Packing the Farm

I had no idea today is National siblings day until after I spent a long happy day with my sister Janet. She and her partner Sophie have been diligently working on helping my parents pack up the farm to move down the road to a new house they are building. It is a relief that they were able to sell their farm with the guest house, art barn, office barn and three giant tractor and storage barns along with all the acreage to take care of. At their age the upkeep was just too much. Hell, at any age it was too much. So the downsizing had to start.

Janet owns a company they ships lots of stuff so she ordered hundreds of boxes, many giant industrial sized rolls of bubble wrap and all the taping guns anyone could need. I joined them at the farm today to do a big day of packing. We made great progress wrapping Imari chargers and glass animals my mother had collected. Just as we thought we were done we opened cabinets I had never seen inside before and discovered sets of Christmas China to feed forty people and lifetimes worth of old family photos, newspaper clipping of long gone relatives and funny letters my sister’s and I wrote to my mother.

The photo cabinets caused a great slow down in productivity as I read aloud teacher’s comments on Janet’s report cards. She always was the superior child in the family. I loved the hand written note as a PS on one eighth grade teacher’s glowing comment, “I don’t usually emote like this.”

My mother was in good spirits about letting somethings go, which is the hardest part. This is just the beginning of the paring down. If anyone is interested in any of her art work the art barn still has hundreds of painting for sale. I am hoping she can sell more before we have to move them all. Call me if you are interested in seeing anything and I can get you a 30% discount.

The next thirty days are going to be a lot of packing, moving and unpacking. I am thankful for my sisters and Sophie who are making this a better experience doing it together.