This and That: A Blog

 Yesterday was the big indoor-outdoor flea market at the county fairgrounds. It was definitely not as good as last year .  It looked like a lot fewer sellers for one.  Worse, far fewer sellers of vintage mechandise.    Did see some fun things.  The restroom stall doors all had different quotes! A coffee truck had a beckoning ape. On second thought, it's probably Big Foot.  I only found two items (one was a set, so three if you want to be perfectly accurate).   Each dog has only one hole, and the hole in the bottom is smaller than most shakers.  I find this is totally normal.  Japanese shakers of the 40s and 50s sometimes had a single hole on top if they were to use with a specific spice, and were called "range shakers." Sure, having two with the same number of holes wouldn't help you know what spice they contained.  These are two individual range shakers, not a pair. The bottom holes were engineered for a specific closure, tiny...

 This week for Sunday Stamps we have Aviation.  I think this one pretty much covers the theme with the hot air balloon, spacecraft module, airplane, and zeppelin!  Paraguay 1974  Centennial of the Universal Postal Union  While not mechanical flight, the definition of aviation, the figures in the upper left corner are flying. The image depicts the Universal Postal Monument in Bern, Switzerland.  Five female figures, representing Europe, America, Asia, Oceania, and Africa, are circling the globe, passing letters to one another.  I do have two others. Great Britain 1969  Commemorating the Concorde's first flight Japan 1994  Dream Bridge Rainbow Bridge, Tokyo, with hot air balloons and an airship.  Hot air balloons are considered part of aviation because they are regulated in many countries by national aviation authorities. Next week's stamps will be Mountains.

 

 Shelters is the Architecture theme we're hunting for this week for Thursday Postcard Hunt .  Military Tent Camp, c.1910 RPPC Bowles Spring House on the grounds of the French Lick Springs Hotel in Indiana around 1910 . Cliff Palace, the largest cliff dwelling in North America, in Mesa Verde National Park, CO August's postcards will be Travelling.  Or, as I, being American, would put it, Traveling!  For the Hunt I'll be using the host's spelling of course.  First up will be Trains.

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...