Junkin'

Bruce's father, Leo, was a packrat, and I still find treasures in out buildings. Following in his footsteps, I have squirreled a lot of the treasures away and saved more from the iron pile with grandiose ideas of converting them to something even more wonderful, with help from Pinterest and Instructables. Cleaning out Leo's shop, so we could get some use out of it, and cleaning out Bruce's shop so he could get some use out of, unearthed more. I have drug stuff home and filled our buildings until we can't even use them and the overflow has found it's way into Bruce big machine shed and I knew something had to give.

It's a SICKNESS I tell you!!

As I have grown older, I've lost the desire to convert these items, instead I was feeling the urge to purge. There is a great little 'junk' shop at Alton, just a short 1/2 hour drive and she put on a Junk Roundup last Saturday. I talked to Becky and Kim and asked if they would be up for a booth, they were and we reserved two spaces. They came on Friday and helped me load our livestock trailer, that is when you know who your friends are! What a hot, dirty job, I think it took us three hours but that trailer was bursting at the seams. As time went on, I was questioning taking things but Kim would always say, "Put it in!" Kim brought a pickup load for the trailer and Becky was going to haul her own, we agreed to meet at 6 AM on the mainstreet of Alton.

Do you know the sun has not even thought of coming up at 6 AM? It was a shock to me. We had the prime spot as we had an alley to park the trailer so we could leave multiples, yes, there were multiples, in and just replenish our stock. Unloading was much faster than loading and by 7 we were busy pricing and people were already showing up to shop even though it was advertised from 9-5. One guy even had the nerve to try to get us to lower the price before the masses even arrived.

Kim set him straight, you don't want to mess with a veteran flea marketer, this wasn't her first rodeo.

The dynamic duo showing some love under the pop-up, brought along for either rain or shine and we had a little of both.

Our booth stretched from the red and blue chairs....

.....past the 'coffins'.....

(Becky brought these huge styrofoam coolers that once held flowers and tried to convince people to buy them for Halloween. We had a couple of little boys talked into dressing up like a corpse and lay in one and then sit up and scare people, but their mother nixed the idea.)

Spoil sports.

This was the far east side of our booths, we not only had a prime spot for the trailer, we were right by the Pink Potties! We were the envy of the flea market crowd.

A few hours later, after robust sales, this is our much diminished inventory.

And later still, even more depleted, we had to lower the pop up because of wind gusts and Becky had to keep retrieving her coffins.

It was an AMAZING DAY! It took no time at all to pack what little we had left, it was an outstanding success for that small town, especially for the very first one. They are already planning the second annual Alton Junk Roundup and we know we will go again. I spent all afternoon cleaning out the garden shed and cataloging treasures that slipped by this year that I will take next year. When I got done I had room to move some of my overflow from the machine shed into the garden shed. It was a happy day! The best part was, when I counted my money, I'm well on my way to buying that camera lens that will show a pimple on the hiney of a gnat.

Back at home, Bruce was combining beans! He started Friday afternoon and they tested 13%, by Saturday, even after a fierce thunderstorm the night before, they were down to 12%, they needed to be out of the field. Also by Saturday morning, the farmer network was all a buzz with the information. You can't keep anything from those farmers. 

Bruce wanted help guiding the combine through this gate.....

.....it's a tight fit....

....about 3 inches to spare on each side. We won't be getting a bigger head anytime soon.

And he smiles....

I followed him home and he had to slow up to cross the bridge, not everyone does and some have found out by 'accident' that it's not very wide. I was out in the yard one night and saw a big tractor and disc going down the road at a pretty good clip and he wasn't slowing down. Then I heard, "CRASH!" He spent quite awhile extricating his equipment from the bridge railing and left some paint on it. I think he drove around our road after that.

A pit stop in the yard for maintenance, some greasing, oiling and chatting with neighbor, Jay.

Then through the farm yard and down the lane to another field, when Bruce kicked the combine in gear to try the beans, I had to quickly back off or be pelted by bean stubble and it hurts!

The corn is drying down nicely, the ears start to stick straight out and husks pull back.

"Pick ME!"

"NO, PICK ME!!"

After combining a few rows, Bruce tests these beans and found, to his dismay, they were 22% moisture. Way too wet to combine.

So he had no choice but to return to the house and watch football all afternoon.

It's a tough job but someone had to do it.