A New Store in Town & Some Finds

There are a number of antique stores and art galleries near where we live, which is both fortunate and dangerous.

Fortunate in that I can easily go there to look for goodies.....and dangerous for the same reasons!

One of the stores that we really liked recently emptied out, to our surprise. We wondered what in the world was going to take it's place. We felt sad...empty....apprehensive. There were other stores, of course, but we like having numerous stores in which to hunt; the more the better!

Luckily, the new store turned out to be an antique store. We heard that it had recently opened and that it was called "Antiques and Uniques".  We had to go there.

And I found this.................

Love!!  I've been looking for some pretty curly wicker chairs for my porch.....FOREVER! It was a really good price. I wish there had been more than one.

It matches perfectly with the white wicker plant stand that I found last year. I stole the pillow from one of my Adirondack chairs in the back yard. I have more of this fabric, so I will probably make another pillow or perhaps a cushion.

                         I also found some more vintage embroidered pillow cases for our bed. I can't resist these.

Just look how pretty that is!

 Sorting through a box of doilies, I spotted this lovely butterfly-shaped crocheted doily. How cute is that? I was hoping there was a pair, but alas, there was only the one. I had to have it. The other item is actually a tissue box cover.

I love Battenburg lace and cutwork, so I had to have it. It will look pretty in one of our bathrooms, I'm sure.

There was one other item that Erik and I found and are considering buying. It's kinda big and sort of expensive, but it's something we've wanted for the dining room for ages. We have to look at our budget and see if such an expenditure would be wise before deciding. I hope that I can bring it home and show it off soon!

Thanks for stopping by!

I'll be joining Coloradolady for Vintage Thingie Thursday

and

Courtney at French Country Cottage for Feathered Nest Friday!

Charming Gardens at Dad's Place

Just recently I was at my father's house for a visit and I decided to bring my camera along so I could take some pictures of some of his flower gardens, since there's nothing too exciting happening in mine right now!

  One of the first things that you see when you drive up the road to my dad's house is the horse pasture. He recently got some new tenants who are renting out the horse barn on his property and they have lots of horses! His previous tenants only had three.

Several of their horses are palominos. They are very pretty. That's my dad's house in the background. The pasture comes right up to the yard.

One of my favorite things about his house is the big fieldstone chimney.

There is always a massive passion flower vine that grows up the side of the chimney. I have tried to grow one of these, using a cutting from their plant, but it didn't work out for me.

There is more fieldstone on the back side of the house, where the dining room windows look out onto their garden and the woods in back. The house actually sits on a small hill. This deck was new last year, built to replace the old one, which was made of wood and unfortunately had weathered badly over the years and was taking too much trouble to maintain. This new one is made of resin to look like wood. No upkeep needed!

They have a lot of wildflowers in their gardens, in keeping with the somewhat 'rustic' look of the house.

Lavender!

There's also numerous little signs and garden art tucked into corners and along borders. I've always liked this one!

There are also many curious metal objects that are sometimes just decorative and sometimes have a function, like these two metal serpentine stands, which have some kind of vining plant on them. My dad probably made these. He used to always be making stuff from scrap metal, in addition to building things in his wood shop. He isn't able to craft things anymore, which is a shame, since he really enjoyed it. He has FTD, also known as Pick's Disease, which is a degenerative disease often mistaken for Alzheimer's. He was diagnosed about 7 years ago, but has only really began to decline in the last 2 years.

On the front porch in the cool shade, two red Adirondack chairs await you! My dad made these in his wood shop several years ago. He actually made a whole lot of them ( I got two of them, my sisters also got several) and he has four himself. He even sold some, if I recall.

A chippy, shabby antique wash tub on wheels makes an interesting and charming planter!

When it was time to head home, I stopped down by the horse barn, using the old driveway. Right about here was where the original farm house had stood. My father bought this property, some 43 acres, in 1988 when I was a senior in high school. My parents had divorced in 1984 and my father had been living in a rented duplex since then, but he was eager to get back out into "the country" again. This property had once been a large farm but it hadn't been used or lived on in many, many years. The farm house that was here was falling down. In fact, the whole back side of the house had collapsed and  when you walked around the backside of the house, it was like looking at a really big dollhouse, with the front side looking normal, and the back completely open. It was filled with junk too. We did spend some time poking around in the junk, looking for anything interesting. Much of it was old newspapers and magazines. I found a Home Arts magazine from 1939 that was intact and had a pretty picture on the cover that I liked so I took it home and framed it and I still have it. It hangs in my kitchen. I know my dad also found some newspapers and magazines and other things that he kept also. Eventually, he had the local fire department come and burn down the house. It had been an old Cream City brick farmhouse and before it was burned a company came out to buy all the old bricks that could be salvaged for 5 cents apiece. Click HERE to find out exactly what Cream City brick is.

