the First of September

A while ago, while discussing selling this house and leaving rural Maine for the three thousandth time, I set a date: September 2008. By September 2008 we would be moved, into a new place, a new city, maybe a new state.
Today marks the one year warning bell. We've lived in this house for nearly twenty years, two certifiable pack-rats, with two kids who have grown and gone and left their detritus behind, as well as an assortment of half finished projects, unused tools, ill fitting clothes, and, out on the lawn, at least eight cars and trucks in various states of decay.
I've attempted for months now to do something every week if not every day that moves the process forward. Bags and bags to the dump and to Goodwill. A ban on buying anything new for the house- garbage bags excepted.
Now in the final year, I've decided to chronicle it, and take a picture of the place everyday to really give attention to the place that's been home for so long.


We were a couple of broke late stage hippies, living in a bus with our two kids when we came to Maine, lured by the promise of work, and a lower cost of living. Our converted school bus, painted brown and named "the rolling turd", contained beds, kitchen storage, and the partypooper-the-emergencies only- tiny chemical toilet. We traveled up and down the East Coast, and didn't find anyplace we felt we fit, and rolled into Maine as the sumer of 84 came to a close and we needed to find shelter for the winter.
And we found it- a summer house on the New Meadows river, where we installed a shower on the back porch, and had to walk outside and down the hill towards the frozen river to the unheated toilet. We gathered mussels along the river bank, and despite the roughness of the place and the cold, I think we were a pretty happy group. The kids slept in the unfinished attic crawlspace, but they were small, and the little heat from the wood stove tended to rise right to them.