiar sights and sounds. The first was our oak near our mailbox. It was a much smaller tree when we moved to the house over 25 years ago. I planted day lilies around its base about 10 years ago; they never get a chance to bloom because the deer eat the buds like candy but the leaves make a lush collar for the tree that keeps the mowers from damaging the trunk.

I took pictures of some of my favorite trees against the morning sky/shadow – maple, ginkgo and oak. The maples are thriving while the oaks are declining. The builder planted one of each near the street originally.

The ginkgo is near the street in one of the yards along the way to the pond. It leans a little toward the street.

At the pond, cattails were thick with old and new growth, the red winged blackbirds and green frogs (rubber band sound) were noisy, and I appreciated once again that the slopes are no longer mowed.

I managed to photograph a female red winged blackbird and a rather scruffy looking fledgling that she was feeding. The fledgling stayed down in the cattails more than the adult.

I took a picture of the oak overhead as I sat on the bench near the pond. It is a lot like ours…more dead branches than it should have.

The arborist that worked on our sycamore and plum talked about the oaks dying…that making sure they are watered is about all you can do to help prolong their life; it looks like all the oaks in our neighborhood are experienced a slow death. The Virginia Creeper that is growing on our tree makes it looks greener than it would be on its own!

Ten Little Celebrations – May 2022

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May was a month of preparation to move…but there were plenty of little celebrations along the way.

12 boxes packed in one day. In April I had a few days that I got to 20 boxes…but that included some that all I had to do was tape (i.e. they were already packed). Doing a good job packing a box takes some thought…and gets harder after there are fewer items left to go in boxes. I celebrated that I managed a 12-box day!

Another load to the landfill/recycle center. Every time we take a load, I celebrate that we have a little less to move!

Getting the pile out for curbside pickup. It was a significant effort – requiring the wheelbarrow to get the heavier items up the hill. But we did it – more easily than I anticipated!

Getting the pile out for curbside pickup. It was a significant effort – requiring the wheelbarrow to get the heavier items up the hill. But we did it – more easily than I anticipated!

Finding boxes to pack larger items. I am packing larger items now…that are generally light weight too. I like the Home Depot’s ‘large’ boxes and celebrate how many odd items they hold gracefully.

Drawing down refrigerator items. I’ve been trying to eat things from the freezer/refrig so that I don’t have to move them. So far so good. The refrigerator is not entirely empty, but we’ll have less to move in an ice chest when we move. Celebrating that my strategy is working!

Reservations made for the trip to close on the house in Missouri. I’m celebrating that the further along we get…the more we do toward moving…the more ‘real’ it becomes. There will be a big celebration once we close but the steps leading to that milestone are worth celebrating too!

Birth of my niece’s child…the first of the next generation of our family. Celebrating the birth of child…mixed with relief that all is well with the mother and child.

A phoebe in the backyard in the morning (on almost every morning). The bird has become a normal early morning sound for me…not loud enough to be an alarm clock…but reminds me to celebrate the new day.

A timely appointment to get a crown on a broken molar. I was worried that my mouth would become painful before I could get an appointment with my dentist…but it happened quickly…and 2 hours later I went home with a temporary crown! I’m also celebrating that it is (so far) my best experience ever getting a crown.

A fox in the backyard…passing through. I happened to look out my office window to see a fox stop by the base of our feeder in the back yard….and then continue its way into the forest. It was transitioning from winter to summer coat. Celebrating that there is wildlife in our forest…and sometimes we get to see it in our backyard.

Unique Aspects of Days – May 2022

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The majority of unique aspects of May involved our move….but I also treasured the ones that could have happened independently.

Paper or bubble wrap. After a few days of packing, I discovered I like paper better than bubble wrap most of the time. I thought when I starting packing that I would use both --- whatever I had --- and was surprised that the paper ‘won.’ As an added bonus – I bought paper made from recycled materials and it can also be recycled after our move!

Finding the top to my cake container. I had lost it several years ago and thought maybe it had somehow been discarded….but I found it again as I unloaded the old China cabinet. I’d already packed the other part so I’ll endeavor to get then back together in my new kitchen.

Last macro series of the Maryland yard. As I walked around with my macro lens…I realized that next month I’ll be doing it in a whole new place!

Selecting a real estate agent/starting the process to sell our house. While not totally unique since we have sold 3 houses previous…it was the first time in almost 28 years!

Arranging for our house to be re-carpeted. It is the first time we’ve ever replaced all the carpeting in a house.

1st box packed from the garage. I was surprised at how much of the garage fit into just a few boxes.

