Bike ride!

I went for that bike ride mentioned in the last post. I took gazillions of pictures, hoping to find something to use for a drawing. I tried to get some close-ups of plants to try with my new colored pencils. Here's a sampling...

Heading west.

 

 

 

We used to have a nice old wooden railroad bridge. But, alas, somebody thought it was dangerous, so it was replaced by this monstrosity.

Pistachio waits patiently.

If I stand on my tiptoes I still can't get my nose over the top. Bob and I used to rest our elbows on the top rail of the old bridge and enjoy the beautiful view. Not possible now. (But NOBODY's gonna fall off this bridge!)

I love this pretty spot by the bridge.

This was my first scribbled attempt with my pencils. Would you believe out of the two sets of pencils there was only one grey?

If I'm smart I'll go to bed soon. It's getting dark, 9:26 p.m. and I have to get up at 5. I sure enjoyed my first long journey on Pistachio! One and a half miles out and the same distance back. And uphill both ways! :D

Good-night and peace to all.

Look what I just got!!!

Can't WAIT to play with them on my new pad of Bristol paper! I'm also told they work well on book pages.

I bought these a week or so ago and then found out from The Frugal Crafter that she doesn't recommend these because they are a harder "lead". That's when I ordered the set at the top of the page. I'm sure they will be terrific when used together. Now I just have to settle down and try them! :)

Woo hoo!

Shalom for now. Going to play and maybe take a bike ride.

Another glorious garage sale day!

Micah brought more stuff for the garage sale, so our inventory is still quite impressive even after a busy day like yesterday.

See the big bird in front of the tractor? It's a vulture! You don't see too many of them around here. I think they're probably common, but very wary of people. My daughter drove up to the house and he flew away. What a wingspan! I was curious about what he was eating out there in the pasture, so we took a walk down there. It was a little fox that had been killed or died there for some reason. Makes you wonder. It was such a small, dainty animal. Maybe female? Nature is interesting in all its facets. No, I didn't take a picture! Yuck!

I'm working on mowing the lawn a little at a time today. The interesting part will be putting everything away this afternoon! Come on people; BUY STUFF! :)

Have a great day!

Shalom.

Junque and clutter sale!

I had planned to wait until tomorrow to have my sale, but the sun came out and I decided to go for it!
I quickly carried boxes full of junque/clutter outside and arranged it on a tarp. (The ground is damp from yesterday's rain.)

I just got inundated with garage salers! I've had about 10 vehicles and one guy on foot in the last couple of hours. They started almost immediately after I posted some signs. Wow!

This cute little washtub went for $5. I know...I'm getting jipped, but I'd rather that someone took them and enjoyed them than having to get rid of them some other way. One of the scrub boards and four horse shoes, plus a ceramic Christmas decoration went for $10.

Whoops! Here's another customer! I'm sitting at the dining room table blogging and keeping an eye out the sliding door. Works great!

They bought a vintage letter holder and an old grain scoop for the whopping sum of $5.10. The 10 cents was for a little jar with an antique lid.

A young mother-to-be and two fellows bought 2 iron wheels and a ladder. Another young family bought a snow scoop and the little girl shyly asked about the rabbit watering bottles. I gave them to her. (There goes my profit!)

One lady bought a tractor seat, 3 milk cans, 2 gallon jar butter churns and 3 large iron wagon wheels. I won't tell you how much. Jipped once again. But she said they would go to a good home and Bob was friends with the people she works with. So why not?

I'm also trying to sell Jordan's collection of old video game systems. He said he'll never get around to taking them all the way to Texas. :)

My first customer of the day was a little girl from across the street. She came along with her two yellow labs. I heard a clattering noise outside and when I went to check I realized the noise was caused by one of the labs walking through a box of dishes. I managed to gently ask her to please take the doggies home. She returned later with a lady of about my age and they purchased a couple of items. I was glad to see she wasn't offended and the dogs were left home. The little girl bought a gallon Ziploc bag of colored pencils for $1. (I just bought some new ones and realized I had TOO many! Glad she'll enjoy them!) The lady lives nearby and is the little girl's Kinship partner. Kind of like the Big Sister/Big Brother program. She bought a mirror for $2 and was so thrilled with it. It had been sitting in my closet for a few years, so I was glad it finally found it's mate! :)

Finally, time for lunch! (It's 2:00!)

 

I'll have a slice of this lusciously moist Bundt cake later!

