survive « Robin Writes

The weather forecast, aside from the blowing flurries today, seems to be gifting us with some cold and possible snow accumulation. Gee, thanks, weather!

While that means that all our outside prepping is being put on a short—very short—hiatus, we have plenty to do at our STL house:

Painting

Packing

Moving—at least as far as the garage

Minor repairs

Landscaping

Of course, that last will wait until this blast of cold is over, hopefully and as forecasted in a week or ten days. But the house will go on the market in a few weeks, and our target move date is May 20.

Unless, as my husband unhelpfully pointed out this morning, the darn thing sells immediately with a requested possession of March or April.

Stress much??

Meanwhile, one kid is moving from Boston, by way of Chicago, to Austin on or around March 1st. Now, since she’s nearly 30—sorry, Liz—it shouldn’t be a big deal for us, except she’s coming through STL to 1) pick up some furniture and things and 2) coming back in a few days to buy a car and pick up her kitties.

This way, I’ll only have one small dog, one 20-pound cat, and an ailing, elderly dog to pack up and cart off when we have a house showing . . .

So.

The middle kid is/was moving. Still unclear on that, and again, he’s married, no concern of ours, except . . . he, too, is picking up furniture and stuff. Or a friend is. Some time. Maybe over the weekend.

Not really sure.

The youngest, aka the kid, will be staying in STL when we move—so, besides college registration, which I discovered isn’t until April-something, thank goodness—we’re apartment-hunting and trying to coordinate dates.

So, you know, mid-May. Or, if the house sells sooner, March or April. According to that same husband, who, by the way, has managed to put up with me for 19 years as of today. Or vice versa. The jury’s still out.

I mean, seriously, who leaves their high school senior kid living alone for the last few months??

These date-coordination things are driving me nuts!

While I know that downsizing and simplifying are definitely the way to live, the transition, especially with everything else going on, is crazy!

102 days to go . . .

The Farm Time started out this week mostly “as usual.” We drove a while, unloaded, put away the stuff we brought down. We ate a quick lunch and got to work on the end of the remodel.

Thank goodness.

The next day was gorgeous—the mercury hit almost 70 and that’s about when I realized the “annual campout” was going to be at the farm this year. And the campsite has been neglected in favor of the remodel, for reasons like weather, and well, we’re going to be moving in just about 109 days.

Okay, yes, I counted.

So we took a hike out to the middle of the property to see if we could finally finalize the location of the campsite. We’ve found several, but we marked at least one.

Maybe two. That Pepsi can was stuck to a tree for some reason, but I’ll be darned if I can remember why.

We also found Ed’s Famous Handkerchief. The one he tied to a tree last fall, or maybe last summer. Yep. Still there!

Now we had the spot, so we hiked out and got the Mule loaded up and set out to break the trail.

It wasn’t hard, especially this time of year. You can see where you’re going and the new growth is very small and easily clipped. Some of the older trees can literally be pushed right on over. But we had a couple axes, just in case . . .

We drove until we had to stop, then got out and cleared. Stop and go.

About two-thirds of the way down the hill, the go part stopped. That Mule was living up to its name, for sure. I cranked and cranked, choked it a few times, got nothing.

Then we checked the gas tank.

Oops.

Big oops.

Prepper fail.

So we hiked up again, and um, resupplied. Including a lunch break.

Fortunately for us, the chainsaw started right up this time. Also, the wagon broke.

But I’m happy to report that yes, the trail is ready for the Mule, with a full tank this time, and the campsite is waiting for the next nice day so we can clear it and build the firepit and outhouse.

Hopefully in the next six weeks!