This past Saturday the second and last moving van arrived, and then yesterday the last flatbed trailer load arrived. In the photo above, that's Mike R. from New York, whose final load for us included our second tractor, a dog house, tractor implements, and two pallets of stall mats.
Here's a photo I took on Saturday of Alayne and Dave H., the driver who delivered both moving vans for us and then kindly and generously helped us unload them:
There was only 20,000 pounds (9,071 kg) of stuff in this load, down from 30,000 pounds (13,607 kg) in the first moving van!
Last night Alayne and I totaled up everything and counted 16 trips — the two moving vans, the seven flatbed trailer loads Mike made, two semi-truck flatbed trailer loads, the dog and cat caravan, two large animal trailer loads, and then the trips that the two of us made, each hauling a trailer with animals on board. Whoops, that doesn't count the trip I made out here in mid-April, also with truck and horse trailer, so that's 17 trips.
In a way it was fitting that Mike brought the final load, because he had picked up the very first load in early April — a full trailer of corral panels. Back then I wasn't sure how we were going to get it all done, but somehow we did. Moving all the animals was more complicated than most people might realize, because each animal needed pre-departure health exams and an individual interstate health certificate from our vets before they could travel. The horses needed all that and more — Coggins tests, brand inspections and import permits, too.
I think we earned advanced degrees in logistics for this adventure.
Of course, we are a long way from being settled. We still have to figure out where to put the 50,000 pounds of stuff we've now unloaded over the past month! But at least everything is here, and that's a big relief!
Here is the very last thing off the last load — a dog house:
At least we know where we're going to put that … in the nearest dog yard!



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