Auctions: A Favorite Saturday Pasttime

(This is a reprint from my 1976 column "On the Farm" which I wrote for the Fostoria Reveiw-Times)

 

Auctions:  A favorite Saturday Pastime 1976

            While wiping the kitchen windowsill the other day, I had to remove nine thousand tiny articles of miscellany that I had discovered in a box of goodies at an auction.  In fact almost every flat surface in the house is filled with objects collected from my favorite Saturday pastime, the country auction.

            Country auctions are an entertaining form of recreation for rural folk, and I, for one, thrive on them.  Every good capitalist loves the idea of a bargain and many people furnish their homes and properties with paraphernalia ranging from dining suites to wagon wheels.

            The most lucrative auction, for buy, seller and auctioneer, is the estate auction.  They seem to follow an established pattern that every attendee is familiar with.  First, you plan your departure time to arrive a good thirty minutes before they begin the auction.  This will give you time to register for your bid number and examine the goods.

            Now every aficionado will want to look, as will the experienced, knowledgeable connoisseur, and I am no exception (more in the first group than the second).  I carefully scrutinize each item of interest, remembering to gaze at the underside of each piece of china or glassware to check for origin, seek the copyright date in any publication, peek under furniture for identification, and thoroughly regard each item in a box of miscellany, deciding as I go along what my top bid will be.  Hah!  What I know about antiques you could place in a thimble (antique or modern one!), but I sure don’t want anybody to think I’m a greenhorn.  Of course, while checking anything out, I’m careful to keep my mouth shut.  If it’s possibly a good find, the fewer who know, the better, or more likely, I don’t want to get caught with my foot in my mouth by uttering something asinine.

            When the bidding starts, it is imperative to remain as close to the auctioneer as possible.  If I don’t, like as not, I’ll strike up a conversation with someone and miss out on a good piece of depression for fifty cents or a paperweight for a dollar.  I’m also very careful about making a move of any sort.  Once I winked at my husband across the crowd and found I’d bought a box of junk for a half dollar; worse yet, the guy standing next to my husband winked back!

            I’m often amazed at the lengths (in dollars) people will go to obtain a given item.  My friend and I marveled at a woman who paid $13 for a set of glasses depicting the men on the moon (certainly not antique), but she may have laughed at me for paying five dollars for a small kerosene lamp (I just thought it was pretty).

            Some items of current interest are sure to bring top dollar.  I never count on picking up a quilt or china cabinet or even an old (not too old though) bedroom outfit.  My best bargain was a fifty cent purchase including a fairly decent sideboard, a fixable library table, a too-far-gone drop leaf table and all the junk that’s  still on my windowsill.  (The sideboard now dominates the foyer, holding two old jars and my Wandering Jew plant.)

            When I attend an auction, I go with the idea that I’ll only spend money if I see something we need (right now it’s twin beds for our sons, as our three-year-old is still in the crib and the five-year-old is sleeping in the bed his daddy slept in as a boy).  Naturally I get carried away and squander several dollars on items of use but certainly not necessary this minute.

            Two weeks ago, Jim asked me to check out a corn sheller advertised as to be sold; well, when the farm implements started going, I paid close attention to the auctioneer as I didn’t know what a sheller was.  When he called a particular item a sheller, I bid and won it for three-fifth.  He later called something else a sheller and I was confused.  I began bidding, stopped and asked if that “the thing I just bought was a sheller,” causing much merriment to the farmers.  As it turned out I came home with a grinder that is so rusty the turning parts are frozen.  Jim says it will make a nice planter.

Pets Survive Family Vacation

[This blog is a reprinting of a humor column I wrote for the Fostoria Review-Times.  This was from 1978.]

                No one appreciates a camping vacation, including swimming, sunbathing and water skiing, more than me, but it’s wonderful to get back and see that everything survived my absence.

                I don’t mean the houseplants or the garden – I’m talking about my much-loved pets and other creatures.

                Each time during the week that the animals came to mind, I deliberately pushed away the thoughts.  After all, if I trust my babysitter with my kids, I shouldn’t fret about the animals as piled into the car for the homeward journey, my mind became more and more occupied with home.

