"They're moving a house. ... Be careful!"

As I mentioned, Mr. Big Food and I traveled to Oxford, in Lafayette Co., Mississippi, home of That School Up North (TSUN) today. We left the Farm a little after 9am. (Sorry. We don't have GPS in the truck and I turned it off on my phone, so if you're listening in, you'll just have to take my word for it.) We'd planned a delightful day-- and in the end it was delightful, but not at all what we had planned.

I was paying attention to folks' crops and gardens as we drove, and Mr. Big Food was listening to sports radio, and we were chatting, too. And I remarked that I couldn't for the life of me understand how folks would not want to live out here. (You don't. STAY AWAY.) And we got to talking about demographics and such. And then I saw the flashing blue lights of the sheriff's car.

Ahead. Not behind.

I slowed way down, rolled down the window, and and paused.

"They're movin' a house up ahead. It's takin' up the whole road. Be careful!" she said.

"Thank you!"

This exchange factored into our conversation. Have you ever had this exchange with a sheriff's deputy?

A few miles on, I see a pickup in the middle of the road. A woman jumps out. I again roll down my window-- by this time it's about 83-85°F-- and in the weirdest motions I've ever seen, she does a television-version of a tarmac dude motioning us to the side of the road yelling, "Get off the road. Pull over." It was confusing.

But we got the gist, and pulled into someone's private driveway. The truck behind us pulled in behind us.

 And we waited for this house to come down the road.

At the time, it was not at all clear what role this 18-wheeler was playing

and it still isn't clear.

Meanwhile, all of the available driveways were filled and the tarmac lady moved on down the road to guide folks in to other driveways.

And then...

"Really? We couldn't have gotten around that?" Is what Mr. Big Food asked.

Let's look at this together.

My gut instinct is that is a house of about 500-700 square feet. But what we need is a unit of measure. Here are the obvious choices: shingle tabs; door/window frames; proportion of standard state highway that the house occupies; mailbox dimensions.

Based on my extensive research, I'm going with 15 x 30.  450 square feet.

How much does it cost to tote a 15 x 30 house down the road? On a tractor?

STAY AWAY.

There's no explaining what goes on here.