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WE SET OFF VERY EARLY on Saturday morning, The Yard Man and I.  This trip would be the very last of its kind.  I tried not to think about saying goodbye to a spot of land, and a house, and a river that's been dear to me since I was a six-year-old.

We arrived at the old home place around noon.  A load of musty, flimsy, ratty or otherwise unusable items sat in a pile at the end of the driveway, waiting for garbage pick-up day. My two brothers had already spent some time working at finalizing the job of "everything out" that had been started more than a year ago.  Now that the place is about to change hands (if things go as  planned), we were forced to deal with the odds and ends we'd left sitting last time--oh, so many odds and ends!  Upholstered furniture none of us had wanted, bookshelves full of books that no one had had time to fully peruse, a very heavy item (Well, you see, there was this iron safe in the basement that had belonged to my grandfather; it is nearly as big as a refrigerator and couldn't just be hoisted by human strength) and a hodgepodge of stuff in scattered cupboards and closets.  There was also a large, hand-built loom in the basement.  Many years ago it was made for me by my twin.



He's here now, and greets The Yard Man and me when we arrive.

              
Twin Bro has his truck and trailer fully loaded with the safe (he rented a piece of equipment to handle the thing), and boxes of books and etcetera.  He's sticking around just long enough to help us load up the loom, and dispose of the final--oh, the very last--items from this house.

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So we set to work on the loom.  It will have to be partially disassembled, the reassembling of which could be problematic without detailed instructions. ( Ah, Dear Reader, if truth be told it is sure to be problematic regardless of carefully photographed directives!) 

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 We are busy.
While the men lift and carry, I run around photographing,  removing shower curtains and forgotten pictures from the walls, and pondering what's to be done with all these pieces of furniture and boxes of books we are accumulating on the carport...

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(to be continued...

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