Please accept our heartfelt thanks for all your kind words regarding the loss of Bear. It was so wonderful to read your soothing words at such a time, especially when we are so busy with all the last-minute doing of “things”. The list seems ever to grow.
Yet, we are almost there. The last of the major packing was done yesterday, and the POD is fairly brimming. We have just enough room for the last few things that we must leave until the morning of the leave-taking.
Yesterday was the big push and were we exhausted, running pretty hard from about 7 am until about 5. We literally fell into bed, which was not a nice fall, since the bed frame is gone and we are down to the box springs and mattress. We have a couple of plates and I baked up a ton of chicken to munch on over today.
We’re ready to be on our way, and at the same time, there is a decidedly melancholy afoot. We are in that “doing X for the last time,” whether it be feeding the birds, or something as mundane as doing a load of wash. I’m not sure how universal that kind of thing is, but it’s a staple of my “going”, though never a part of my “coming”.
We are taking our cats to their new home later today. We were blessed in finding a perfect place, on a dead-end road with almost no traffic, along the Wapsie, with lots of places to hunt their mousies, and enjoy playing in woodpiles. Our friend Steve will take good care of them, and they can live out their remaining years much the same as here, albeit not with the “house time” they usually enjoy as they desire.
We looked at many options including boarding and having them shipped, and it was simply too expensive for us to do. The kennel fees alone were upwards of $1000 per month. And that life would be no life for them at all. So this is vastly better, though we will miss them so much.
So we leave Iowa, just the two of us, and that is hard to accept. We are so used to our menagerie. It is decidedly quiet without the dogs and now there will be no more feline antics to make us laugh. On the other hand, there will be no more shrieks of anger as one comes prancing in with a beautiful chickadee in its mouth, nor the headless mice that Spencer was noted for.
Again, thanks for all your kindness during this exciting, sad, trying time. Everything seems set for a ETL of Tuesday morning. Bless ya all until the next time I have a moment and a connection!
