May 2018 Island Trip Day Three

Today was amazingly productive. I/we:

• Procured my husband’s return ferry reservation online at 7AM, on the dot. Our ferry run releases tiers of space on a schedule, the last release being at 7AM two days before the boat sails. At 7AM this morning my DH was on his was to catch the boat to come to the Island.
• Kept packing, and loading things in the back of the truck that are being stored in the upper barn.
• Had a nice visit from mom’s nearest neighbor. She told me I needed to move in as we’d be such good neighbors. While she’s right about how simpatico we are, I am a visitor here right now. I was touched at how sweet she is.
• Sold items throughout the day. When my parents bought their mainland house, they moved more than half their furniture into it, then topped it off with thrift store finds. They then filled in the blanks at the Island house the same way. Among the items I’ve sold are four large house plants, reserving mom’s favorites for her apartment. I’m using a couple of Facebook Market pages to sell things. They are targeted to the Island. While responding to folks throughout the day (via three different avenues) makes me a little nuts, it’s so much better than a garage sale, or Craigslist. 
• When my DH arrived, I walked him through the house explaining the method behind my madness. Then we scoped out the barns.
• The darkroom office (lower barn) needs emptying. There’s a huge work table in it that DH will have to dismantle in order to remove.
• I showed him where things were stored in the upper barn, and we strategized over our next steps.
• Lunch.
• Backed the truck as close as we could to the barns (Dad’s antique GMC was suddenly in the way, having been moved so the trenching for the well electrical could happen.). We then spent most of an hour and a half cleaning up. This was no small feat… While the middle of the barn floor is now fairly clear, most of the perimeter is still a shit show. And 45% of what’s there is somewhat mysterious. We were kinda delighted at how our efforts transformed our storage corner! The shop-vac helped, a lot.
• Unloaded the truck.
• Sat down and went over mom’s apartment floor plan in finer detail in order to finalize furniture choices.
• Loaded the furniture that’s remaining here into the truck, including, sadly, a wonderful and big (72″Hx72″Wx12″D, weighing 200-250 pounds) oak bookcase. The bookcase took rather a lot of careful management, and skillful leverage for the two of us to get it out of the house, onto the truck, up the hill, (by now we’d rolled the GMC out of the way), off the truck and into place in the barn, with out either of us getting hurt.  
• Emptied and vacuumed the tool chest that’s going to our son-in-law.
• Took down what was once a good quality projection screen, but is now smoke damaged.
• Went through the 27 drawers of a chest that will go do mom’s apartment, deciding what to do with the contents (I am re-estimating the number of items on the property from maybe a million to millions…).
• Considered what to do with many other small items, all of which needed a ponder. I want mom’s apartment to feel like home, yet I don’t want her to get triggered beyond what’s gonna happen when her furniture mysteriously shows up.  
• Vacuumed the big area rug that’s full of burn marks, and then decided it’s going to the dump. All the rugs in the house are lingering sources of what’s left of the smokey fireplace aroma.
• Decided, at 4PM, it was time for backgammon and a drink. This was followed by showers, and sushi dinner at the Island’s excellent raw bar.