Getting the karate kick bag out of the basement. It was quite an effort with sand in the base…much easier to move once the sand was out.

Finding an iris that was getting ready to bloom in the chaos garden. Usually I forget they are there and the garden is not in my normal line of sight.

Male goldfinch at the feeder. I haven’t been watching the feeder as closely since we started preparing to move…so I was thrilled to glance out at the perfect time to see the bright yellow bird. I’ve seen them occasionally in previous years but this is probably my only sighting for this year.

Broken molar. It was my first broken tooth since my dentist has generally anticipated problems. I discovered when I went to the dentist that it was actually a large filling that had cracked. The solution was the same….the molar got a crown!

Clearing the Path to the Front Door

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One of the suggestions to prepare our house to sell quickly was to clear vegetation away from the front walkway...since it detracts from the entrance to the house. It was easy to see the point, so I started the project at 6:30 AM on what promised to be a very hot day. My first action was to cut an iris that was blooming very close to the sidewalk to enjoy inside. Most of what was leaning over onto the sidewalk were day lilies with a few iris…and milkweed.

I used the hedge trimmers as a first pass to get the leaves removed so I could see how much I would have to dig out. There were two trips with the wheelbarrow back to the brush pile with the leaves!

It will probably take a couple additional rounds of morning yard work to get the area the way I want it. I’ll post some pictures from the follow up rounds as they happen.

We also need a new welcome mat!

Round 2

The next day I cleared all the weeds from under the bushes and dug out a shovel-wide swath along the sidewalk. There were a lot of day lily buds crammed into the space. Overall – it was another 2 wheelbarrow loads back to the brush pile. We’ll put mulch down in that strip and the front should look a little less ‘wild.’

Staging our House

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We’ve got our instructions for staging our house in Maryland. Nothing surprising:

  • Open the blinds and pull back sheers/drapery…or take the drapery down completely.

  • Taking the dividers out of the transom windows gives them an updated look.

  • Take any hangers or nails for pictures out of the wall….leaving the holes is OK.

  • Clean any bugs/dust out of overhead light fixtures.

  • Weed the front flowerbeds…cut or pull anything that hangs over the sidewalk to the front door particularly.

  • The stager complimented us on the plans already made to replace the carpet…that the paint inside and out was in excellent condition.

Our plan: Complete the actions as soon as we can. By the time the pictures are taken for the house to go on the market and people start to look at the house, it will be empty. Anything left can go in a closet or in the garage.

Curbside Pickup

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Our county offers curbside pickup of large items on ‘trash day.’ It requires a call to make sure they have enough room on the truck…and the items must be in pieces easily lifted by two people.

My husband made the call, and the pickup was scheduled for the next week. We had:

  • A ping pong table that had to be taken apart since it was too heavy/awkward to lift otherwise.

  • A karate kicking bag (we made a big opening in the base to get the sand out…reducing the weight)

  • A lawn mower (emptied of oil and gas)

  • A glider exercise machine

These were all things that we didn’t want to move and were too big to easily get to the landfill/recycling on our own! It made quite a pile….and we are relieved that they are all gone!

Macro Photography in our Maryland Yard – May 2022

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I made a last macro photography foray around our yard in Maryland --- enjoying the fullness of spring. I started with the usual moss and lichen on the trees in front.

In the front flower beds, the nine-bark bush was in bloom and the pyracantha that I thought had died several years ago has come back from the roots/is blooming.

In the chaos garden, the irises are thriving along with Virginia creeper. Under the deck, there is a fiddlehead of a Christmas fern unfurling.

I decided to not move the dried flowers from daughter’s birth over 30 years ago. They are now in a hollow of the brush pile since I have already cleaned out the compost bin. They have more color in the macro views than I expected!

Preparing to move (2) – May 2022

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A lot has happened since my last post about preparing to move back on 5/5.

We have packed a lot more boxes, of course. Our goal is to minimize items to go in the cars (precious/high value things, liquids, key documents, and whatever we need while the truck in enroute).

There is still some ‘messiness’ around the stacks of boxes but it is gradually being cleared away…with the rooms beginning to look ‘all packed.’ The very last will probably be the kitchen since we continue enjoying cooking/eating at home; about half the kitchen is already packed.

The boxes have been cleared from around the grand piano to make it easier for the crew that will prepare it to go on the truck. The box move was hard work since they were filled with books…the heaviest of our boxes. We managed to remove the humidifier box (which stuck out from the bottom of the piano).