Just behind where the house used to be was an old barn and the silo. The silo was still in good shape, so they left it alone. The barn, however, had long before collapsed. My dad salvaged a number of the old barn beams and used some of them in the building of his house. One of them is used as a mantel shelf on the fireplace in the house. A great number of the barn boards and beams were also sold to other people who had an interest, just like the bricks. A large portion of the southern part of his property is wooded, old hardwoods like walnut, maple, oak, chestnut; just perfect for a man who likes wood and loves the outdoors. Back in the woods he had also found the rusting hulks of two old cars from the 1930s; I know one was a Packard. Surprisingly, there were people who wanted those too; for the parts I suppose. He sold them to a man who came with a tractor and yanked them out of the brambles and thistles.

I made sure to pick some sprigs of lavender from his garden to take home. They look pretty on the kitchen windowsill in my crackle-glass creamer jug.

Thanks for joining me on my visit and  trip down memory lane!

I'll be linking up with The Tablescaper for Seasonal Sundays!

This & That: Summertime Fun: The State Fair

Summer never seemed complete when I was a kid, without a visit to the State Fair. My parents used to take us pretty much every year. The Wisconsin State Fair has been held in West Allis, a suburb of Milwaukee, ever since I can remember. From 2002 until 2006  I lived in a house right across the street from the fairgrounds. It was always very interesting around my neighborhood during Fair time.

When I was a kid, going to the Fair was an all day outing because we lived in a rural area that was almost an hour's drive from Milwaukee. We always had to visit the animal barns (always a favorite!) and we always had to have a cream puff.  I still try to make it to the Fair at least once every year; this year I went twice. The first time was to see Erik's band (this was their first State Fair gig; it was very exciting) and the second time Erik and I went on a Friday evening just to hang out and, of course, stuff ourselves with Fair food.

The evening was very pleasant, if cloudy. We did have a little rain later on for a short time.

One of our first stops was at Water Street Brewery; it's a popular local restaurant and microbrewery. Right next to this building they have a bar area and stage for music, which is where Erik's band had played three days earlier.

We went there because they have on their menu a Scotch Egg on a stick!!! If you've never had one; they are delicious! It's basically a hard-boiled egg, encased in pork sausage and some sort of breading, then deep fried or baked. They serve theirs with a spicy mustard sauce too. Yum!

Then we went to the critter barns to look at some goats;

Goats are so funny!

We looked at the piggies too; many of them were tuckered out and sleeping. I always think of the book "Charlotte's Web" when I go to the Fair and wander through the pig barn. That's definitely "Some Pig!"

Llamas are really quite big animals!

   Awwww! These were some young calves that were born this last year. I think the one on the right is a Brown Swiss. Both of my parents grew up on a farm and the area I grew up in was rural and mostly dairy farms, but I didn't know anybody that kept Jerseys or Brown Swiss....they have such sweet faces though!

    Holsteins and Guernseys are the kind you see most often in rural Wisconsin. Holsteins, like this one, are actually quite large animals.

Fittingly, right outside the Dairy Barn is the Herb Kohl Milk House. There is always a huge line here because it is very popular; you can get five different flavors of milk here for 25 cents per glass. The flavors are Banana, Strawberry, Cherry Vanilla, Chocolate and Root Beer. Visiting the Milk Barn is one of the quintessential activities at the State Fair.

Erik and I both had two glasses each; we each had one Chocolate and one Strawberry. Erik had to help me finish mine, though. (I am lactose intolerant and even though I looooove fresh milk, I can only handle so much, even with the help of some Lact-Aid!!!  Oh, the irony! A girl born and raised in the Dairy State, who's lactose-intolerant!  ha-ha!)

At this point, it started to rain a little, so we ducked into the Poultry Barn, where they have fancy chickens:

Yes, that's a chicken.

So is this! (It looks like a small poofy dog, doesn't it?)

They also have bunnies in this barn:

So cute! He looks very plushy.

And they have very fancy pigeons too:

This one was very happy to pose for me; he seemed to know I wanted a picture. I think these are called Fantails.

When I was a young girl my Great-Grandfather Boleslaus lived for awhile with my grandma and grandpa on their farm before he went into a retirement home. They no longer kept animals by this time, but he had a coop of pigeons that he kept. They were homing pigeons, none of them were fancy like these, but I remember his favorite was a pure white one he called 'Snowball'. He used to show us kids the pigeons when we would come to visit. I don't know what became of his pigeons when he left the farm; perhaps he sold them. He was from Poland and had emigrated to America when he was about twenty years old or so. We used to drive to Milwaukee to the retirement home to visit with him there too. He passed away when I nineteen.

After the milk and looking at chickens, it was time to visit the Agricultural Building. Here there are many booths that sell goodies and products from local Wisconsin farms, like honey, maple syrup and of course, dairy items and cheese! We stopped here to have a grilled cheese sandwich.Mmmm.! Look at all those sandwiches!

