Moving, Frogs, Apples and Dogs - It's All Here.

Moving day - that is, the official one where the movers came with their big truck - is 6 days behind us now. 

It was a smooth operation, 3 guys who knew their stuff, aided by the fact that we have taken a lot of the boxed items to the country estate already. 

When they arrived, I was a bit shocked to find that two of the men were skinny, little old men that I had to resist the urge to offer to help - they just didn't look strong enough to move our lamps, never mind the big old piano with the wobbly leg!  But their looks belied their strength and experience, and when I stepped back and let them go to it, it was clear that they had done this once or twice before! 

 

 

 

Here's the moving truck, arriving at the country estate to unload

 

At the country estate, it took them a couple of hours to unload it all and deliver it to the correct room (mostly), and then they were gone.  Within a few hours we had much of it in order.  A great lesson I learned years ago from my children's grandmother is that, when moving, set up the bedroom(s) first.  There is nothing worse than working yourself until you are ready to drop, then realizing there is no place to drop!  Where are the sheets?  Where are the blankets?  So we put the master bedroom together, then the living room, so we had two comfortable spaces to relax in when we were ready. 

 

Master Bedroom After Movers Left

 

Office area after movers left

 

 

 

On Sunday morning I went out first thing with my nemesis the extension ladder and several large containers, and picked the apples off the tree that had ripe fruit.  The other tree is a week or two behind.   

Apple Tree Set Up

 

Me, Up the Ladder

 

One of Three Buckets of Apples

 

The first thing I had to do was pick up the week's windfalls apples, which I put into a container and moved them away from the tree, as the wasps were swarming around them and weren't happy to see me at all!  Because this tree is badly in need of pruning it is very bushy, with the fruit mostly on the high branches on the south side of the tree.  Of course, there are spiders everywhere at this time of year and the trees are full of them, so I frightened quite a few of them as I suddenly ascended into their space!  As I picked, I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye.  Expecting another spider, I turned to come face to face with a little tree frog!  They are also plentiful right now.  Although I didn't get a picture of the one in the tree, I snapped this one on my car when I was leaving to go to the farmers market.

Tree Frog

 

While I was busy with the apples, Chuckles made a bird house disguise for a light to illuminate our address sign at the road

 

Birdhouse in progress

 

Finished Birdhouse Light

 

 

 

I got a little lesson from Chuckles on the ride on lawnmower and spent an enjoyable hour mowing the lawn - a job I have now happily inherited.  It's like a little ATV with a purpose!!  I also took my hoe and a wheelbarrow and made the rounds of the gardens to get rid of some weeds that had cropped up.  On my rounds I discovered that the one pear on the little pear tree has disappeared!  Deer?  Birds?  Not sure who the culprit was but it was a bit of a disappointment!

 

Pear tree missing it's pear

 

I was also really happy to see that the raspberry canes which had looked very sickly when we first took over the country estate are now much happier after some TLC and a heavy feed of compost.  There are lots of new shoots and plenty of ripening berries.

 

 

 Raspberries looking healthier

 

Living room set up

 

The rest of the weekend was devoted to unpacking and putting the house in order and the garage, garden shed and barn.  One of our challenges right now is that, although we have 5 acres - huge compared to our city lot, there isn't as much outbuilding storage space as we had in the city, when you take the barn out of the equation.  Since the barn is going to house our business, we need to build a storage shed for all the toys, which include motorbikes, ATV's, kayaks, ( notice all the plurals!!) as well as all Chuck's tools, project car, gardening implements, push mowe, ride on mower...the list is long.  We need that shed pronto!

 

The apples I picked are sweet/tart and very tasty, so we have eaten a lot of them, given some away and the rest I processed on Monday night and they are now in my deep freeze ready to be made into apple chips, crisps, muffins, cakes and pies.  There will be more in the coming weeks from the second tree. 

 

This coming weekend is our last weekend in possession of the city house.  We still have some garage stuff to move out, and then the usual cleaning up.  We are also looking after granddog Nicky this weekend - another doggie fix to top up our tanks!

 

Nicky smiling on the back deck

 

 

Next week we continue our nomadic lifestyle in reverse - living in the city in our trailer and going home to the country estate on weekends.  The big life change continues....