The casters of death and the mysterious sequined box

After what I can only assume was a pretty hellacious trip to Missouri, Kristi returned to Phoenix with a rental truck full of STUFF. We unloaded that truck-load and filled the very modest shop space we have with tools and materials. Naturally, there was spill-over into nearly every part of the house. Still things seemed to be absorbed fairly neatly. Then we headed up to Valle with a few items we thought we could make free to a good home. After getting everything unloaded except the pool table… did I mention “pool table”? I’ve moved pianos before but a pool table is far more unwieldy. More about the pool table later, I promise.

Kristi did her best to accurately describe the magnitude of the challenge that was stored in her two storage units. However, in spite of her efforts, I was pretty much unprepared for what I was to encounter. We started unloading the storage units into the nearly empty truck but had to stop for the night after several hours with the truck about one-quarter full. After a bit of shut-eye at the cabin/cottage, we resumed loading the truck and by late afternoon, we had both units empty and the truck was quite full. It was touch-and-go right up to the end whether everything would fit in the truck. In the end, it did, but JUST barely. Kristi’s eight antique industrial knitting machines represented the most difficult items to move. We tried to use the “casters of death” on some machines where the shape of the machine’s foot was a distinctly bad fit for the caster. In the end, brute strength was practically the only tool we had on-hand and we didn’t have any too much of that.

Upon finally arriving at Anthem, I built a pair of dollies and we no longer had to deal with gravel surfaces so things rolled much easier. Still, fitting a second truck FULL of stuff into the house was quite challenging. At this point, the living room has a very similar appearance to the storage units', before being emptied out. Seven of the knitting machines are on the covered-patio. One of the machines found a home in the corner of the garage. This arrangement provides a post-industrial ambiance to our breakfast room window’s view.

The bad news is that there wasn't anybody prepared to shoot video of me stepping backward into space off the back end of the truck. The good news is that it doesn't appear that there will be lasting damage.