I tried to do a head count this morning, while feeding the yard cats. I got either 34 or 35. Rolando Moon was not around, but Sad Face was there this time.

I still don’t know which ones are the new ones. All 15 cats in this photo are regulars, as far as I can tell. There’s that spotty grey tabby, on the water house roof, that I was talking about yesterday, that I hadn’t seen in a while.

Meanwhile…

Six years ago today, the movers arrived.

Completely unprepared.

I ended up spending most of the day in the van with a friend, two cats and our aquarium fish in a bucket, while my daughter took a walk around downtown until I messaged her to come back.

What a mess the whole thing turned out to be.

It gives me the willies, just thinking about it.

On a completely different note…

I’m going against my brother’s wishes today. Partly.

Last week, I got a call from someone interested in some of the old vehicles we’ve got lying around. He’s interested in restoring vehicles which, to me, is a lot better than just selling them for scrap! I did tell him it was my brother that owned the place, and we were going to wait until the weather was better for him to come out. He called last night, and talked about his son and a friend coming over, late this morning. I did tell him, he wasn’t going to be able to get anything out right away. He’d have to see, to understand.

Then, of course, I told my brother. I would never sell anything without talking to him, first, since this is all his stuff.

My brother said, don’t let them in.

???

We were messaging, so he called and we talked about it.

There were a few concerns he had. The first was that this was someone trying to take advantage of me and offer less than the vehicles are worth – and I sure as heck wouldn’t know what they’re really worth. Still, I think my brother doesn’t realize just how far gone some of those vehicles are. I didn’t even know which one the guy was interested in; he’d said a Ford truck, but there are several of those!

Another concern my brother had is that these vehicles have basically been used as storage. They have all sorts of things in them he might want to keep. He’d have to go looking through them all, even if we were just going to call a scrap dealer, to make sure nothing was hauled away that shouldn’t be. That won’t happen until spring, at the earliest.

And finally, there’s the question of how to transfer ownership. As far as we know, none of these vehicles have any sort of ownership papers left. It wouldn’t matter for something going for scrap, but if a vehicle is going to be restored, registered and insured, there needs to be some sort of paper trail. It’s something he and my parents had to deal with, years ago, and it was a major pain to find a workaround.

So when the guy called this morning, as I asked him to, so I could open the gate, I told him I had bad news and explained the situation.

In the end, though, I decided to let them come and take a look. I honestly don’t think they’ll find anything worth buying, but looking wouldn’t hurt. It turns out he’s not only interested in looking at the ones in the old hay yard, but was wanting to see the vehicles way out in the car graveyard, too. He knows nothing will change hands, but he will bring along pen and paper and write out which (if any) he’s interested in, and an offer. I can then pass that on to my brother.

I hope my brother understands that I’m actually trying to help him out with this. Of course, if they don’t see anything they’re interested in, it won’t matter either way. In the end, we really need to get those old vehicles out. If for no other reason than they are a hazard for the renter’s cows!

So I’ve got the gate open, and am keeping an eye on the security camera live feed for them, and we’ll go for a walk together. The guy is even bringing his wife along. 😊

The Re-Farmer