This and That: A Blog

Giving you a break this week from the ephemera!  Here are some items found a various spots around town. Japanese earthenware from 1955-1965 from St. Vincent de Paul.  Not a big bargain at $5.  (So much glare from the windows...) A cast concrete froggy who looks like he's enrapturedly praying to his froggy god (or he sees his beloved passing by).   He's from the Goodwill Bins. Salt cellar with cobalt blue glass insert and period-appropriate spoon (not original to the cellar) from St. Vincent de Paul for $4.  The garland motif, ball feet, and openwork design were popular around 1880-1910.  The liner is possibly German or Austrian.  Its deep blue protected the silver from corrosion caused by the salt.  The spoon is marked “850 S" which is Continental silver, 85% silver.  Sterling silver is 92.5% and marked 925. The spoon is also most likely German or Austrian from the same date period.   The frame is not marked, it might be s...

Let's start the week off with some love in the form of sidewalk chalk art at the splashpad.      A short garden update.  In case you haven't noticed, there aren't as many posts about gardening as there used to be.  That's because I'm doing less.  The far back had been the vegetable raised bed, now I just have four container tomatoes and a container full of bush beans, near the house.  With the hotter summers, often with wildfire smoke, I just got tired of tending them, dragging the hose out, setting the sprinklers.  Let's be honest, some of the tiredness is due to aging!  And while 2023 was a while back, I had COVID that spring and the garden was neglected badly, and weeds took over a lot of spaces.  So... Here are the tomatoes, which are doing well.  Other than the Pantano Romanesco which is having trouble with bottom end rot.  It gets the same care from me, and the same sun, as the others.  Pantano Romanesco Golden King ...

 Children's Stories is the theme this week for Sunday Stamps .  Russia 1992  Characters from Children's Books  set.  Dunno  or Know-Nothing, is the main character in a trilogy of children's stories and movie adaptations. According to the stories, the characters live in Flower Town and are the size of " medium cucumbers ."  Dunno is quite intelligent, however, or perhaps because of that, gets into a lot of trouble. Buratino , from The Golden Key , by Tolstoy. Buratino is a wooden puppet based on Pinocchio.  Tolstoy, while in exile, edited the Russian translation of Pinocchio, and later published his own reimagined version. Cipollino (Little Onion) and Signor Tomato from The Tales of Cipollino,  renamed  The Adventures of Cipollino , an Italian children's story about political oppression (bedtime story for the ages?). Cipollino was so popular in Russia it was turned into a ballet. Karlsson and friend Svante "Lillebror" Svanteson   fr...

 

  Thursday Postcard Hunt for this week is Architecture: Stations  Car Station, Swan Point, Providence, Rhode Island, USA postcard c.1908-1915   A car station was a trolley depot or streetcar shelter. The theater and tramway station in Laon, France  postcard c.1910-1914  The railway station in Vincey, France postcard c.1905-1910 Shelters is next week, the last of the Architecture theme.  

St. Vincent de Paul has a one day 1/2 off everything sale once a year in December.  They did something new last month, a three-day 1/2 off sale on collectibles only.  Those would be pink sticker items, or in display boxes with pink stickers.   Now, the collectibles like glass trinkets, salt and pepper shakers, or dog figurines, I'd have already bought at full price if I liked them.  However, as the then manager had been putting out loads of antique postcards and other ephemera I thought I'd take a look.  I " took a look " all three days!  Here are some of my half-off treasures. Gombault's Caustic Balsam ad c1896-1902 I had an antique frame just waiting for something that fit, and this did!  38¢  The first day I bought one of these packets of stationary, hand-made paper from Nepal for 68¢. I didn't know it was stationary when I bought it, just that it was hand-made paper.  It's made from daphne bark .  The envelope hooks closed with ...

  Cee's Fun Foto Challenge The Crayola Box of 8 - Purple