I have developed a lot of skill in reusing packaging material like Styrofoam, foam squiggles, bubble/pillow wrap and paper. For example, I cut up a foam board yard sign to pad the top of a box, disconnected strips of Styrofoam from a larger piece/bent them to fill an odd space in a larger box and used squiggles to fill small spaces around paper wrapped breakable items to keep them from moving too much. I’m also realizing that plastic hangers work well to fill the top of a box without adding more weight.

The last ‘rooms’ to get packed (and the ones we are still working on are my husband’s office and the garage. We’ve made a good start and they will be packed more fully before this weekend. The before and after picture of my first round of garage packing is shown below.

We are getting rid of things we don’t want to move:

We’ve taken multiple loads of recycle and trash to our local facility.

Almost all the hazardous waste has been taken for disposal.

My husband called the county for curbside pickup of a ping pong table, glide, lawn mower, and karate punching bag for later this week – stay tune for pictures of the pile!

And I’ve scheduled another donation a few days before the movers come

Maintenance

The radon remediation has been completed.

The screens that were damaged/worn in the screened deck were replaced.

A light new bulb was put in the light fixture over the basement stairs (with some trickly ladder work).

Carpet replacement has been scheduled for after the movers are done (i.e the house is almost empty).

Overall – the progress we are making appears to be on track to be ready for the movers…and to be almost totally focused on our house in Missouri rather than the one in Maryland by mid-June!

The Pace of our Lives

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In April our preparation to move started an uptick in the pace of our lives  and May is continuing the upward trend. It should plateau at the higher level soon…..and hopefully  begin to decline by mid-summer. I find myself reverting to techniques I used during my career to organize my life – adding detail to my calendar, making lists of things to do, taking notes in key meetings, and adding to a timeline of events for reference later.

It’s not just the pace but the variety of activity and the amount of money involved with moving. Perhaps right now is the highest stress; even though everything seems to be happening as it should, there is always the niggling feeling that either we have overlooked something or there will something major that will turn up and cause a delay rippling through all the subsequent activities.

It will be good to have less stress…but perhaps the pace is not too bad. Maybe – we’ll decide we like this faster pace and organize our life after the move to achieve the pace we had pre-pandemic (not quite as ‘hot’ as it is now…but a significantly faster pace than we lived during the pandemic).

Irises

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The iris buds are enlarging, and one opened overnight. I cut the stem to bring it inside – early enough in the morning that the water droplets from the rain overnight had not dried. I brushed a spider from the flower as I walked back up the hill at the side of the house.

The rhizomes are from my parents’ garden more than a decade ago. Only one color has survived. There are more in the chaos garden than in front flowerbed.

In the front flowerbed there are plants that don’t produce flowers every year…only leaves.  This year there is only one with buds.

I am still trying to decide whether I will dig up any to take to my new house. Now – I’m leaning toward leaving them all with the house.

Donate/Recycle/Trash

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We are getting rid of things we don’t want to move via donation, recycling and (last resort) trash:

Donation

We’ve done monthly donations that filled our porch – needing to be out by 8AM and picked up sometime during the day. This month the pile was front of the garage because we had maintenance people coming: boom box, yoga mat, mini-trampoline, office supplies, clothes, window/deck pressure cleaner, deck stain sprayer, clothes, coffee maker carafe, reusable water bottles, small outdoor rug.

Recycle

We have curbside pickup for some types of recycling for things like plastics, paper and cardboard, but we overwhelmed the bin with the amount we needed to recycle so we included it in our trips to the ‘landfill’ where they have recycling bins plus an area for electronics recycling: cables (computer and phone), computers, files from the 1970s and 1980s , and old cardboard.

Special recycle

Our credit union had a shredding event; we took 3 boxes of old receipts! It would have been too time consuming to do with our small home shredder.

Trash

Fortunately the most bulky items were not heavy….but it was depressing that they could only go into the trash: furnace filters that were for a furnace that has been replaced, old plastic bins, and Styrofoam from inside boxes that we used for packing not needing the Styrofoam

Hazardous waste (special trash)

More of this type of trash had accumulated in our basement and garage over the years than I realized. Most of it was very dusty. Our county has a hazardous waste area of the landfill that is staffed on Saturdays so we accumulated what we had and took it all at once – a SUV full!

  • Paint (and paint cleanup fluids)…this was the bulk of what had accumulated.

  • Gardening chemicals…some was very old and might not even be sold any more!

  • Cleaning products

House Maintenance

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My husband has taken the lead in getting our existing house ready to go on the market. We are enjoying a new refrigerator as a result because the old one’s ice maker was expensive/time consuming (a special order) to replace. We bought another black, side-by-side. It is the same size on the outside, but the inside seems to have more room and there is no ‘handle’ that sticks out from the door so the area in front of the refrigerator seems larger. I like it….and I hope a new owner will as well.

