Sunday Road Trip

71°f/about 21°C, overcast. Rainshowers off and on all day, bit of thunder here and there. Finally the humidity has lessened this evening.

Part of a mural by the late Charles "Jupiter" Hamilton, in Charleston,  WV. 

Sunday promised to be another hot day. We were discussing what to do inside while scrolling through our phones, and I saw these two items for sale on Facebook Marketplace. 

   

The lovely sideboard was only $40!

Then there was this:

I have never seen a porcelain-top table ymthat had a red top! I thought it had ben psinted, but the seller said no, it was the original porcelain (or what some call enamel) top. For $50? Yes. 

So just like that our plans were made and we were off to Charleston.  

The sideboard was a bit of a job to load, as there was no one to help, so we had to carry it up a little bank ourselves. Fortunately it is mahogany so not terribly heavy.

When we got to the home of the second seller, I found my canning twin! This lady, whose name was Connie, took us to her garage where the table was located, and which was also her canning kitchen. Shelves full of her canned foods lined the shelves. She had a huge apple butter kettle as well as a smaller one, and just as many extra canners as I have (because you never know...).

Connie called her son to help load, and I was glad to see that strong young man because these tables are not light. We noticed this cool antique wagon in front of her house. She is trying to sell it so if you know someone who might be interested, I can get them in touch with her. I think it's a steal at $300.

By this time we were both hungry, so started looking for a place for late lunch/early dinner. We ended up at an Italian restaurant in had heard good things about, Sergio's in west side Charleston,  an area now being called by its old name, Elk City, named for the Elk River which flows into the Kanawha River at that point. The area used to be pretty rundown but there are good efforts underway to revive its once bustling shopping area.

The restaurant: I was disappointed in the ambience---lots of noise from the open kitchen, big cooling equipment and exhaust fans running, and it was overly warm. But we were tired so we went ahead and ordered.  The server was great, but my white wine 

was warm, another disappointment.  The food, however was delicious.  

I doubt we will ever go back, since it really wasn't that pleasant to be there. Ah well. There is a meadery across the street, so maybe we will check that out one day.

More of the mural.

Jupiter Hamilton was an imaginative, creative artist, and it was a sad loss to Charleston's art community when he passed away.

So that was our Sunday. Today I planted some lilies i bought marked down, did more weeding in my big flowerbed,  helped Larry put up the last panel of picket fence which the falling tree destroyed last December, then came inside to paint a small table and sand and paint a cute little five-drawer chest. 

Derek came over and helped Larry get the tractor out of the building so the repair guy can load it easily, sometime this week. It will be good to finally get it repaired. They took our truck to a friend to see if he can fix the problem with getting gas into the gas tank (as in, gas won't go in!). That's been an ongoing issue for months as Larry tried one thing after another to fix it m. Fingers crossed that our friend can figure it out!

This evening I wandered out to the veggie garden, pulled a few weeds, and picked (way too many) squash. 

Such is our exciting life these days.

Linking up to Sami's Colourful World today.

Royal Visitors

72°f/22°C, some clouds but mostly sunny. Possible storms later today.

As i was watering this morning, I happened to see this visitor. 

Pretty exciting, as we have not sen them in summer before, although we did get some migrators passing through. But we have encouraged milkweed on our place, and apparently Brazilian Verbena is very attractive to Monarch butterflies because that is where I saw this one. He was sure busy on those flowers before resting in an apple tree. Actually, it seems all butterflies like the verbena, as it has constant visitors.

I saw a Monarch earlier this week but didn't get a photo. It too was on the Brazilian Verbena. I have had this flower in my gardens for at least 20 years. It's very tall and spicy, kinda messy actually as it self- seeds everywhere. It would be great if I could confine it to the backs of my gardens but it  doesn't stay there, and I don't have the heart to pull it up.  But this is the first year I have seen the monarchs on it, so I am very pleased.  Guess I will continue to let it grow where it will!

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Quiet Days

72f/22C at 7am, but less humid than it has been for the last few weeks.

A little bouquet of odds and ends.

We were in the garden early again, tying up tomatoes, pulling a few weeds, but mostly picking what was ready---cucumbers,  squash,  and cherry tomatoes. It was nice to work without sweat dripping in our eyes for a change.

It's been a quiet couple of days here. Yesterday we caught up on some housework and took apart the satellite dish to return the required parts to our old satellite company. I spent a while on the phone with T-Mobile, discussing our bill which was a lot higher than we were told. It took insisting on my part, but we were refunded $82 and have a firm cost now for our service. It is still more than I had expected but phone insurance through them is high, and Larry already cracked the screen on his so the insurance is necessary. As soon as we get his repaired, we will get insurance through USAA for about a fourth of what T-Mobile charges.

These glads fell over in the heavy rain Wednesday evening. I added a bit od crocosmia too.

I learned a lesson in all this: to get a written, firm price before signing anything! The whole experience of getting this switch made was tedious and stressful. T-Mobile lures people in with their $50 phone service and $50 internet---but the second phone is also $50, so with all the fees, taxes, etc, service for 2 phones cost about the same as AT&T.  Where we are saving is the internet, which we were paying $130 a month for. So that's good, and it is much faster than our old satellite.

We spent a lot of time trying to salvage a cabinet we should never have bought, one of those "oh that won't be hard to fix" things. Well, it was a lot worse off than we thought, and after hours of trying to get the d#$% thing to sit level, we have given up. We will paint it, take the doors off, and use it as a display piece since it is unlikely to sell as it is. I guess $40 for a display shelf isn't so bad, but i swear I think the thing is cursed!

I guess it sounds like it wasn't a good day, but it really was. We just took things as they came, spent time on the porch and watched Miss Marple in the evening. Oh, and Larry got his backup riding mower running so he is happy as a clam about that. And I got the laundry caught up, so that was good too.

Today was another slow day. After garden work we went to town to ship off the satellite (at the library because that's the only place in our county we can take UPS stuff), then treated ourselves to breakfast at our favorite place and ran a few other errands. We were invited to a party tonight, but neither of us wanted to go. Are we getting too old for parties? No, it's just too hot to enjoy a cookout and fireworks.  Aren't we softies! Now I am off 

to cut back more iris. Maybe I will be done by the end of the month.

And to quote Garrison Keillor, that's all the news that isn't from around here. 

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.