Treasured clutter

We went for a little drive today, passing this house during our travels. There is just so much on this porch and in the yard it is hard to see it all. I wondered to myself if it was all treasures, or if it was just stuff. I have not doubt that at least at one time it was all treasures, and may still be.

I also got to thinking about old houses down home...a lot of women had flowers on the front porch. Back when I was a child it was not uncommon to have a 'shelf' spanning the space between two support posts of the porch. The only ones I ever saw were just boards...no paint or stain of any sort. And potted plants and flowers were set on the board.

I have not seen a house like this in years and years. And this in turn led me to thinking about other things that have come and gone. Remember when plant stands similar to the one shown here was the thing to have. Almost everyone I knew, and granted I didn't know that many people, but I think every neighbor we had at one time had one of these.

Another thing that everyone seemed to buy during the early years of our marriage was the hall tree. Granted, people still buy them but not near as much.

Oh, and remember when ashtrays and ashtray stands were a common gift...no home was without ashtrays. Even if you did not smoke, you almost always had people coming that did. I still do have a couple of ashtrays, but my friends that do smoke usually smoke outside because they know smoke really bothers us.

Then there were all the gadgets for the kitchen...I cannot even remember all the different things that came out. I think there was one for making grilled cheese. Then there was this 'thing' to do hot dogs on. The hot dogs were more or less electrocuted. I know there were others, but I am having trouble remembering them. Those were the two things that were given to me...other than them I cannot remember any of the others. I just know at one time I thought it was possible to buy a gadget geared to every job.

An accident waiting to happen....

I could not decide what I wanted to write about...actually, it was more I couldn't find what I originally wanted to write about. Then I got detoured looking at Red Green videos. I would have liked to show a video of him, but decided that he is someone that has to grow on a person....except maybe for some of his monologues.

Anyway, I will save him for another time. Instead I chose to introduce Bill Dance. He is an angler and had his own TV show at one time....I don't know if it is still on TV.


Anyway, after watching this video, you will see why I called this post ' An accident waiting to happen.' This is compilation of some of his 'accidents.' I hope you enjoy it.

From Sarah's cell phone

At first glance, you may think Lorelei is asleep, but glance at the hand against the door..it is just a blur of motion. This is taken in what we call the sun room of Sarah's house...the door goes out on to the deck...Sarah put this little throw rug there and the toot just loves to play with it. She uses it as a quilt to cover up her toys, etc. Today she was playing with Otto there.

I cannot seem to settle down into blogging at all...yet I don't do much else either. I guess I will eventually get back to normal, or at least what is normal for me.
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We just got a little bit of rain for the first time in ages. I cannot remember the last time we had rain. I think there has been a time or two when we got a few drops, but not enough to even make the pavement and sidewalks wet. So far, that is all this rain had done....just enough to get them damp. We have some patches in the yard that are turning brown.

That is typical of the summers here, though. I remember more summers where we would go a month with hardly needing to mow. I can probably count on one hand the number of summers where we have had to mow every week.

I see more leaves falling every day...
When the leaves start to turn, my mind automatically turns to the woods. And ginseng....pictured above for those of you who don't know what it is. It turns this golden glow in the fall...even before fall became the legal time to dig it, fall was the favorite time. It was easier to spot.

Usually on a Sunday, my mom and I would decide to head for the woods...sometimes just to be going, but more often it was to dig ginseng. If we were lucky, we got to go for 3 or 4 or 5 hours. I had this old black purse.....I used it as a pack. It had belonged to an older sister, was round like a log....probably about 6 inches in diameter and 12 or 15 inches long with a zipper across the top and a shoulder strap.

I didn't take it to put the ginseng in...ginseng went in our pockets. I used that old purse to carry our dinner in...a slice of home cured pork shoulder or sometimes plain old home cured bacon, cornbread, and an onion. I always carried some matches, but I don't remember if I carried them in that old purse or in something in my pocket. We would work our way back to this one creek, usually ending up there about half way through our hunt.

We would get out on a little gravel bar, I would hunt dried twigs and little limbs that I could break, and we would start a little fire. While the fire got going good and got hot, we would each hunt a small sapling or a tree to break a limb/twig from...you know how you do to cook marshmellow.... we would peel back the bark, sharpen an end, and spear our slice of meat on it. We would slowly turn it over the fire, till it was sizzling hot, and grease dripping from it. I can almost smell it now!

We would find a rock or something to sit and get comfortable on while we ate meat and onion and cornbread! Talk about delicious....there isn't anything better than that.