He also did a radon test; the sump pump (that wasn’t working) replaced by a plumber when the result was a little high. Now he has done another test. If it isn’t low enough, he’ll have a specialist in radon remediation decide the best approach.

We are getting rid of our lawn mower before we leave so he has already hired a yard mowing service to mow the yard every 2 weeks. Right now he is leaving it to me to clean out the flower beds and we’ll put down mulch in some of them.

Last weekend we started the process to get the house recarpeted shortly after our belongs are out of the house.

Since we already did one round of interior and exterior painting touch up back in March – we are hoping that we won’t have more to do after the furniture is gone.

Hopefully we have identified the most significant maintenance items…we’re primed to contact a realtor!

26 Months in COVID-19 Pandemic

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COVID-19 cases in Maryland are increasing but all the counties in the state are still green in the CDC’s COVID-19 Community Level map. Most of Missouri is too. Still - the positivity is 5-8% in Maryland and 8-10% in Missouri…not low enough for me to be comfortable in crowds or in indoor spaces without a mask. How does that translate into our increased level of activity?

Buying a house. Both my husband and I wore masks when we walked through the house we had bid on and then the next day when we talked to the inspector. There was a meeting in the realtor’s office where we wore a mask as well. During our travel, we masked at rest stops and in registration/hallways of our hotel. We brought an air purifier into our hotel room and got takeout for meals.

Birding. We masked at the Harriet Tubman Byway visitor center and the registration/hallways of our hotel. Otherwise - the activity was outdoors, and we didn’t mask. All our meals were picked up from drive through windows.

House maintenance. We’ve had more people in our house for maintenance purposes in Maryland…preparing the house to be sold. We mask while they are here, and they do too.

Broken tooth. I have an appointment with the dentist because a molar cracked…needs repair. Hopefully the precautions the dental office has in place are effective. This seems like the highest risk situation of all the things I’ve done recently.

And we are moving over the next month! I am realizing that the precautions I have in place (following guidance re boosters, masking when I am indoors other than at home, avoiding crowds, keeping hand sanitizer in the car, taking an air purifier with me on road trips) are probably going to be my strategy for the foreseeable future unless the infection rate drops dramatically. So – this is the last of the monthly posts even though the pandemic is continuing. I’m not getting complacent…I’ve simply accepted that this is the prudent way to be…nothing new to post about every month.

Our Yard – May 2022

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Damp weather has been my excuse for not doing yard work…but I finally did a walk around and an hour of work a few days ago. The holly at the corner of the house was hiding the weeds behind it. They are gone now. The front flower bed had quite a few little trees: red maples and tulip poplars; they’ve been pulled.

I appreciated the oak near out mailbox. The tree has been declining but it looks like the spring rains have helped it come alive for another year. The Virginia creeper on its trunk has leafed out as well.

The azalea that drapes itself over a side of the front porch is blooming. I’m going to trim the bush beside it to give it more room….or maybe that will make it easier for the deer to nibble the tender azalea stems.

The nine bark bush is blooming. I will trim it after the blooms are done.

A branch broke in one of the bushes…I cut it out and the bush looks lush and green. There were also some vines growing up through the bushes…which I removed.

My goal in the chaos garden was to cut down everything except for the spice bush and, of course, the sycamore. I started but didn’t make much progress during my hour. I discovered some irises getting ready to bloom – which I won’t cut down!

Overall – I had a wheelbarrow of vegetation that I cut or pulled that was added to the brush pile at the edge of the forest. On the way I noticed that the violets are beginning to bloom. I dodged the ferns coming up under the deck as I returned the wheelbarrow to its place; there seem to be more ferns every year.

30 years ago – May 1992

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The highlight of May 1992 was the birth of my second niece. My daughter and I were in Dallas within a few weeks of her birth. It was a learning experience for my daughter who was very interested in babies at her daycare but had never seen one as young as her cousin. We all noticed the baby’s REM sleep when she was positioned in her carrier in the middle of the large dining table while my sister’s daycare swirled around the kitchen and den.

There were more mundane events too: doing the family grocery shopping every week together, my husband traveling for work using a back brace to make the longer plane trips tolerable, me with an ear infection after catching my daughter’s cold (she was outgrowing her tendency to get ear infections), my daughter trying to figure out the difference between ‘an accident’ and ‘on purpose,’ and a sister discovering that her new house had bearded iris in one of the flower beds.