The Scotch Egg, milk and grilled cheese sandwich wasn't enough for Erik; we stopped for awhile at one of the pubs with a music stage to listen to a band, have a drink and so Erik could have a burger. This burger was called the Cheesehead Burger; it has Mac n' Cheese Bites on top of the burger.

I always have to have a corn dog when I go to the Fair; I can't possibly go to the Fair and not have a corn dog! I ate my corn dog earlier (after the Scoth Egg, but before the milk!) so I could save room for a cream puff!

The Cream Puff Emporium is one big building devoted just to making the cream puffs; they are famous! They have these nifty glass windows so you can watch the workers  while you wait in line. They probably have a half a dozen workers, mostly high school and college age kids, at each station. This stations is where they are slicing the shells. They really have fun in there; they always have music playing in there and everyone is always dancing around and having fun.

In the next room is where the fillers are. It's very cool in this area because of the giant vats of cream filling. The cream is dispensed automatically from a machine into their pastry bags, so you don't have to give yourself carpal tunnel syndrome squeezing the bags to get the cream out.

After they are sprinkled with powdered sugar, they are placed on these big wheeled racks for the servers at the counter. There are dozens and dozens of these racks all lined up in the coolers.

      Erik and I each had one cream puff, although you can buy "6 packs" or "8 packs" in to-go containers to take home with you if you like. Also while the Fair is going on, you can get cream puffs at the "drive through" at one of the fairgrounds entry gates. In the mornings between 7am and 9am you can drive up to the Fair gate where they have a huge refrigerated trailer of cream puffs and you can pick up cream puffs for your co-workers at the office or your morning sales meeting and be a total hero!

Thanks for joining me! I hope that you are having a wonderful summer as well!

A Summer's Evening Walk

Finally we have got rid of the desperately hot and humid weather....at least for now! We even got some much needed rain recently.

The humidity and heat was so unpleasant that nobody has been spending much time outdoors, unless they were immersed in water! Even the usually refreshing cool of my mom's pool wasn't much help....the water was so warm that it was more like taking a warm bath rather than a cooling swim.

Now that we aren't in the grip of the suffocating heat, it was pleasant enough for Erik and I to take a walk in our neighborhood and enjoy the cool evening air. I, of course, brought my camera to take a few snaps along the way.

This pretty Victorian just down the street from us is a favorite of mine and I pass it almost every day on my jogging route.

I'm especially enamoured of their white picket fence and the cheery sunflowers growing close along the fence, all in a row.

I am also totally in love with this enclosed vegetable garden in the very back quarter of their yard. The house sits on a corner, much like our house, so this garden is easily seen as you walk past on the sidewalk.

Look at the sweet arbor with a gate to enter the garden!! Love!

Right behind the picket fence garden, across some railroad tracks, we see this house. The siding is a little shabby (and probably is asbestos siding! eeek!) but it's surrounded by the prettiest flower gardens.

Just down the block, this pretty blue and cream Victorian, complete with turret, sits prettily in the shade behind this lovely fence. I have "porch envy" when I look at this house. I love all the decorative millwork on this porch and their fancy turned railings and skirting.

I always love to walk by this house and see what's blooming. The entire front yard is filled with flowers and the porch is loaded with baskets and pots of flowers. In spring, the yard is a sea of tulips and daffodils and in summer it's full of roses, daylilies, phlox, rudbeckia and many other perennials.

The front porch

There are also a few birdhouses and other garden objets d' art peeking from the lush flower beds.

This big white Victorian has a curious single stone pillar in the corner of their yard. A leftover from a long-ago stone wall or the corner piece to a wrought-iron fence probably. There are many houses in this area that have wrought-iron fences interspersed with these stone columns.

A rustic wood fence is the perfect backdrop for these orange daylilies.

A quartet of bright red Adirondack chairs sit quietly beneath a canopy of big, tall trees in another yard.

This Spanish villa-style house has always intrigued me. I love the curving brick walkway. Here you can see an example of the limestone columns and wrought-iron fence that I spoke of. One of the earliest industries in our town, when it was founded in the 1840s, were the limestone quarries. They are still in operation to this day. There are about four or five quarries in our area, two of them are right at the edge of town. The others are located in a nearby town about four miles away and there are several more in a small town called Lannon, which also isn't far away. Often times limestone is referred to as "Lannon stone" in our area, because of the proliferation of quarries in Lannon.

I love the flower pots on the upper windows attached to those little balconettes.

Red Adirondack chairs must be popular,because this house has some too:

These folks also have this wonderful stone arch over their front gate:

This house and yard is Erik's favorite; I think he has "front entrance envy"!

Thanks for joining me! I'll be linking up with A Southern Daydreamer for Outdoor Wednesday!