Scout Moves

It's Moving Day Part 1 today, with the movers taking out almost all of our furniture. They'll be back Monday for Part 2. As they haul out the heavy stuff that makes them groan and complain a bit ("That dresser weighs 400 pounds!"), I'll just sit here and watch CNN because they told me all they need from me today is moral support. That translates as, "Stay out of the way." We have spent the last couple of months sorting through three stories of belongings and putting things into the categories of Keep, Give Away and Trash, and I have been amazed at what we've been storing that, when it comes down to it, is basically trash. Are we hoarders? And I have made so many trips to Good Will with car loads of donations that I feel like I know the guy at the door with the donation bin. In all of the sorting, I came upon the dresser I have had since I was a teenager, and I had to categorize it. A part of me said to keep it because I have had it for so long (i...

Early this morning, I took Big Puppy outside for a morning run around. Packers would be arriving soon to box up the breakables ahead of tomorrow's big move, and Baxter would be spending the day with the border. I thought he might want to bounce around in the grass before being shut up in a cage for hours. We have had some heavy fog the last several mornings, and this morning we were socked in, so dense I couldn't see beyond the road at the bottom of my little hill. Beyond that road is a field and a creek, and beyond that is a major highway, and beyond that is the town edged by a railroad. None of that could I see through the fog this morning, but I knew it was there. Whole towns don't just disappear over night, now, do they? Baxter did his business and tracked deer scents and searched for his toy for me to throw, and I marveled at how quiet were my immediate surroundings. At that hour, between school bus runs, there seemed to be not a sound but the dog's panting,...