Estate Sales & Turkeys

We're off to the farm until Sunday evening! YEA! Hope it doesn't rain, we have a lot of work to do! it's supposed to be 81 degrees tomorrow and muggy. WOW - December and Texas weather. We'll come in for church Sunday morning of course, and then back out for the afternoon.

I went to an estate sale Thursday a.m. for a little old great grandmother who'd recently died at the ripe old age of 98. Her granddaughter was doing the sale and she had some really great prices. Usually, around here the estate sales are held by estate sales handlers and they have things marked up so high that most of us can't afford to buy anything. But this was a nice lady who wanted to sell everything at a fair price and so I didn't even feel the need to dicker with her - sort of felt like she was short-changing herself. I didn't get there until mid-morning, so I'm sure I missed some good stuff. But I did find a few bargains.

My husband loves old metal yard chairs and we have 6 and a glider. I have paid anywhere from $25 to $45 for good chairs. At this estate sale I was able to get one chair for $15 and one for $20 which I thought was great. My hubby sands them and repaints them - he's repainted them all a different bright color (my daughter thinks it looks "gay" to not have them all the same color - do I care? NO). Both our grandparents had these old chairs and it just brings back such great memories. .......... I can still remember my granddad and my daddy and my uncles all sitting under the big mimosa tree before and after mamaw and all the women cooked dinner and they'd all be leaning back in those metal chairs a little with full bellies and with their boots all propped up on the tree trunk. Like as not, they'd all be spittin' tobacco and solvin' the problems of the world - you didn't wanna walk around barefooted by the mimosa tree while they were sittin' out there! (hey-maybe that was a way to keep us kids away while they were jawing and chawing!) All the men got to eat first, then the women and us kids. Mamaw didn't have air-conditioning either, just an old water cooler in the living room. All the womenfolk would be in the kitchen cooking and sweating, but boy - could Mamaw cook! She & Papaw always raised all their own food and we had fresh vegetables and homemade everything at her house. She is my reason for doing the whole farm thing! It's in my blood.

I will pause here and go off on a tangent because I thought of a funny story about being at Mamaw's - Mamaw and Pappaw raised big white turkeys among other things. When I was about 12, my younger sister and cousin and I got into the turkey pen. It seemed to be so funny to us that if you squawked, it made all the turkeys gobble. So we were sqawking away and they were gobbling, and one thing led to another, and pretty soon we were trying to catch us a turkey. Well, then it became a game to see who could catch one first. We were all chasing and laughing and squawking and the turkeys were gobbling and freaking out and running around crazy and stirring up dirt and we were all having a ball. We had one turkey singled out like a calf and we all began chasing it. After only what seemed like a few minutes we cornered the turkey in the shed. It was flapping its wings and then, all of a sudden, it heaved and gave up the ghost and it's big ole knobby head fell over on the ground and then its body followed. IT WAS DEAD!!! We had scared the poor turkey absolutely to death! We all looked at each other and started screaming and crying. Then we ran into Mamaw's house and told her what happened. She was livid. But she never said a word. Instead, she went over to the turkey pen, and got the turkey out. Then she sat us down outside with a washtub, and told us to git busy plucking it. She finally said, "ya'll did this, and ya'll are going to get it ready to cook or put in the freezer. I'm not going to let it spoil." We were totally grossed out of course, we had to do everything to that turkey, even pull the pinfeathers out after she poured boiling water on it, and clean all the guts out. She stood over us all afternoon until we got it all done, but she never once hollered at us. Well, we never bothered the turkeys again, as you might can guess....
Anyway, back to the estate sale. I bought a vintage real wicker clothes hamper with wooden bottom and top for $5 (this thing was sturdy - you can sit on it), a nice hooked rug for $5, a piece of stained glass from an old church window (I think), and some other small items. Nothing much over $2. I felt it was money well spent. I'm getting to be rather good at looking for bargains - I've learned alot about antiques, glassware, etc., after spending this last year going to sales every single weekend. I have bought alot of "just Junk" before I knew any better (which will go into my moving/garage sale probably after Christmas) but it's been fun searching!

Gotta run - I'm through with work and if anyone reads this I hope you have an especially fun weekend getting ready for Christmas! I plan to - Vickie

More cottage photos

Good morning! I have a few more photos to show you. They are not really in any particular order. I would like to hear your ideas on what to do with this fireplace. It is not functional (sadly) , but I would like to decorate it. It's white brick, and I sanded down into the layers upon layers of old paint through the years and found that vintage greenish bluish color and left it peaking through in many places. I have an old rusted gate that I've leaned up against it. Not sure whether to leave it or put in on the wall somewhere. Those old chippy blue shutters are just laying there, too. That painting is an antique that I got at a garage sale and it's rather dark in real life. I don't know if I'm going to leave it there or not. I have two sets of wall sconces for candles that I thought I may put up there when I decide about the painting or maybe a big mirror.... Any ideas???

