The Move

Our first Texas home was a ranch type house with a pool just out of the back doors and centrally located on a one acre lot. It had a large metal shed at the back of the lot. The house was located in a fully developed subdivision next to a large reservoir. We added some concrete around the pool and built an arbor to sit under to protect us from the hot summer sun. We installed a hot tub near the pool just outside our bedroom door. In the front of the house we built a Florida room mostly of glass to hold our parrots. The separate room allowed us to keep the rest of the house at a temperature good for humans, not the 80 degrees good for parrots, and separated us from the loud screeching of the birds at dawn and dusk. We liked living in this house very much. The only problem, not enough land to have our horse on the property. Donna was showing in the local Arabian horse shows and we kept the horse in a barn owned by our trainer. We wanted our horse in our back yard. The desire for more land, the widening of the main road and the increase of population were moving us toward our decision to move to the country. When an old neighbor called to ask if we wanted to sell our house to them so they could move back into the neighborhood, we said yes. We made the deal and started to look for our new home. After several false starts, we bought a house on ten acres with a small shed. We would have to add to it, but we were excited at the prospect of building a barn and studio. We also were going to convert the garage to a bird room and add a cover for the RV. We contracted a moving company and started to pack.

All was proceeding well until it came time to move our bed. Our bed is a country style bed. It is made of cedar logs and weights about a half ton. Moving it required several large men for disassembly and reassembly and a few extra dollars to the movers. Once in place, it can not be moved by my wife and me, Even with the help of several neighbors it can not be moved. I know this because after the installation into our new country home, I tried to close our bedroom closet door and found that the bed was in the way. The door has been open for the last three years. It is a king bed and quite striking. We are very proud of our country bed.

I bought the bed as a surprise for my wife. Donna and I were wandering around a Texas “Old Town” near our home. We wandered into a furniture store and looked at the wooden furniture made to appear as if it were built in the 1850’s. Donna liked the cedar bed very much. Because it was expensive, we passed it by. I went back and bought it and had it shipped and installed in our bedroom one day when Donna was not around. She would be very surprised. As it turned out, we were all very surprised. After the surprise presentation of the bed to Donna upon her arrival home at the end of the day, we showed the bed to our house guest. During the oo’s and ah’s, our guest noticed and pointed out to us, a small bug on the bedpost. “This is a cool way to make it look authentic, paint a bug on the wood,” he said. With that, the bug moved. Then we noticed that there were many other bugs and more were appearing as we stood there. Also, small holes were appearing in the bed legs and cross members. After several minutes there were hundreds of bugs. They turned out to be cedar borers. We closed off the bedroom and slept in another room that night. In the morning, I called the exterminator and told him to come to our house, NOW! I also called the furniture store and spoke to the manager. He thought I was completely off my rocker when I told him to come and get his bed and bring my money back to me, NOW! He was not impressed and did not seem to want to help us in any way. I started to make threats if he did not move this bed out of our bedroom and back into his store, NOW! He sent a truck with several men to remove the bed. While awaiting the truck to take the bed, the exterminator arrived. He walked into the bedroom with me and didn’t see any bugs. My wife lifted her clothes and a horde flew out and settled all over the room, even on the ceiling. The exterminator took several steps back and made a face that showed even he was disgusted with these bugs. I had never seen an exterminator repelled by bugs before, even in my frat house while at college. That is saying something

Dead bugs all around, a sickening smell from the exterminator’s chemicals and me creaming at everyone. This is what greeted the manager of the furniture store when he showed up. One of his men had called him from the truck and told him what was happening in our bedroom. He finally believed me and came to see. He approved a new and even larger bed to replace the buggy one. The builders of the beds showed up to help with the new install and explained the problem with the bug bed. It seems that the bed logs were not soaked long enough in the solution to kill the cedar borers. The manufacturer guaranteed that this new bed would not have any bugs. The bed is over ten years old now and still no bugs. We and the bed have been through a lot. So, let it sit where it is.

Moving from a small Florida cracker house to a large Texas ranch style house was simple. Load the truck with everything we owned and unload into the new house. Moving to a much smaller country home in North Texas was not so simple. We gave away a truck and a half of “stuff.” Old furniture, boxes of bric-a-brac and electrical equipment were also piled by the road for large trash pickup. Some of the better furniture was rescued by the locals.

When we had decided what to move to our new country home, the trucks were loaded and off we went. We couldn’t stay in the new house without furniture, so we used the RV in the new back yard as temporary quarters until the movers could unload. Night one was a quiet time and dark sky was a wonder. We could hardly sleep.

Day one started with a thunder and lightning storm. We awoke to a downpour that set off the alarm on the septic system. The alarm was a small bell but the ring was incessant. Where was the power for the alarm coming from? How do we turn it off? Why was the alarm going off? Why was the water from the rain not draining from the land? Why did we have six inches of mud on the bottom of our shoes making us stagger around like the undead of a zombie movie?

We called our realtor who gave us the phone number of a septic person who came to our rescue and pushed a button. This reset the alarm. We made an appointment for him to return and inspect the system. The answers to all the questions were simple. The alarm sounded to let us know that water was high in the tank and it needed to be pumped out. Just throw another switch. The inspection told us that this system had lots of alarms but just a level and power switch. We disarmed the alarms and all has been quiet since. We get the inspector back four times a year to test the water and working parts of the system. We also have to put in chlorine tabs regularly, and they can’t be swimming pool ones, but rather specially made for the septic system and considerably more expensive than what the pool gets. It is an aerobic spray system for land that does not perk well.

The rest of the move was uneventful. We had the usual issues with doors being too narrow for the couch and mud being tracked into the house by the movers. But, all in all, the move went well and we learned a few things about our new home.