I will dearly miss our very precious children and their significant others, near-by family, wonderful friends and our Church. But some things, like ornery chickens, bad cows, chores that need doing two or three times a day and IL winters and taxes won't be missed.
In December 2010, llinois was named the worst state for retirement by
Dow Jones Newswires. According to John Brady, president of
Top Retirements.com, three factors earning Illinois this dubious
distinction were its fiscal health, taxation and climate. Brady noted that
Illinois’s fiscal health could be the worst of any state."Recipe for disaster"... thoughts from our friend, Colby Downs, posted on Facebook earlier this summer: "Anyone want to know what drives an Illinoisan crazy? Start with the worst credit rating of any of the 50 states, add a dash of an almost unfathomable unfunded liability to our state worker pensions (enormous unfunded pension obligation), a crumbling infrastructure (The state is struggling with a structural deficit and the state now has the worst credit rating in the country), plus a very expensive tax
structure (The Illinois Legislature
passed a 67% hike in its corporate and personal
income tax), and simmer in a pot of partisanship using the low heat of
below average intelligence amongst our governor's office. With a load of
really important budgetary matters that were urgent for the summer
session, the General Assembly dinked around with a bill concerning gun
control for six months and it forced a special session to bring the
law-makers back to Springfield for a special vote. What about the
budget and/or the pension reform you ask? Never even got close. The
President of the Senate, the Speaker, and the Governor are all from the
same party; but by all accounts hate each other and refuse to talk. None
of them is able to lead at all. Instead of talking with each other,
they hold press-conferences to publicly berate each other. The Senate
and the House both had pension-reform bills… couldn’t get either version
passed and the Governor apparently had no clue how to even get
involved. This is the harsh reality we face here in this state. Time
to move out." 
I don't regret living and working in Illinois. It has been a great place to raise a family. But, my teachers retirement is being threatened. According to an article in the September 4, 2013 Heartland Institute Newsletter, money I faithfully put in for 23 years (well, the state took out whether I wanted them to or not), has been spent by the state. The article said that opponents of pension reform are trying to downplay Illinois' $100 billion in official pension debt because it's "not due at one point in time." But, Illinois workers and retirees are finding that after decades of entrusting their retirements to the government, politicians have squandered their savings. They are learning from Detroit’s bankruptcy, that no amount of constitutional protections can protect workers retirements from politicians’ follies and federal bankruptcy laws. How long I will get retirement salary remains to be seen. And on top of that, the state is taxing us big bucks. Our current property tax is $500.00 a month. Our property tax in TN will be about $62.00 a month, with a property that is not that much lower in value. I agree with Colby, time to move out of state.
I was up at 2:30 Saturday morning. This sleeplessness I will not
miss... I just hope it goes away once we are moved and settled into the
TN house. I did my readings for the Bible Study I would soon be
leading, corrected my errors on last week's Blog (Carol is my editor),
read and answered other e-mails and Facebook messages, and had two cups of tea... all
before the sun came up. I had let Brother into the office to keep me company. You can see the sun rising out the window behind my computer. I have to find a way to take Brother to TN... or I will miss him way too much. It isn't getting him there, but keeping him outside yet near the house, that is my dilemma. I wonder what he would do with pond turtles, fish, frogs and crawdads, because there is a bunch of them in and around the golf course pond out back. 
With new house shoppers coming, I went into cleaning mode once Joe
got up. I must admit, my heart really wasn't into it. This whole
routine of showing the house is getting old and I will NOT miss it one bit.The prospective buyers were quite interested in our house and farm, as is the usual case. Once they were gone, I took all the wet shavings from Amiga and Zorro's stalls. Then I completely cleaned out Roni's stall. He will be moved to Zorro's stall and Roni's old stall will be left open as seen above.
Courtney and Mike arrived and Courtney started going through all the tack, supplies, first aid and cleaners. 
Once she was all packed up, we easily loaded Zorro onto the trailer.