THis next one is in my daughter's room. It's an old vanity that a lady at a garage sale practically gave me. She had already stripped the old varnish off and all I had to do was paint it and fix up a little of the veneer on the inside. We put glass knobs on it and it looks SO CUTE! Princess is going to use it for a desk, computer, etc., as well as makeup.

Here is my garden shed that we are fixing up. It was falling down - literally - and our carpenter jacked it up and put new studs and floor into it. He's putting some doors on it and I have some old windows that I bought somewhere that he's going to hinge so that I can swing them out and catch a breeze when I'm out there. We're going to run electricity and water to it from the pumphouse for the garden area. We've still got some work to do on it, but it's gone from the leaning tower of Piza to a sturdy looking garden shed. Our lab, Jake, loves it - he's got a little hay box out there already that he sleeps in at night. My husband bought old weathered wood to replace the rotton stuff with on the outside so it'll look authentic!

We had some shelves built in the tiny bathroom for storage. The bottom I had cabinet doors put on but left the top ones open. I later found an old tablecloth with light blue cutwork on it that I used for a drape over the open top. It's held back with some old blue rhinestone earclips that belonged to the old maid cousin - she really went in for glitz and glam. I have 2 jewelry boxes of this stuff! Still working on the bedroom and things to put on the wall, but I wanted to show you all my headboard. I found a couple of pieces of old iron fencing, had my dad weld them together in the middle, and bracketed to the wall (they were so heavy we couldn't attach them to the bed). I love it and it's really different!

This is the other corner of my bedroom. See the wallhanging? I'll try to get a better photo. I bought this old screen window with shelves on it from Margo at Robolady at her barn sale. We had this awful huge electric panel on the wall and this covered it just perfectly. I put some old quilt behind it to cover the panel. Works great!

Here's just another shot of part of my living room, where you can see the curtains a little better.

In my kitchen at the end of the cabinet, there's this little rounded spot which was open on the bottom. You could put all sorts of neat things there, but I decided since space was a problem that I'd put a skirt around it and use it to store paper goods and extra boxes of soda, etc. I love the little display shelf on top, too. I've started a collection of pitchers. Didn't mean to, but it's evolved into that. See the little brown spice cabinet? Uncle Claude built that, too. I keep aspirin and stuff in it that usually you'd find in a junk drawer. It's so old that I couldn't keep spices in it - it smells really musty even after scrubbing with baking soda, etc. Oh, by the way, I got a really nice surprise yesterday - Vee from A Haven for Vee tagged me. I'm going to figure out what that means and tag some other folks. I wish I had the gift for gab and clever writing that some of you smart ladies have, but alas, I do not. I am in awe of anyone who can hold my attention with words! Talk to you later!

Country life woes

I hurried out to Sand Flat Farm this afternoon after work. My hubby found out that the power had been off in our whole area for quite awhile and I was afraid that the food in the freezer and the fridge maybe had ruined or thawed out. Been there and done that, and it ain't pleasant to clean up, let me tell you. Luckily, the power company must have gotten the electricity restored in time to save my groceries. Everything seemed fine. Maybe a little soft around the edges but OK. Whew! Guess that sort of thing just goes along with country living, huh? I still wouldn't trade it for anything!

I'll have some more photos for you tomorrow. I took some more when I was there this afternoon. I had to stand in the pasture and just stare - you know that "golden glow" that you get in the afternoon just before sundown? At least that's what us artists call it. Everthing is glowing with autumnal colors as well as the warmth from the sun, and it's breathtaking to me. I see it mostly in the fall and winter months. Hard to capture on canvas too, but I'll keep trying.

I'd like to post some of my paintings on my blog at some point. I have some of them on my computer, but the size is too big, will have to take some smaller pics. I'd like to see what you all think about my work. Have a good evening and I'll be back tomorrow. Oh, Margo is bringing me one of her cute "chandies" tomorrow! Can't wait to add it to my garden shed! Vickie

Title lost

Well, the picture is up there, but can't get the SAND FLAT FARM title on there, but this may have to do... Oh well. It's the best I can do for right now. Thanks for being patient with me. I did add a little blurb about our place over on the side above my picture, so maybe that'll help.

Friday afternoon...

Well, I lost my header and photo at the top of the page. I went to the Blog Helper and it seems to be a blog problem which they are working on. I tried to put it back on there, but to no avail.

I really just wanted to say that I'm off to the farmhouse this evening for the weekend and hopefully will get lots of work done. I hope it decides not to rain, but it's not looking very good right now at least for Sunday.

Thanks to Vee and Tina and Margo who made my day by being the first few ladies to look at my novice blog! Have a great weekend! Vickie