Moving house is hard enough, moving a farm is even harder especially when your heart is tied to the place.

The packing up had been going on for weeks. My husband took 6 months to get ready for the clearing sale. At the same time getting things we were keeping ready for the big move. There was over 100 years worth of stuff here that had to either cleaned up, sorted, thrown out, scrapped or sold, and going through it all bit by bit takes a bit of time.

Slowly we got there, the farm was all packed up and ready to go. The house almost empty, the children running from room to room squealing and yelling, excited at the echo their voices produced – oblivious to the meaning to why the house was empty.

We did numerous trips over a month to move it all. I suggested a removalist in the beginning, “NAR” said hubby in that she’ll be right sort of voice, “we will do it on our own”. Ask him now, after we did all that moving, if he would recommend using a removalist……I think his way of looking at it all may have changed after having to do it!

I kept up the jokes telling him after his third, fourth, fifth and tenth trip back to the house, cursing and swearing about how he hated moving, that he’d be right as he could always get a job as a removalist! Oh did I get the evil eye LOL
We had a few calamities (as my husband would call them) along the way, but now we can look back and laugh.
The wind blew the double bed mattress off the trailer, whilst husband went to get the ropes, right into a muddy patch. Yes a muddy patch. It’s Murphy’s Law. It always rains when you don’t want it to.

Rain happens……..

-In the middle of shearing, for most of shearing. Dragging out 7 days of shearing into three weeks of off again on again shearing.
-When you finally have washed the car/tractor/ute. Ask my husband about this! He washed all of our machinery for the clearing sale and then it rained, the wind blew up and all the dust that wasn’t yet mud blew onto and stuck to the newly washed items.
-When you are loading up to move, the wind still blowing, kaboom mattress meets mud!

The night before the final morning for me and the kids was strange. My husband was to come back and continue moving farm related items we had kept and all his workshop items over the following week, so this night was not his last night at our home.

We were camping in the bedroom, the house empty except for us and a few small items. I lay there thinking about it all, still thinking that it wasn’t real that perhaps I could wake up in the morning and everything would be back in it’s place. I thought of the kids, our 9 year old understanding what was going on, the two younger ones once again oblivious to it all. Our 9 year old cried, cried about how she missed her room already, she missed her best buddy, she missed her life as she has only known it.
My heart broke for her, our sweet little one having to have her life turned upside down and inside out. It’s so unfair.

Morning came all too quickly after a night of tossing, turning and worrying. Kids up, breakfast had, time to go.

I was to drive the family car with the canopy trailer bursting at the seams, parts of our lives packed tightly inside, towed behind. My husband was driving a truck, our furniture, our household carefully packed and placed ready for the long trip.

The butterflies came back as I sat in the car and turned it on. I had walked around the house, fingers running along the walls soaking up the memories, smiling to myself as the memories from each room came back. In the hall there is this wonderful drawing, done by our then 2.5 year old in permanent red marker, his wonderful piece of art left behind. The kitchen and bathroom we designed together and turned from a dream into a reality, the whole house and its memories. Sitting here now writing this down has me in tears.

It is amazing how much life and love you put into a house, just like those 28 years my husband put into his farm, his love his life.

As the car warmed up I looked back at our house, our beautiful garden, put the car into gear and started to leave. I was holding up ok for the first 100 metres, but with every 100 metres that passed the lump in my throat grew bigger and more tears flowed.

This was the last time I would leave our home, there was no going back, it was so final.

As I reached the end of our driveway and turned onto the main road, I was crying hard. The kids and I sang out goodbye to our farm, our three year old yelling out goodbye to the sheep, goodbye to the birds……goodbye.

Goodbye Farm, thank you for one of the most wonderful experience of our lives. x x x