It was a short 15 minute drive to the new barn. Zorro came quietly off
the trailer and Courtney walked him around the inside of his new
pasture.
It is hard to see the electric fence in the right photo, but Zorro was quick to see and understand his boundaries.
The two horses in the neighboring pasture were quite curious about Zorro, as he was about them.
Once Courtney turned Zorro loose, he went to meet his new neighbors, soon to be pasture mates.
He had a ball trotting and running along the fence line chasing and being chased by his two new friends on the other side of the fence.
Zorro looked so happy and healthy... I felt really good about his new home.
I thought I was taking consecutive photos of Zorro running but I accidentally took this short little video clip instead. Wish I had been videoing more... oh well.
Joe and I filled Amiga and Roni's new stall (Zorro's old one) with
wood shavings and cleaned out the rest of the little trailer so that it is
ready to be sold. We will not miss hauling wood shavings, nor will I miss cleaning the third stall... especially Zorro's because he really
made a mess of it... but I am going to miss the cute, silly, and
sometimes ornery horse.Joe worked all night at State Farm and I was up from 2:30 to 6am. I couldn't stay awake to go to early service and then overslept and was too tired to get motivated to go into late Church, so listened to Mike's sermon on line instead. Any time any of you want to hear a great message from a gifted preacher, go here, (Eastview Sermons).
We got almost a half inch of rain overnight, so Roni was a muddy mess when I moved him and Amiga to the front pasture.
Amiga misses Zorro and has been looking for him several times. At least she has Roni to hang out with, and has bonded more with him.
Joe has been sorting through camping stuff and tools, cleaning out the workroom. We will take one of each tool (the best we have) to TN and the rest we will sell or give away or pitch. 
I took Roni to Moraine View to meet Karen and three other ladies. I went plenty early because Roni was a dirty mess and would take extra time to clean up.
Karen took these last two photos. In the bottom one I was in the process of turning around to talk with her.
By the time I got home, Joe had the garage workbench just about all cleaned up (see photo below), and steaks ready to grill.
Joe settled in to watching football for the remainder of the evening and I ended up in bed by 8:30.
A heavy dense fog rolled in just before I left for Water Lilies Monday morning, and persisted for 3 or 4 hours. It was bon-ding time (<- joke for Britney) for Amiga and Roni.
I worked much of the morning on preparing my lesson for the evening's Bible study. Then I worked on packing boxes... clearing everything out of the lower portion of the china hutch. Brother found a good spot to nap in the garage, on the packing stuff.
The day did get warm and sunny, so I took breaks from inside packing to work outside. Joe had burned the large brush pile so I raked up all the un-burnt sticks and the coals were hot enough that it ignited on its own. I took down both bird feeding stations and gathered lawn ornaments, toad houses, bird houses etc.
Stew and Kabob find shade from the hot sun.
Amiga and Roni hanging out in the shade together also.
Leading the evening Bible study went fairly well and sleep came quickly once we got home.
Tuesday flew by, with me doing a little bit of everything... packing, cleaning, yard work, dishes, laundry, etc.
Abbey perched near her food.Lisa and I had planned to meet at Moraine View at 5:30pm. I left early so I could ride Roni by himself to see how he would do. The below photo is of us at the end of the drive. The farmer across 150 has been harvesting corn all day and trucking it to the elevator.
Roni did great for me, on his own, and we also had an enjoyable ride with Lisa. It was the first day of bow season for deer hunters, so we had to alter our usual trail to avoid some guys out waiting for deer. We saw more deer than hunters, but ended up going back on the walking path to not interfere and play it safe. (Don't worry, we were both wearing bright orange.)
As the sun rose, I could see how foggy it really was. I drove carefully to Water Lilies even though I was running late. 
Once home I messed around here at my computer, until the sun finally broke through the clouds and fog, just before noon.
I gave the inside of the horse trailer a good scrubbing, even using soap to clean the walls and floor. The day's sun and breeze were quick to dry it.
