It’s been almost a week since moving day.  A quiet Sunday morning.

Look who found a new favourite chair?

And the very dusty ladybug I saw crawling around last night seems to have chosen our window sill for hibernation.

We’ve got family coming later in the day and tomorrow we need to head back into The City to return the car.

At some point, we need to start packing up this place.

Since our fish did not survive long enough to get the temporary tank set up, and it will be some weeks before our big tank arrives, we needed to get a few fish to provide some CO2 for our plants.

Meet Stephen and the Stephens.
The nice thing is, with our ratio of plants to fish to tank size, no air pump is needed.

This is now basically a small version of the dream tank I’ve wanted since I was a child.

The Re-farmer

Today, we had to make a run to The City.  Since we still have it, we used the car that used to belong to my FIL. It is a luxury sedan that has been babied all its life.  A very sweet ride.

I look forward to driving the van again, broken door and all.

The first problem is that it’s low. So getting in and out is hard on my knees, even without working around my generous proportions.  My FIL is a man of generous proportions as well, including vertically, and he handled it fine. I just got spoiled by having so much leg, elbow and belly room. Especially the leg room. The seats are so low, I feel like I’m sitting under the dash.  And that’s after raising them.

I’ve never been comfortable with luxury, and I don’t mean that in a psychological sense.  I find it physically uncomfortable.  At least what passes as luxury in the general market.  

The sedan is gorgeous and a dream to handle, but I’ll take my van that handles like a pick up truck over it, any time, thank you very much.

The Re-farmer 

My mother visited today.

My husband and younger daughter have visited her in the neighbouring town she lives in, but this is the first time she has been to the farm since before any of us had arrived.

I feel like I have been wrung out like a rag.  And she wasn’t even here for an hour.

She was being driven by my older brother, who has been doing so much at this place.  It’s been a couple of years since I have seen her.

My relationship with my mother has never been a good one.  There isn’t much that can be done to fix that.  Suffice to say, nothing I will ever say, do or accomplish will be good enough for her.  And she will try to run our lives for us at every opportunity.  

We knew this, when we decided to accept her request for us to move here. Yet, seeing her today, we were all struck by how much worse she has gotten.

Within minutes of arriving, it started.  She saw a bag with recycling in it, which included some cans of Coke Zero.  So she assumed we were chugging the stuff and she started going on about our “taking chemicals.” Never mind the cans of V8 or the water bottles.  It was all chemicals, and if I don’t stop “taking chemicals” I will die.

Oh, and she made sure to tell me that, while we could live here as long as we wanted, it was not our property, but that it was going to my older brother; etc. Stuff we have already discussed several times.

As I went around with my brother, she went at my daughters. It was like she had a list of things she needed to get through as fast as possible, from how great Canada is, to teen suicides because there is no God in schools anymore, to how my daughters need to stop taking chemicals, because that’s why they are fat (never mind her own body size). Then, on seeing garbage cans with *gasp* garbage in them, she asked, “how can you live like this?”  It all should be in the burn barrel. Never mind that some if it was from before we arrived, or that some if our garbage cannot be safely burned. We have a separate box for burn barrel garbage.

Then we all followed my brother to a storage shed. As we were heading back, we saw her start throwing stuff out the door.  She was “helping.” None of it made sense, and some of it made things worse.  But she did it anyway.

Perhaps the most perplexing thing was something we discovered after she left. We have a covered litter box shoved into a corner until we find a more permanent place for it.  At one point, she had shoved it aside to access a shelf. We later saw that she had taken the tiny bags of used cat litter out of the garbage bag they were in, left them on the floor, along with the now empty garbage bag.

Meanwhile, even though my brother and his wife have taken so much out, the house is still a shambles of almost all her stuff.  We can’t even find space for the few things we brought in the van with us.  We have been here mere days.  Somehow, she did not clue in that when she wonders “how can we live like this”, it is her stuff that is making life more difficult for us.

Since arriving, I’ve found myself wondering if we made a mistake in coming here.

By the time she left, I was sure of it.

My daughter’s have encouraged me and assure me we have not.

I hope they are right.

Oh. I forgot. She also told my daughters they need to get married and have babies.

*sigh*

So the rest of the family made it out this week. It was really good to finally be together again. While the move wasn’t without drama, the road trip out was safe and they got here tired but happy :)
The cats were missed, and apparently they returned the sentiment. :D

We did have some casualties, however; the fish didn’t make it. We’re pretty sure it was the cold of the trip or the initial night here in a bucket that disagreed with them. We got a small tank to house them (and the plants) until our larger tank arrives, but since the fish went to the great big pond in the sky, we’re forced to manually manage the CO2 levels for the plants.

