Vintage Love





I have an old pine cupboard which my hubby painted white.

It holds the 'bits and pieces' of old crockery that I like.

Some of it has value due to vintage or design

but all of it is precious to me.. simply 'cause it's mine :-)

There's very little new in there-it's mostly second-hand.

Why others sought to part with them, I'll never understand!

For I delight in searching for the treasures of this sort

And rushing home to hubby to say "Look what I just bought!"

A case in mind is this here bowl, with strainer and a lid.

It's made by Royal Doulton..so you'd think it'd cost a 'quid'.

But finding it in Vinnies nearly made this lady holler

when I spied the sticker on the lid (o joy of joys!) - one dollar!!

Yes, I love my vintage china and old tins with charm and grace

I like anything that age has softened with it's bygone face.

My home is filled with memories that harken back in time

to when a woman's homelife was of a very different kind.

I often ponder on the ways a housewife's lot has changed.

And how it seems, society has been quite disarranged.

But when I look around me at all my lovely vintage things

I gain a sense of peace and quiet that seeing them still brings.

For I am happy and so glad to have a home like this

where olden days and olden ways can make me reminisce

about the lives that women lived...content to have 'enough'.

A humble model for my heart.. and why I have this vintage love!

Going to Gran's house

When I was a little girl, my mother would often take me to my Gran's house for lunch and afternoon tea.

We'd travel by train and bus and then take a short walk from the bus-stop to Ethel St.

I always loved turning the corner and spying the pretty pink lantana hedge, which grew along the front fence, past the gate and down both sides of the pathway to Gran's front door!



The house was very old and large with a shaded verandah running around all four sides.

It's ceilings were extremely high and all the rooms seemed voluminous to this small girl.

We would sit at the family table in the big kitchen, surrounded by cupboards of various sizes and designs.

While the adults chatted over their tea, I would look around and wonder what lay stored up in all those old wooden cupboards.

Homemade pies and cakes would emerge from them as the day wore on...and fizzy ginger beer or even fruit wines!

Eventually, I would leave the talk and wander out to the backyard, where fragrant roses grew on big bushes and budgerigars sang and whistled from their fancy cages.

Time somehow seemed to slow down whenever I was there, at Gran's old house.

 Memories.. can be funny things I suppose.

Perhaps I just choose to see those magic days through the romantic eyes of the day-dreaming child I used to be.

All I know is that 40 years later...I still dream of having my own big shady, wrap-around verandahs, and a pretty pink lantana hedge!

image source: Spots and Greens

Catching up..this past month




I have been wanting to get some chooks for quite some time now, and finally this month we were able to  install a hen-house in a corner of our yard and set up home for 4 chickens.

I am very pleased with them and happy about how they came into our possession.

We got them by old-fashioned bartering!

My hubby will be repairing the timber frame on a friend's sofa in exchange for these chickens and their coop.

Over the years he has been able to use his skills in this way to provide us with a number of things for our home.

It's the way we like best - no money - just sharing!



Our new hens give us at least 3 eggs per day which is ample for the two of us, and leaves some to give away to friends and neighbours.

Besides that, they provide us with much entertainment and company - they really are funny creatures with sweet personalities!


I think they're bound to live out a long life here;  none of us has the heart or will to turn them into a chicken dinner any time soon lol!





We are much more into pet-cuddling than culling  :-)



Speaking of cuddling - my son's girlfriend and I are cuddling up to my 94yr old mother in this photo.

She has just left today to go back home after spending the past week holidaying with us.
I  am so blessed to have such a healthy and spritely mother still with me at her advanced age!
She had a ton of fun watching the chooks and all their antics which brought back many memories of her own childhood and mine.
Her parents were country folk and always had hens, and she and my dad did the same.
I was raised with the iconic backyard chookpen and vegie patch and have hankered for my own for ages!
Now I have both at last.
I spend lots of contented moments throughout my days watching and tending to them and thanking the Lord for His provision.
This month we've taken some more small steps in simplicity - and that makes me very happy indeed!

http://homesteadrevival.blogspot.com/

Shabbat Shalom

Wash Day

ON A WINDY WASH DAY MORN

Soaked and scrubbed in a round tin tub
with homemade soap
up and down the ribs of a wooden washboard
by hands rubbed red & raw
on a windy wash day morn.

Stiffened with starch, squeezed
and wrung to a twisted laundry rope
then hung on lines to flap
back and forth and snap dry
on a windy wash day morn.

Laid on the lawn like paper cutouts
clean shirts and sheets, towels and skirts
smelling of sun and clouds and wind
wait to be ironed and worn and dirtied
again for another wash day morn.

~ Brenda Seabrooke, American poet and novelist

The 'green' thing

 

In the line at the store, the cashier told the older woman that she should bring her own grocery bag because plastic bags weren't good for the environment. The woman apologized to him and explained, "We didn't have the green thing back in my day."

The clerk responded "That's our problem today. The former generation did not care enough to save our environment."

He was right, that generation didn't have the green thing in its day.

Back then, they returned their milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled.

But they didn't have the green thing back in that customer's day.

In her day, they walked up stairs, because they didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. They walked to the grocery and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time they had to go two blocks.

But she was right. They didn't have the green thing in her day.

Back then, they washed the baby's diapers because they didn't have the throw-away kind. They dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220-volts - wind and solar power really did dry the clothes. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand new clothing.

But that old lady is right; they didn't have the green thing back in her day.

Back then, they had one TV, or radio, in the house - not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief, not a screen the size of the state of Montana. In the kitchen they blended and stirred by hand because they didn't have electric machines to do everything for you. When they packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, they used a wadded up old newspaper to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.

Back then they didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. They used a push mower that ran on human power. They exercised by working so they didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.

But she's right; they didn't have the green thing back then.

They drank from a fountain when they were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time they had a drink of water. They refilled their writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and they replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.

But they didn't have the green thing back then.Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or rode the school bus instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. They had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And they didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint.

But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful the old folks were just because they didn't have the green thing back then?

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