Casselman or Castleman River Bridge

Searching through the archives to share some photos.  I took these on our return home last spring from our Roads Scholar trip to Missouri.  This park in is Western Maryland.

As I sort through stuff and prepare this house for sale I know an end product of our move will be more time to just pick up and go and see what sights await us.

Don't know which one is the correct spelling of this river and park.

Joining Through My Lens

You Know It's Spring When ...

... the frogs congregate in the pond and croak their hearts out to attract the females.

As I prepare this house for sale I realize I need to celebrate the last things I will experience on this property.  

Last night it was an owl call.  I may hear it again, but if I don't it was the last one to be heard while laying in bed falling asleep.

Yesterday while I was pruning, I realized my stewardship of this land is coming to an end.  It was the last time to prune the hibiscus, the hydrangeas, and the Joe Pye weed.

Here they are as they looked last year.  Yesterday they were just sticks,

 

And as the frogs are croaking, its the last spring I will hear them do that from this pond.

Let me share with you the sound and sight.

Well, that didn't work so here's some photos instead.

And this little fellow decided the shortest way to where he was going was through the screen porch.  I watched him try to get through the screen in vain.  Later he appeared inside the screen so he must have found a way in at one of the bases of the beams.  I had to shoo him out with a broom.  He was headed away from the pond.

Joining Saturdays Critters

Tuesday Treasures #8

More family photos but this time marked as treasures because they are coming off the wall.  According to "house staging for sale philosophy", you remove all personal effects that may prevent the prospective buyer from seeing themselves in the house.

 

As we prepare for the sale of our house (see yesterday's post to get the backstory) I am packing up all the framed photographs that chronicle our lives.

The bedroom hall has been a perfect spot to display this passage of time.  I wonder where I will do this once we settle in to our new digs?

The daughters are now 35 and 30.  Where has the time gone?

Joining Tuesday Treasures.

A Big Decision

Last week we visited a Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC) in downtown Columbia.  Remember that walk we took on Sunday the 28th?  Well one thing led to another and we really liked the location of the CCRC - walking distance of Whole Foods, restaurants, library, and other shopping.  

Friday I called a realtor and by Saturday afternoon we had signed the papers to sell our house!  We meet a second time with the CCRC on Tuesday and will know more then whether we have a long wait to get the apartment floor plan we would like.  If this house sells quickly we will have an interim move in our future, even in the interim we can take advantage of the activities at the CCRC.

Now until March 31st when the listing goes live I have major staging to do.  A stager will come later this week to walk through the house with me.  I already know all my family photos have to go and have started that process.  Packing and downsizing to move will come once the house sells.  And there will be a lot of downsizing involved!

Thankfully I have this blog that has chronicled this lovely house and property.  New adventures, new hobbies, new friends await us but we will not be saying good bye to old friends because we are only moving 10 miles south.  Closer in fact to some of them!