B & E California Bound: Getting Settled...Gradually

In some ways it seems like no time at all since late in the evening on April 19 when we packed up the car with an air mattress, bedding and some food and headed off to take possession of our new home.

That was the beginning of three days of moving in:
Day 1 - Moving belongs from our temporary home in the urban cottage; movers packing and unloading our daughter and son-in-law's household.
Day 2 - United/Mayflower delivering the two store & move containers with our furniture and other household items from Michigan
Day 3 - Commander Moving crew of three unloading and placing the contents of the containers
A note about what made the move complicated: The driveway we share with 3 other houses is so steep at the bottom that no trucks with lift gate mechanisms can go up. That means standard moving vans have to park at the bottom and load items into a pick up truck to go up the drive to our house which is at the top. Lots of shuttling on days 1 and 3.

Our crew from Commander Moving. They were great!

Day 3 - Mid-afternoon

The movers finished about 1:30 PM. Just in time for us to fetch our first out of town visitor, Glenda, who was came to San Francisco to see her grandson. Shown here with Erick and Ziggy.

Day 4 - Getting the sewer work done that the East Bay Municipal Utility District requires when an older house changes ownership. (Yes, that's happening by our front door.) The work was done quickly and well, and the installation passed inspection.

Days 5 through today - We've been unpacking boxes and reassembling furniture. Six rooms are completely in order: kitchen (we needed to combine two households worth of equipment); main floor bathroom; one upstairs bathroom; entry level bedroom and bathroom, and the laundry room.

We also celebrated my birthday and Erick's at a Kincaid's at Jack London Square on the Oakland waterfront. As you can see, the weather isn't always sunny here. The rain is welcome, though.

The UC Berkeley Botanical Garden had a huge sale last weekend. Erick and I went to learn about what will grow around our place and, of course, brought home a few things.

Lest you think it's been all work, here are photos that show we're drinking in the beauty around us. (First two: sunset looking southwest toward the Bay and the city; middle: clouds over Mt. Diablo; bottom: sunrise over Mt. Diablo.)

And we're getting to know the local birds. I spotted a bald eagle over the hills yesterday morning. No photo of that one or of the banded-tail doves that Erick has seen. Today an Oregon Junco and a Black-headed Grosbeak and a Western Scrub Jay were at the feeder in back of the house. It's hard to pick them out in the photos, but give it a try.