As I read back through my notes of the time, I realized that it’s easy to remember the high points of out lives without them but not the details of how much energy keeping up with a 2.5-year-old took. Just reading a list I made of what we did on one Saturday was a potent reminder of how exhausting it was.

Preparing to move (1) – May 2022

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The pace of our preparation to move to Springfield, MO has increased since my last post about our move a little over a week ago.

The most physical activity has been toward packing since the date for the movers to arrive at our house in Maryland has been set for early June:

I started out with a goal of packing 20 boxes a day for 5 days…only succeeded because many of them were already packed and all I had to do was add them to the inventory and tape them up. Then the goal became 10 boxes for 5 days…not as easy because I was packing more boxes. Now my goal is 5 plus until they are all packed. I had to buy more boxes.

There are some items we have packed in the original boxes they came in….much easier for them to be safe going on the truck.

I watched a video on packing glass/ceramic items and have now packed most of those items that will go on the truck. I used a lot of packing paper, bubble wrap and squiggles – extra carboard inside the boxes if they were not double thickness boxes. The cardboard, bubble wrap and squiggles were reuse items from packages we’ve received over the years and stored in the basement.

We’ve identified an issue with the piano moving…determining how to remove the humidifier box that makes a bump on the underside of the piano.

We cleared a corner of the basement to put items that will remain with the house after the movers leave since we will be here off and on until the house is sold. I am also clearing all the closets and those too will contain items that will stay with the house.

My daughter is coming for a few days before the movers to help with last minute packing and will take a carload of items back to Springfield.

About my inventory list….I have it as an Excel spreadsheet with the box number (I bought a roll of number labels from Amazon), contents, location in current house, destination in new house, date packed/taped, transport (which car/trip, movers, movers take apart before move). Then I do a Pivot Table to summarize my packing (date x transport). Obviously almost everything goes with the movers but I can easily click on the pivot table cell to produce a list of items I’ve slated to go in a particular car and trip. For example…I will probably make 3 trips to and from before Missouri between now and when we close the sale of our current house….and I have a list accumulating for each of those trips!

We are also making progress with items we don’t want to move:

We’ve taken a load to the landfill/recycling center and already accumulated another load which we will take today.

I took wire hangers back to the dry cleaners and old glasses to a optometrist office that is a collection point for them.

I’ve discovered that I don’t use plastic bags for packing and there were a lot of them in the packing materials we accumulated so I am taking a bag stuffed with them to the grocery store every time I got.

My husband is marking off maintenance items at our current house:

A plumber replaced the sump pump.

A new refrigerator was purchased, delivered and installed since replacing the ice maker in our old one was so expensive

The creak in floor outside my office is gone after much effort to find the joists

And finally, there is activity in Springfield on our behalf as well:

The appraisal came back higher than our offer…good news.

An agreement to the list from the house inspection was reached and radon remediation will be done before we close.

Overall – I think I see the light at the end of the packing tunnel…

Unique Aspects of Days – April 2022

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So much happened in April that was unique – or at least something we had not done in over 25 years! More that half the ‘days’ featured this month’s post are related to our move. I’ve listed then in the order they occurred and am surprised at the move milestones that occurred in April:

1st virtual house tour. This was not an option 25 years ago and both my husband and I were skeptical that such a tour would be ‘good enough’ to enable us to be comfortable bidding on a house. The first one convinced us that such tours were adequate to eliminate houses from consideration! Our realtor was very patient and good about highlighting aspects of houses as she walked through…and later in the month – after several experiences with virtual tours – we did indeed bid on a house before we saw in in-person.

Finding no houses available in Springfield that we liked. What a depressing day. Both my husband and I were primed to buy a house but there was a day that we had eliminated all the houses on the market.

Bid on house. And then a house came on the market. It wasn’t perfect but we had honed our idea of what we wanted enough to know that it was as close as we were going to get, and we could live with its imperfections. We scheduled a virtual tour and bid on the house the same day.

Contract signed. After one round of negotiations the contract was signed….and we were on the path to buying a house!

Seeing our house. Within 4 days we were in Springfield and walking through our house for the first time. It had a surreal quality after seeing it so thoroughly in the virtual tour.

Accepting a mover’s bid. Long distance moves are expensive and the last one we had done was paid for by our employers. The process has changed somewhat…the biggest one being the virtual way of creating the inventory of what is being moved!

There were some other unique experiences/sights in April:

1st long road trip with my husband post-pandemic.

74 black crowned night herons roosting.

A policeman – lights flashing - removing a deer carcass from a narrow roadway. I was thankful that he was taking care of it before the morning rush hour.

Several bald eagle and great blue heron nests…close together.