Down on the farm...

 

This is my brother and SIL's house where I stayed while visiting my hometown. 

 

Paul has a lot of Amish friends and one of them is keeping 3 horses in his field.

These aren't really work horses, these are their buggy horses.

He has a huge garage as you can see.  Mr. Bird Nest would die to have that much space for a workshop.

 

He bought the materials for his new roof and his Amish friends put it on.  They said he had helped them all so much, they wanted to do it for him.  How nice is that?

My SIL LuAnn made these for Chloe and Lauren.  Aren't they adorable?  LuAnn is head of the math department at the high school I graduated from.

 

LuAnn gave me this Longaberger basket bird house which I love.

 

She also gave me this purse from Coldwater Creek.

 

She also gave me this little bird bath hook.  I can't decide where to put it.

Best of all my brother found these milk bottles from my grandfather's dairy for my boys.  They haven't even seen them yet. 

As you can see my brother and SIL are kind, generous, wonderful people.  I felt like I arrived in time for Christmas.  Now I have to come up with thank you gifts.  I've already figured one out for Paul and now I have to find one for LuAnn.

Thanks for reading,

Gretchen

A Pennsylvania Country Auction...

Mr. Bird Nest and I never stay together when we go to visit our
hometown.  His parents miss him so much and my family and friends
expect me to try to spend time with them, so we split up.  I always
plan at least one dinner with my husband and his parents though.

We arrived at my mother and father-in-laws house about noon on Saturday.  I dropped Mr. Bird Nest off and said I had heard about a big auction and I was on my way there.  We left our hotel at about 6:00 a.m. to get there as early as we did.

Quick kisses and hugs for them and I was off.  I did drop all my luggage at my brother and sister-in-laws house and took off.  The auction started at 9:00 a.m. and I got there about 1:30 p.m.

You can see from the pictures, it was a typical fall auction day in PA with lots of early rain.  It was a muddy mess but it didn't hamper the auction goers. 

Idiot that I am, I passed up a big box a Meakin ironstone china that sold for $5.00.  Yes, I'm still kicking myself.  I could barely tell what the auctioneer was saying and I was lucky I didn't end up with something awful.

This tent was full but most everything was boxed and out in the open.  This should have been a 3 day sale they had so many goodies.  There were about 4 or 5 outbuildings filled with antiques.  The entire house was packed to the brim with furniture.  We drove the BMW to PA instead of our truck, so I had to be selective the entire time about what I could fit in the car for the trip home.

This hill on the flat part was filled with boxes of antiques.  Oh, in case I didn't mention these people had an antique shop for years and years.

 

Look at all the chairs in front of those trucks.  That was just a few that they sold.

Here was more stuff on this hill.  I didn't even go in the house.  I have to admit it was muddy and slippery and I was a little scared I'd fall with my new knee or maybe the old one.

I found out later my best friend all through elementary and high school was there in the morning.  (You'll hear more about her in one of my future blogs.) She buys and sells jewelry, along with being the Assistant Business Manager for the school district we went to school in.  She spent $1200 that morning on jewelry.  One of the boxes she bought (that the auctioneer said was costume jewelry) had a diamond ring with a 1/4 carat center stone and smaller diamonds surrounding it.  

 

I met my brother at the auction and we stayed for a while and then decided we would hit the antique shops in the nearby town.  I'm a Southern girl now and it was too cold and damp for me.

I found this cute little dog to go with my collection. 

I also got this tea leaf ironstone pitcher.  I don't think it's old but I liked it and it's one of those things that if the grandchildren break it, it's no big deal.

Thanks for reading,

Gretchen

We're back from visiting our families in Pennsylvania...

This is what the car looked like when we backed in our driveway. 

You can see we just barely had room for everything but it all fit.

We had to move one suitcase from the trunk to the back seat for the return trip.

 

Look how jammed the trunk was.  Suitcase, laptop, Longaberger basket, boots and barn boards.

The stack of barn wood and the standing boards were all in the BMW.  They are for projects my son Rick and I will be working on. 

We probably looked like the Beverly Hillbillies traveling to South Carolina.

More tomorrow about some of the treasures I found while antiquing with my handsome brother.

Thanks for reading,

Gretchen