While there are many, *many* bad jokes here, it reminded me of how much I missed the other half of the family while we were apart. The unintended humour, the smarmy comments, the giggle of the kids, all the things that define the family dynamics.

It’s easy to take these things for granted, and while I grumbled at the need for a month long family split I am glad for the reminder of exactly how blessed I am to be part of this family.

P.

Oh, what a day.

It started out well enough.  Pretty normal, all things considered.  I got a recommendation for an internet provider from an old friend and my husband called them today.  If all goes well, we might have internet by the end of the month.

We are still exhausted and I ended up falling asleep on the bed my daughters are currently sharing, while being cuddled by a cat.  The rest of the family ended up going into town. When I got up, I took advantage of the emptiness and made a video tour of the house that I intend to upload for a friend.  When the family got home, I learned one of my daughters was mistaken for me at a coffee shop. She then gave me the number of an old friend from high school I later got connected with. And so on.

Good stuff, in other words.  

The day has certainly ended on a sour note.

I got a call from a friend at the co-op we moved from.  It turns out another friend had passed away, likely several days ago. It’s entirely possible she passed while we were moving, or the day after. Living alone, she wasn’t found until today.

I can take some comfort in our last conversations. She was well aware she was already on borrowed time. She was at peace with her past and her life. She was also glad I was moving, advising me to let go and move on; that the place wasn’t worth what it was doing to my health and my family.

Sad news, but not unexpected. 

Then this evening, I was able to get my email. There was one from the movers.

In my last email to them, I was asking about the free storage option (since my first question about it had her giving me monthly rates and telling me the bill had to be paid first, while the contract says up to 5 weeks free storage, starting from the date of pick up, then the bill has to be paid) and when I could expect to find out the weight and the final bill.

What I got instead was a credit card form, with instructions, should I choose to use a credit card, to include copies of the front and back of my card, plus a total, including the 3% fee they charge on card transactions. I got a second amount for if I choose not to use a card.

It’s about $2000 more than I’ve got in the bank to pay for it.

There is no bill attached.

Nothing about the weight.  No breakdown if costs. Nothing.

Nothing about the storage I was asking about. Nor any sort of date, should storage not be an option. It didn’t even say anything about the amount of my deposit being taken off or not.

I would need to know when the truck is coming, so I can go to the bank and get a bank draft, money order or certified check, and have it ready for when they come. It’s not something I would get more than a day or two in advance.

The thing about living on disability is that we get paid at the end of the month. That’s it.  

What’s even more frustrating is that the amount we have now should have been enough. It’s about what the original estimate was, for 8000 lbs. With how much we got rid of, even with the partial pack that turned out to be a full pack, it should have been maybe only a few hundred dollars more. Not $2000 more. It’s even more than the in-house estimate I got, not including packing, which put me at 10,000 lbs. And there is no way I was that heavy.

But without having an itemized bill, I have no idea why it is so high.

And I don’t have the money to pay for it.

The Re-farmer 

This is my view from the corner we get the strongest cell phone coverage… and the trees that prevented us from getting internet.

Definitely a priority project.  An old friend called and gave us the name and number for the local company he uses.  Maybe we will have better chance with them.

The Re-farmer

We’ve had our first night at the farm, all together again.

It is time for us to decide, “now what?”

The state of the house is a shambles, of course. I expected that.  Even though a family member had already hauled stuff out and started boxing things, it’s actually worse than I remember it. Not only is there decades of possessions to remove (my mother seems to have had a thing for mirrors and flashlights); but what the house really needs is a top to bottom renovation.

At this point, we are considering having the movers put our stuff into storage for several weeks. We have up to 5 weeks as part of our contract.  That would give us time to start clearing the house.

Meanwhile, I have to pick up a small aquarium kit to keep my plants and two little fish alive until the 90 gallon tank gets here. 

And we still need to figure out internet.  That is s priority.

Until then, here I sit with my husband at Ikea, updating our devices, checking our email, and catching up.

Including gas, food and rest stops, as well as being extra careful due to exhaustion, an 18 hour drive took us just over 24 hours and our first Near Deer Experience. But we made it, safe and sound.

I could sleep for a week.

We have driven over 430 kilometers so far. Another 1200 or so to go.  I somehow managed to drive through a major city without ever seeing a gas station. Thankfully, we found one along the highway, like a magical oasis. 

I’ve been up since 5:30am and it’s now almost 11pm, so it’s time to try and close my eyes a bit.

The Re-farmer