 

 

So many interesting folks stopping by. At present (not very accurate) count there have been 13 vehicles and one guy on foot. The last man who came was about my age, shoulder length silver hair and trimmed beard. Baseball cap and T-shirt tucked into his jeans. He just looked like my idea of a veteran. He stayed about 30 minutes and was very talkative while he carefully looked through all of the old rusty stuff. He bought a few small items and visited a lot. Glenn, something about his manner reminded me of Jeff. Nice guy. There have been lots of older folks poking about. This has been a lot of fun! It was supposed to rain today, but it's turned into a glorious day for a yard sale!

Tomorrow Micah will probably join me and bring some of her own stuff to sell. That should be even more fun!

I'll update this if anything truly amazing happens. Otherwise, have a great weekend, everyone!

Update! Something truly amazing happened! Four bike riders pulled in to look at stuff. One of the girls just had to have a big old cooking pot, so she strapped it on the back of her bike and we all had to tease her about riding 11 miles back to Park Rapids with that funny looking pot on the back of her bike. :)

And then there was JERRY! This weather-beaten little man came rolling in and proceeded to stay for about 3 hours. Well, he did leave for a while and then came back. He bought so many things! Antlers, a milk can, a pulley, a pressure canner. Then he left to call a lady to see if she wanted to buy a saddle from me. He returned and bought 3 saddles, 3 lamps, an old welder, a sawhorse, 3 tractor seats and a few other small items. He may come back another day to wheel and deal on some of the old farm machinery in the pasture. Oh, and he left his number because besides being a flea marketer, he also repairs mobile homes. He was quite a character! (Daughter Micah stayed around until he was gone, just to be proper.) He was spinning yarns the whole time and, I have to admit, I was getting a little tired of standing around. But he did spend a lot of money, so I won't complain! :) Oh, he also gave me two large tomato plants. I've already planted them in my garden!

I've taken down my signs and tomorrow, if the weather holds, I'll put them back up and we'll do it again. Whew!

Shalom and good-night.

Pistachio!

That was the word that appeared in the online ad for my new bike. I think it describes the color, but I thought it was also a good name, now that I've joined the tradition of naming my mechanical friends.

I know. My bike is inside the house. Well, it was raining outside and I wanted to have it inside where I could look it over. I need to find a wrench to adjust the seat, then I'll go for a test run. Maybe tomorrow, if the weather cooperates.

 

Well, I'm tired after an early shift at work, but I wanted to introduce my new bike. (This isn't actually the same bike I saw in the ad. That was a Huffy; mine is a Schwinn. How do you like the rack on the back? A nice place to strap my schoolbooks. Ha!)

 

Blessings on your evening.

May your house be filled with God's shalom. :)

Wow! What a week!

I've been a little quiet lately. But it's all good! My step-son, Bob, came up from Colorado to start doing some clean up on my little Minnesota farm. Since husband Bob passed away six months ago we've been planning how the kids could help me to remove all the old vehicles and lots of old fences and buildings that weren't in very good condition. It is a gargantuan task and son Bob has done an amazing job for just six days of work! (Warning: The following journey through our junk may not interest many of you, but I thought my dad Glenn would enjoy seeing what we're up to here!) :)

Last Friday Bob showed up to begin work. He hung his hat at a local motel, rented a dump trailer and son-in-law Adam's dad gave him the use of his Bobcat. He also rented a construction dumpster which he and other helpers packed to the brim with all manner of stuff.

Missy came on Friday evening and stayed through Sunday to help. Her boyfriend Shane also helped on Sunday. What a blessing they are!

Missy and Bob tackle an old fence. Missy and Shane went around the property and removed many old wood posts like this one and filled in the holes. The fencing went on the scrap metal heap as well as the swing set in the background.

The steel posts were saved for Micah and Adam who still have some land to fence. The wood posts went in a pile that can be cut up for Micah and Adam to burn in their woodstove.

This stack of old cattle panel and dog kennel was the first thing to leave the place. One of Bob's friends actually paid for it!

 

Bob owns his own construction company in Colorado. There's his workin' truck.

The scrap metal pile. I mean, these folks worked hard! I have to say, I got up at 6 a.m. on Sunday morning (the only day I had off during this time) and spent 3 hours going through a pile of junk to pick out sellable items. Then when the kids arrived we could pretty much throw everything that was left. So, I DID do SOMETHING.

 

This is actually a picture of something that ISN'T there. Shane and Bob removed my rickety old deck. It will be replaced by something new in the future. It was a real safety hazard.

