Spring is coming and a little ramblin'

Last week when JW went to town, he brought home another big bag of bird seed.  I told him he didn't need to since we are moving but he insisted that as long as we are here, we continue to feed the pheasants that come in every day for a little bit of food.  The cat usually scares them off so then the deer and rabbits come in to clean it up.  Meat scraps all go into he back yard where the magpies come in to clean them up.  Today when I went out to throw a cup of seed under the spruce tree, I saw the first redwing blackbird of the year.  Every year there is always one who gets a jump on the crowd.  Then the rest of the males show up a few at a time followed much later by the females of the group.

It will be interesting to see what kinds of birds are in Fairbanks.  I know they have a lot of ravens - they are huge and are everywhere in town - kind of like pigeons in the cities in the lower 48.  We have been feeding enough that we have lots of goldfinch and grossbeak that spend time in our front yard every summer.   We also have yellow headed blackbirds that stop by for one day on their migration to where ever they spend the summer.  Meadowlarks, robins, and other blackbirds.  Guess I'll check out BN for a bird book on Alaska.

I've spent a little bit of time today going through a few things.  Since the realtor said she will take anything we leave in the house and put it in the yard sale for the Red Lodge Boys and Girls club, I have been trying to find a few extra things to place in a box for them.  At least the moving people have told me I don't need to put a value on everything.  I can just lump things together (such as clothes) and put a number on it.  Hmm - wonder what kind of number I need to put on my quilting fabric cause I'm thinking that probably exceeds $1500.  And I know my Christmas decorations exceed the $3k mark - not that most of them could be replaced since they represent 35 years of collecting ornaments - many from Hallmark.

Although it is almost spring, I'm thinking ahead to next winter and decided I need a new down comforter.  The one I have, I paid a whopping $100 bucks for 16 years ago so not the best quality and it is pretty worn out.  For the past 5 years, I have been planning to get one and so last Tuesday, I went to threedogdown.com and ordered one.  Wanted to get it from them as I know their products and didn't want to have to pay shipping to AK. 

Last Thursday night after we had met with the buyers, JW decided we should go to The Griz for dinner.  There were only a few people there.  One couple eating dinner and about 5 in the bar - one of them being our UPS driver.  He came over and chatted a bit and I made the comment "Aha hanging out at the Griz - no wonder you are always so late getting to our place.."  He said he was actually on his way to our house next.  JW gave me the look like What did you order now?  I said, I didn't order anything and Mr. UPS driver says it is a really big box and JW told him just to throw it in the back of our truck instead of having to drive out Butcher Creek.

He went outside and it dawned on me that it was probably my comforter.  So we were discussing that when Mr. UPS came back in to let us know it was a package from 3 Dog Down.  yepper - my new comforter and duvet - one more big box to move to AK.

The moving company notified us  today that they can pack and load us in 3 days instead of 4.  So they are now going to come on March 31 and April 1 to pack.  Load the truck on the 2nd and also pick up our truck on the 2nd.  She reminded us to make sure the truck is down to 1/4 tank when they pick it up.  Otherwise when they get to Tacoma to ship it, they will charge us to syphon out the excess fuel plus we do not get it back.

JW talked to the realtor last night and crossed a few houses off our list as undesirable for a number or reasons.  I checked through the ones they crossed off and none of them were houses on my list anyway.  They were ones that JW had come up with.  Tonight at 5:30 AK, he and the realtor will be heading out to look at houses and the realtor has come up wih 4 more that he would like to show "us".  Of those 4, 3 are good but one of them has the garage under the house so to get into the house you have to climb up a flight of stairs - no way in the winter am I going to carry groceries etc up stairs into the house - that is just plain silly.  But if JW goes to see it, maybe he'll see that the inside is different than it appears. 

http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/2930-North-Point-Court_Fairbanks_AK_99709_1116474130

I do like the "seafoam" green walls but darn, I don't have my green leather couch any longer.  

Bedrooms are nothing too great and who knows what this extra thing is in the bedroom.  Something very strange to me.

It will be interesting to see what houses he narrows down to in the next two weeks.  For tonight, I'm just tired so think I'm going to hit the hay a little early and hope that my phone doesn't ring.