This and That: A Blog

 Once again, an assortment of things.  Golden King of Siberia , but the ants got into it, so all I got was a bite in the garden before I threw it out.  It was yellower than this photo looks.  There are more to ripen, just not so big.  I am getting Sungold  cherry tomatoes, and a few small  Pantano Romanesco , with larger ones growing. This small praying mantis ended up on me when I was picking bush beans.  A few days later a smaller brown one did too.  But, I didn't notice until I started to come in and wondered what sort of leaf I had stuck on my shoulder (I could see it out of the corner of my eye!).  I thought it fell off in the house, but it had moved to my other shoulder.  So, I went back outside and had the wise idea to shake out my hair!  If fell off my head and was fine. I like them, they are very beneficial, but not on my head!   At the park I saw these empty bird's nest fungus "nests." And these fungus....

 Yet again, more St. Vincent de Paul 1/2 price ephemera!   These two old joke cards are not postcards.  Both date from around 1915-1925. " Scotch " is now used to refer to the whiskey, but it used to refer to the people and things from Scotland . The note on the back, " I'm still butlering and being dignified as usual ," is probably a joke as well.  I did get postcards, quite a few since they were half-off.  Most were antique and only 38¢.    Here is one special birthday postcard.  1918 The bird lifts up for the birthday message.  I also got some unused WWII military humor postcards. These are five of them. Is it just me or does this fella look a lot like Bill Dauterive (Sgt. William Fontaine de la Tour Dauterive) from King of the Hill?   It's like they based his character's looks on this postcard!  At last, that's all for the 1/2 collectibles sale. 

  U rban Showers  is my U , and my title for this ink on newsprint by Mary  Pedri.  In a previous life it won an award at the 1963 Lodi (California) Grape Festival and National Wine Show. It was a birthday gift from one of my sons, who found it at Goodwill.   An U ta poetry form can be found here  for U Day. 

On a recent St. Vincent de Paul's trip I found these.   Death of St. Joseph lace holy or prayer card from the late 19th to early 20th century.  The publisher was Benziejer & Co. Ltd. in Switzerland, which imported these cards to the U.S.  St. Joseph was (is?) the patron saint of a "happy death," as tradition says he died in the presence of Mary and Jesus.  I don't know which Mary that would be, there are quite a few in the gospels.  Lace holy cards were popular items to put into scrapbooks, and this one has been glued down. Similar to a holy card is this Catholic missionary outreach print  from the Association of the Holy Childhood.  The Association was founded in 1842 by Bishop Charles de Forbin-Janson to support French Catholic missionaries in China.  They were reporting widespread abandonment of newborns and infanticide.  The missionaries wanted help with care and baptism of the infants.  While they cared deeply for saving li...

Skywatch Friday   🎂  Happy Birthday to my youngest son! 🎂 Late September evening skies. The moon turned out clearer than usual!  Have a nice weekend.  My weather has cooled considerably, and we've even had quite a bit of rain.  Yesterday afternoon it really poured down. 

 It's World Postcard Day!   This is the official postcard for 2025.  I don't have one, I downloaded the image for the World Postcard Day website.  I forgot about it and didn't have time to print any out.  This is the only World Postcard Day postcard I've received, from Marc in Germany, in 2024. Here's a brief history of postcards. https://worldpostcardday.com/history And here are a few of my newest postcards... Peter Rabbit, a scene at Children's Fairyland, Lakeside Park, Oakland CA, painted at the park.  This card was another  of my birthday postcards featuring Fairyland, but this one had been misplaced so I only got it a few days ago when it was found!  It was postmarked the year of my birth.  One of several reproduction Christmas postcards given to me by a friend just yesterday.  A Canadian apple fruit label postcard I received a few days ago from Canada.  I filed this one in my RPPC file under the name Ghostly Children by ...

 I had a birthday last week, and all my presents were pre-owned, either thrifted or from eBay, which often doesn't offer the bargains you'll find thrifting, but still secondhand. You may remember this from a post on my lost blog.  One of my sons bought this for me in July from Goodwill.  It's matted and framed, I usually omit including those in post photos. Untitled rainy cityscape on newsprint by California artist Mary Pedri (1912-1908)  According to the label on the back of the frame it won an award at a festival in 1963. A friend gave me these early 1950s salt and pepper shakers.  They are Bonzo the Dog , a very popular cartoon character in the 1920s, one of the world's first cartoons, and inspiration for mass marketed merchandise.  His artist retired him in the 1930s, but had a second wave of popularity, especially in Japan, in the 1950s.  Without the Internet and image searches they would remain just strange little dogs!  I was surprised when...