Moving In, Do It Yourself Style

 Ralph the moving guy packed up and left and the guy at (Name omitted)  Moving Systems said, "Nope, we will not send a team from Santa Fe to complete the move."

They pointed out in the contract that movers were not responsible for weather related delays. Tom pointed out, right back at them, that the weather was fine, the road much improved since the day before when Ralph looked at it, and if the driver were to stay just one day later he would be able to deliver. "Nope,"said the manager. Ralph has to go."

 The next day dawned clear and New Mexico blue, a brilliant color the people here use to paint their doors and their windowsills. The road to the house was dry and passable, but our stuff was in storage an hour away.

During this time, Ernest, self-described ranch manager, was working his Ernest magic (more about this later). Suffice it to say that Ernest arranged to get our stuff delivered to the house less than 24 hours after Ralph had said, "No can do." On that beautiful blue sky morning we met Ernest, Andy, Ernest's cousin, and Manuel, Ernest's brother, at the storage place in Las Vegas. We would use our pickup and two other pickup trucks to haul our stuff out to the house. Our fancy moving equipment: a stock (cow and horse) trailer, a flatbed trailer, and a little utility trailer previously used to haul trash to the Corona dump. We worked all day, a tireless team of (un)professional movers.

A professional mover and three helpers (average age 28) couldn't do what a team of 50 somethings could! It took multiple trips to Las Vegas, but our stuff was all at home--most of it in the garage.

A little bit was in the house! Yay!

But there was a really, really big ticket item that still had to be moved....to be continued...