 

That's the deck you see cut into small pieces and stacked in the background.

Bob, filling the dumpster.

My trailer. Every farm lady needs a trailer. I decided to hang onto this one. Adam can use it to haul hay if he needs to.

This is a small part of our old vehicle graveyard. While I was at work today the scrappers came and hauled them all away. Except for the Fleetline in the middle of the picture. Bob rented a car hauler and is taking that back to Colorado where he thinks he can sell it for a good price. Things just don't sell well here. They didn't take the old semi trailer. We're still trying to figure out how to get rid of that. Burn it? That's a possibility.

 

When I came home from work on Monday I found that Bob had finished up my back porch. It's now very sturdy. He's the first to admit it isn't beautiful; he was just finishing up what husband Bob started. It serves the purpose!

I also found this! I didn't own any lawnmowers that actually worked, so Bob purchased this little number for me. This is all part of the "Let's take care of Mama" project that my kids have been involved in since day one. Their dad would be so proud to see them taking such good care of me!

The skirting blocks on the north end of my house are now insulated, an access door has been added and ventilation covers put where they're needed. No more skunks or cats under the house!

 

 

A middle rail was added to the landing on the ramp to keep Hazel from racing off the end!

 

 

 

One reason for all of this clean up is so I can apply to USDA for a loan so I can stay on the farm. I think I have a good chance of getting one. God is blessing me in so many ways. I think I will soon be able to stand on my own two feet and my kids will get a little breather.

 

This pair of JD's has been adopted by Adam and Doug (his dad). Neither is running quite right, but they enjoy tinkering, and I think Bob would be delighted at the idea that they stayed in the family.

I still have a bunch of antique farm equipment hiding at the back of the property. I will try to sell them one at a time online.

There will be another clean up effort later in the summer. In the meantime, I'll try to have a couple of "junque" sales to clear out some of this stuff...

JUNQUE!

 

I spent about an hour this evening with Millie the lawnmower. I got quite a bit done on the yard. I won't try to mow the entire lawn. I'll carve out a smaller version and Adam said he'll come over and do the rest with a rider.

 

Ah, summer is finally here! I have to drive to Fargo tomorrow to do some errands so Micah and the girls will come along with me to make it a girls day out. We plan to eat out and shop for some summer clothes for the kiddos. I may look at some bikes at Walmart, though I won't buy one there. I think they have the one I want at my local store, but I still have to figure out how to get it home. Ride it? Ten miles is a long way when your bike riding muscles aren't in shape!

I want a "Cruiser": one speed, wide seat, upright posture. An old lady bike, in other words, lol!

 

Enough of my yacking for now. Have a great evening!

Shalom.



Hello sunshine!

Yay! After several drizzly days the sun has appeared!

Before even eating breakfast this morning, I decided that my morning glory seeds had to be planted outside. I had sprouted them in water, and I hope I didn't drown them!

My little garden patch is looking rather unkept at the moment, but I'm going to work on it a little at a time. The two fence posts you see leaning against the cream separator will be used to hold up a short piece of  fence which will support the tomatoes and peas. That will be on the north side of the garden, to the left of the photo. By the milk can.

The rest of my seedlings are begging to be planted as well. I have to work today, but tomorrow I may get to this. I'd like to get these in before I have company for several days, beginning on Friday. My son, Bob, and daughter, Missy, are coming to help with cleaning up the old cars and stuff that Bob stockpiled over the years. Hopefully, we'll make good progress, though I'm working many of the days. I'll try to help in the evenings.

 

These crowded little plants are foxglove. I suppose I need to thin them a lot. Maybe snip some of them off?

 

More seeds waiting to be placed in fertile soil...

The trees have just started leafing out.

 

I planted the morning glory seeds next to the wagon wheels so they will have something to climb. I also added some sunflower seeds close to the upright posts.

 

I added more sunflowers here by the base of the cream separator. The old garden fork is just a decoration. It has lived a full life and is now retired. :)

 

Remember that place in Pride and Prejudice where Mr. Darcy's wealthy old aunt described Lizzy's garden as a "pretty little wilderness"? That's my yard! This grass was sparkling with morning dew, but you probably can't see it. Cheap camera.

 

I'm hoping we'll get my lawnmower running this weekend and I'll mow the yard...also a little at a time.

 Morning sunshine!

 

A little breakfast.

I have to be to work by noon, but I have a couple of hours to meditate on this beautiful day! Hope you all have a great day, too.

Shalom, friends.