Early yesterday morning, Linda and Duane and I met at a house located on several wooded acres in a small town nearby. You couldn't even see the house or other buildings from the road due to all of the trees and foliage plus the house was pretty far back from the road. The owners were having an estate sale. There were some items available on the screened porch on the back of the house but the vast majority of the sale was being held in a big barn farther back from the house and just as invisible from the road.
This place looked like it had been there for some time. It also looked like it had been well-maintained for the most part. Lots of lush shrubbery that someone had planted and tended. The barn was wild. Many people had enough foresight to bring flashlights with them. The only one of us with a flashlight was Linda. It was a little one that I had given her that she keeps on her keychain. You really needed all the light you could get because the lighting in the barn was very dim and not much came in from the entrance. The picture of the barn shows the entrance but the barn was rectangular and went back quite a bit. It looked like the family had used it to store not only the usual things (tools, lawn items, etc.) but also boxes and boxes of items they were now selling. Everything from movies (mostly VHS) to tools to housewares were for sale including guns. I heard a guy asking about the guns and he was told that they had one left. They started with six and had sold them before the official sale time (8am) even began.
I managed to cut my finger by plunging it into a box that I didn't realize had some things with sharp edges in it. It was a small cut and I figured it wouldn't bleed much but I was wrong. Linda came to my aid with some kleenex and also some alcohol pads that she had in her car. Good thing our nurse was with us.
Duane and I both found several small items. Stuff like that pictured were for sale along side hoes and rakes with
really long handles on them. I guess long handles are a good idea with that much nature around.
After I dribbled blood here and there (before Linda came to my aid), I found a few small items, too. I really like the little crest charms. I'm going to clean them up and then figure out what I want to do with them. The thimbles with scenes from Tarpon Springs on them that Duane and I both bought are from the 1950's. I also found a saint's medal that I hadn't come across before along with an Olympic pin. Linda bought two items. She bought a large signed picture that she liked and also got a terrific deal on a piece of 'Made in Occupied Japan' figure. It's a traditional blue and white and is in mint condition. Hard to pass up -- especially for a quarter. She's not sure yet where she'll put him but it's a cool little piece.
Nice buys for an old barn filled with so much in the way of tools, plumbing supplies, etc., and having to find our way around in the dark. There were some very nice sewing machines for sale on the back porch of the house but none of us is in the market for one. Whoever bought them got a good deal, though.
Linda and I met for coffee afterwards. Duane couldn't join us for that part but was glad she made it to the sale. All three of us hit a couple of smaller sales this morning and we came across skeins of yarn that we'll be sending to
The Humble Stitch to be made into hats, scarves and gloves for the homeless. Linda kept one purple skein to knit some items herself. Duane and I both have so much yarn in our stashes that we didn't see a color that we wanted/needed to keep. Right now I'm working on two different projects. One is a hat for The Humble Stitch and the other is a 'scarf-lace' out of trellis yarn for myself. That's going a bit slow since I find that trellis yarn tends to be a little slippery.
It was back to recording both yesterday and today when I got home. I'm currently working on a book called
Kudzu by Kathleen Walls. Then I have three more lined up after it. I had a setback when I developed an 'echo' in my recordings. I went nuts trying to figure out the cause and it turned out to be my mic placement. Somehow, despite the fact that it's housed in a padded box and has a metal pop filter attached, I managed to lower the mic forward on it's stand. Instead of speaking into the part of it I normally do, I was actually speaking almost down into the top of it. Bad idea. Easily fixed once I found it had been moved but what a waste of precious time! Good to go now, though, so it's back to work for me.
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