Just after Joe got home, I went to town to do a little shopping and to go to Courtney's for water and computer help. We will not miss hauling water from her place, but I will really miss seeing her and having her computer expertise available to me.
I went to Water Lilies Thursday, knowing I would miss Friday and Monday. While waiting for the thrift store to open, I walked a mile on the indoor track, since it was raining. At the store I picked out ten paperback books in exchange for my dollar. 
Due to a time restriction on our loan application, and the fact that Joe was committed to playing in his monthly poker game on the 4th, we had to close on the house Thursday. As soon as all the paper work (115 pages times 2) arrived by Fed-Xed, I took it to town where I met Joe at the loan office and we got everything signed. Once home, a thunderstorm rolled in. Above, Joe had parked the trailer in the corncrib so it would be dry inside for packing on Friday.
Amiga and Roni ran for cover as the storm blew in. I contemplated my modus operandi for loading the trailer as I
packed up more boxes of stuff and watched it rain. The chance of thunder storms was good
the rest of the day and again on Saturday. I wanted to be sure
the nice things we were hauling in the trailer were not going to get wet. 
At 9pm, I moved the two horses from the front pasture to the barn while it rained. I went to bed with the house in a mess... half packed boxes in several places. After the china hutch, I had started on hanging clothes, half the pots and pans, half the cleaning supplies, and anything else from cupboards and drawers we would not need for awhile.
The dog woke me up twice during the night because of storm fear. The second time, at 3am, the stars were shining and the storms were over. So I don't know what her problem was. I reprimanded Kaysha for barking and moved the horses back out of the barn to the front pasture where there is no mud for them to get into. I was still too tired to face the day, so went back to bed for almost two hours.
The well tester man was here at 8am Friday. I helped him by hooking up
hoses and turning on three spigots to run the water for 15 minutes
straight. While waiting, I moved the hoses to water different places,
which wasn't really necessary because of all the rain we had overnight. We also picked three bags of pears, which I gave him in exchange
for a new pressure valve on the well pump tank thingy. It was a beautiful sun shiny day which warmed up quickly so I stayed outside working on some different cleaning projects, like scrapping the paint off this gliding porch swing, which I will later repaint. For now, I have it ready to load on the trailer. 
The trailer had taken on some water when Joe drove in the rain to fill the SUV with gas... so I brought it out in the sun and opened it up to dry out. I worked in the garage, packing boxes of bird feeders, bird houses and other outdoor stuff.
Daniel arrived a little before Joe who got home from work about 12:30. We all set to work loading the trailer... the guys getting the heavy stuff and I helping fit the pieces together as we "worked the puzzle."
Joe measured some items, which helped to figure out what spots they could go in. I wanted to keep the heavy stuff on bottom, but also water proof stuff on the floor. I needed to have more boxes packed and ready for loading because we had lots of little nooks and crannys they could fit in. So I went back in to do more packing, Dan headed home and Joe took a nap in preparation for his big game.
When I came back out with some more boxes to load, I caught Brother trying to figure out how he was going to smuggle his way in with the load. Kaysha is coming along for the ride, but we are not taking any other animals down to TN until November, when we are ready to permanently move them.
There are several things about our new house Joe and I can't remember... like hallways, closets and storage places. All we have are the photos from the listing to help us recall things. I am anxious to see the house and all the parts I can't remember. I want to see what we actually bought. Ha ha ha. I also want to figure out if there is a place we can keep Brother.
Brother followed me out to the front pasture to get the horses. I will really miss him following me around. Amiga was playing hard to get, so I took Roni first. Brother got distracted by a ground squirrel. This is just a short weekend trip down to TN and the new house, but the soon-to-be permanent move is a reality, reminding me of how soon I will be leaving a lot that I love behind. “Sometimes you have to be apart from people (and animals) you love, but that doesn't make you love them any less. Sometimes you love them more." Nicholas Sparks.
No comments:
Post a Comment