                Was there a thunderstorm to frighten Candy, the house dog?  Did Oscar bite the hand that fed him?  Did puppy Shadow run away or did Lightning kitty tear up the upholstery?  Maybe we lost some hens when the henhouse door got opened.  Perhaps Jake or Blackie got loose or cut themselves while we were enjoying ourselves in the boat.

                The sight of our house and buildings all intact were heartening.  And then there were three dogs, tails working furiously.  I was the first one out of the car unchaining the dogs and greeting them.  Each dog checked us all out, making sure all five of us were back.  Then I trekked into the house to pick up Lightning and listen to her reassuring purr.

                Next I went out with my egg basket – back to the daily grind – and counted the hens as best I could.  No great welcome from the girls.

                But Blackie, our pony, trotted right up to greet me.  I had to walk over to our horse Jake, who was too buisy eating to be bothered with a hello.

                Now things were back to normal.  The dogs were in and out of the house as often as the door was opened.  The horses trotted over to the fence to meet me when I went to pick beans near them.  Candy barked at the washing machines when it was s pinning.  All three dogs settled in the nearest shade to watch me garden.  The chickens could be heard squawking in the coop as they went about their business and Lightning dashed through the back door to enjoy the sunshine.

                Surveying the premises, we found only two things amiss.  Jim had forgotten to empty a new bag of grain in the feed barrel so the horses didn’t get thweir ration.  And the horses had been playing shove down the fence between the stalls,” and almost did.  It needs repair.

                It seems so hard to get away when you have a menagerie to care for.  We don’t often travel very far or long.  We really enjoyed our vacation; now all we need is to find a campground that allows dogs, horses, cats and chickens,

                Wouldn’t that be ideal?

Racing to Keep Up With Garden!

                The season is quickly becoming a frantic race against time for the home canner and freezer, and that’s the category I joined since we moved to the country.

                If I let the garden go to clean house, the weeds have a field day, and the food rots on the plants.  So I tend to let the house go; now I can’t yell, “Close the door, were you born in a barn?” to the kids because the house looks it.

                I can’t remember the last time I took down cobwebs, and my kitchen cupboards are in a dizzy state.  I barely manage to keep up with dusting and vacuuming and the laundry piles up faster than I the spin dry on the washer.  I must keep pace with some things, like dishes, animals, and bathroom cleaning (also newspaper writing), but the garden comes second.

                It’s wonderful that we got a new freezer this year, but it’s rather unfortunate that Jim hasn’t installed a plug for it in the basement yet.  I’ve frozen 17 quarts of vegetables and fruit now.  With a turkey and a large container of ice cream, not to mention several cans of orange juice and the week’s bread ration, the freezer above the refrigerator is bursting at the seam.  Electrical work is way out of my line, so itr must wait until my live-in handyman can get around to it.

                I can’t complain that Jim was remiss in his household duties as the last few weeks have been hectic.  Besides the ever-ripening variety of produce, we’ve survived a wedding, vacation, moving Grandma from her house to Mom and Dad’s, and a seven day workweek for Jim.

                The other day two of my sisters (I have four) came to help in the garden.  We managed to fill our old trailer full of weeds and cleaned up a great bit of garden.  I pressed all the day’s pickings on them as I couldn’t put them anywhere anyway.  I tried to talk them into tackling the house next, but they declined.

                You’d think that if the freezer were operating, my troubles would be over.  No,’ I’ll always have something to complain about.  The beans.  I hate cleaning beans (but love eating them) more than anything.

                Since food preserving is not in Jim’s line, it’s me that has to cut off the tips and snap millions of the nasty things.  I you rub them the wrong way, it makes your teeth itch.  If you try to start blanching them too soon, you get behind on cleaning them.  It is a necessary evil though, if we want to eat this winter.

                I think I’ll just start some trouble tonight.  When Jim is ready for dinner, I’ll just refuse to serve it until my freezer is plugged in.  Maybe I’d better think of something different though:  he’s bigger than I am and even more stubborn too.  I might never have my freezer.

                Maybe I’ll try one of my infrequent (and not always successful) pleas in exchange for a working freezer?