Getting ready to go

I've been negligent.  There's just been so much to do since we got back home with the motor home.  We made the difficult decision to put all of our stuff  (that won't fit in the motor home or in our 5 x 9 trailer) in storage and hit the road for a while.  It wasn't an easy decision, but circumstances just made it the right decision.  There's been so much to do to get ready, on top of general day to day stuff.  And now we're down to it.
 
We have two weeks left!  Two weeks to empty the mobile home into storage, empty and consolidate freezers, refrigerators, and the pantry.  Two weeks to figure out what clothes to take, what we're going to have room for either in the motor home or the 5 x 9 trailer we're going to tow.   Two weeks - good grief, I'm not sure we'll get it all done.  It's a daunting task. 

This is the door we have to get all of our furniture out through - it will require a few extra bodies including one to run the tractor with the "bucket" to lower everything to the ground. 

Of course this would all be easier if the weather would cooperate - it's hard to bust your butt when it's 90+ with 30mph winds and humidity that soaks you.  Packing the truck and trailer and hauling the load 30 miles to the storage unit and unloading it in the heat and wind is not much fun.   Storms are forecast for the weekend which will mean we'll be boxing more stuff and loading the trailer between storms.

We are taking a little freezer in the  trailer.  I'm used to having my 25 cf freezer, the one on my side by side, and the little freezer.  It's going to take a lot of consolidation to make this work.  This week that has entailed making 20 lbs of venison sausage and stuffing it, corning a 5 lb. venison roast, and getting a bunch of pork ready for the  smoker.  This will mean that we can cook and slice the roast, slice the bacon, and then vacuum seal them and the sausages in flat packages that will take less room.  Of course this is consuming time - time that we don't have.  Did I mention that we're making this sausage in the motor home???  I think my motto is "I'll try anything once" or maybe it should be "where there's a will - there's a way"?

Considering that over the winter we made sure to keep all the freezers and the pantry well stocked "just in case" this is going to be a huge project.  We also have been living  30 miles from town - so we got in the habit of making sure that we had ingredients for almost anything we could imagine.  I'm guessing that the trailer will be packed with pantry, kitchen toys, cookbooks, and clothes.  Oh, and no doubt at least one cooler I'm betting.

This has been an interesting process - we've learned a lot about what you can and can't do, what's important in our lives, and how to cram 75 lbs of  "stuff" into a 5 lb sack.  Of course, when we lived on the houseboat we had a whole lot less room and we still managed to be comfortable.  The biggest lesson we learned from living on the houseboat was that we absolutely love being able to "stay home and go somewhere"!  So, off we go again on another adventure.