Got some pictures of the damage done.

They were really lucky the pole broke, and not the wire!

They tore up the driveway quite a bit.

Even at the gate.

They even went into the ditch a bit.

I never imagined a few inches of snow would be too much for the truck. It’s not like they don’t drive through snow all the time!

The driveway is what it is.  It’s not going to be a problem.  That only the pole will need to be replaced, and not the roof is good.  Very fortunate no one got electrocuted.

The latch on our screen door got broken, too.  It can close, but the bottom part broke off, so it turns on the remaining top screw.  I have discovered it opens in the wind.

Ah, well.

The Re-farmer 

Some time after I posted our saga of the movers earlier today, we got a call back from them.

They will be here on Saturday (today is Wednesday). !!!

They will load the truck tomorrow, but only once they are paid in full, by 5pm Thursday.

I’ve already sent the maximum my bank allows for etransfers. Received and acknowledged. Tomorrow, I send them the remaining balance.

Hopefully, all will go well, and we will have our stuff in three days.

We still have lots to do, but most importantly, we have furniture to move out. Then, Saturday morning, we take the current beds out. 

The girls had to rearrange the shed to make room for it all.  People have been putting things in There, willy nilly, for a long time. No one was thinking an entire house would end up in there.

Tomorrow, we take the mirror off my mom’s big dresser, then figure out how to fit it in the van.

Too bad we don’t have a trailer hitch we could hook a trailer up to, like we originally planned. 😕

Meanwhile, we hauled another load to the shed as well. The cold has my van making a horrible whining noise. I am so paranoid out the engine failing or something. When our last vehicle died, we went a month without a vehicle.  That was extremely difficult, and my husband had to cancel medical appointments because taking the bus was too painful.  Being as isolated as we are, losing our vehicle would be a major blow. This vehicle is older than our last one, with a lot of miles on it. It was all we could afford, and the dealership screwed us over. Our mechanic assured us the engine was sound (we had a lot of other work that needed to be done, just to make it roadworthy). 

But I am still paranoid.

We shall see.

Meanwhile, I am so looking forward to sleeping on our own mattresses again.  I might even be able to stop taking pain killers before bed.

Nah. Who am I kidding? Lol

The Re-farmer 

There was a large framed mirror we were not sure what to do with. We decided to just hang it back in the same place, oriented differently.  The base is now much closer to the floor than before.

Then we put my big umbrella tree in front of it.

A chair had been set aside where the plant is now, and once the plant was in place, it just got tucked out of the way beside it.

Later, our darling mama cat was on the chair, and decided to jump into…

That new space behind the plant.

Straight into the mirror.

She then ignominiously ran away.

Silly girl.

The Re-farmer 

So every once in a while, Winter puts on a really nice gown… 

P. 

So we’re slowly getting settled, though we still have a lot to deal with… One of the best things about being back in Manitoba is the skies.

Have to say I missed these.
P. 

The mystery eighth cat made an appearance this morning.

And that bugger is BIG! He’s about twice the size of all the other cats. (She?) Except maybe Rolando Moon.

We are deciding on a name.  Should we call him Mokele Mbembe or Mothman?

Another day of packing and cleaning. 

I was working on the main floor, packing away fragile things.  I have packed up two small boxes, and the table is completely covered in stuff I need to wrap and pack. And that’s after my younger daughter took away some if the stuff she wanted to keep out of storage.

She is a brave and mighty girl.

While working upstairs, they took down one of the black velvet paintings and vacuumed years of cobwebs from behind it.  She is arachnophobic. 

As they put it back, something fell with a clatter loud enough that we heard it downstairs.  I thought it was glass breaking. Nope. 

It was a butter knife.

It fell from the back of the painting.

I suspect that one will remain a mystery.  As will some other items they found. Like these, found in the far reaches of a shelf.

I have no idea why we have an unstrung… lute? The bayonet is something I recognize from my childhood, though I cannot remember where it came from.

They did not take photos of the skeletal remains of a mouse found behind a shelf. I’m told they found little skull eyes, staring back at them.

I think I’m good with just packing dusty fragile things and potentially moldy books.

The Re-farmer 

We went to the nearest town for some groceries and free WiFi.  Stopped by a few places to play Pokemon Go with my younger daughter, including heading to the lake to throw some mon into a gym that had room.

You know what this means?

Magikarp!

We caught two before the cold wind off the lake ice drove us away.

Then during the ride home, we got a reminder of why it’s really important to keep your eyes on the road and ditches out here.

White Tail Deer are really small.  From a distance, I at first thought it was a big dog.

That deer totally never heard us coming.  I had to come to a stop and started creeping forward before it turned it’s head and saw us.

Deer screamers are going on our shopping list.

The Re-farmer 

We finally got some tangible progress yesterday. A van load of stuff went into the shed and a couple of small shelves got cleared downstairs, while the girls started on the second floor.

We are finding interesting things along the way.  Like this.

The shelves themselves turned out to have stories.

This one, if I remember correctly, was made out of an old TV. Years ago, my parents bought some property and in one of the shed were dozens of old TV’s.  These were from when a TV was a major piece of furniture, with solid wood cabinets. Many got converted to shelves like this.

This is from that same property. The main building used to be a general store that closed in the late 60’s, maybe early 70’s. The kind where the store was in the front and the family that owned it lived in the back.

The store part had walls of shelves.  One section of those shelves is currently in the master bedroom and almost completely covers one wall.  This shelf is made of a small part of these shelves.  The top looks like a salvaged part of a counter.

Both shelves are very solid. Considering we got rid of several shelves in the move, we will likely hang on to these.  Certainly, we will need to use them until our own stuff arrives.

Then there are mystery items like this.

If you look closely, you will note that this is a white extension cord spliced onto a brown extension cord.

There is also stuff like this gem.

It is the base of a candle holder that is resting in a wall mounted fount that held holy water at the entry of a church at some point.

I kinda like it.

The Re-farmer