What I learned this weekend

1.  Trax's name fits him to a "T".  I watched him in the pasture yesterday.  He stands out there and grazes for a while, then decides the south side of the pasture looks greener than the the north. So he races from one side to the other and begins to graze again.  Then he gets thirsty so he races to water tub, drinks his fill, then races back to where he was grazing. A half hour later he races to a different area, and grazes some more.  As we drove trucks in and out of the gate to load with "movables" he would race to the gate as soon as we approached it.   When he was shoo'd away he would race back to a new grazing spot.   "Makin Trax", is what he does all day! He doesn't walk anywhere.

2. Labrador Retrievers are most helpful when packing.  I decided to make good use of the closet full of linens that I never ever use. They became packing for all fragile items.  I would wrap a fragile item in an old pillow case (or something along those lines) and place it in the box on the floor behind me.  Then I would turn back to the next item and wrap it as well. The minute my back was turned, Smarty Pants would grab the piece of linen and race through the house with it as my fragile item went bouncing down the hallway behind him.  Then I would have to stop what I was doing and chase after him.  We did this about 50 times yesterday.  Even when I moved the box up higher, he would manage to get up there and steal stuff.   Smarty is going to get his own T-Shirt or Bumper Sticker or something. It is going to say
"Retrieve it like you stole it"

3. Mason was also quite helpful. No matter where we needed walk, (generally backwards with a heavy piece of furniture) he managed to be napping right there. When Mason sleeps, the world moves around him...literally.  You cannot move him when he is sleeping.

4. 13 year old boys have the attention span of a gnat, and grumpy old men have the tolerance of...well, a grumpy old man.   I finally ended up sending them to separate corners to cool off for a while, while I continued packing and loading by myself.

5. It is illegal to duct tape your kid to top of your load for traveling. (biggefy the picture and you can see the duct tape on his mouth) This is where I would like to keep him for the trip down.

6. I am ten times better at packing a vehicle than TC, but he in turn is ten times better at getting said vehicle up onto a trailer.  Apparently I tried to drive it off the side of the trailer.(I blame it on his directions.) What is not shown in the picture below is the 2 go carts which are now strapped down in front of my pick up.

Camper shell is packed full as well. 

7. I guess I can now be classified as a tack whore.  My tack was always buried in the dark cave of the forward tack room of my little trailer, so I didn't really see what all I had.  I sold the trailer and had to move it all to the new trailer, which has a rear tack.  Now it is all laid out in front of me.  Keep in mind that these are just the items that I use semi-regularly.  The stuff I don't use is crammed into a tote or still hanging in the barn.

8.  I have more rocks than I realized.  Every time I turned around I found another box with anywhere from 5- 20 rocks in the bottom.  Simon seems to be as bad about as I am. Perhaps worse because most of his rocks aren't even all that cool, but they are his and there for, had to be moved.


We still have one more truck to fill and then our old Buick Wildcat to load up and then we will be ready to roll. Naturally they are calling for thunderstorms Wednesday.  It always rains or snows when I am moving...always!