I'm Adding Dedicated Pages

I have added some pages to my blog. I created a page for My Garden 2010, which will have pictures of the progress of my garden this year. I also have a page named "in My Kitchen" which will have photos of most recent acqisitions to add to my kitchen collection as well as recipes and technques that I have recently learned for cooking and baking.
I will be creating a page for my other collectibles as well.These pages will be updated regularly.

Promising Poinsettia

So far, the poinsettia looks promising, a couple of the leaves are starting to turn red. Every other year that I try to re-bloom my poinsettias, I brought them in too late and they started to bloom about Christmas-time and are at their peak at Valentine's day. I hope this year we will have a nice big, bushy poinsettia for the holidays. It has a ways to go right now, but in a month it should look a lot nicer.

Bargains At The Auction

Last month I went to an estate auction nearby which was held at the owner's home. There was a big tent that was set up because it was raining off and on. A lot of tools and machinery were being auctioned off in the yard while the furniture, and household goods were being auctioned off in the tent.

There was a lot of collectible glassware, china, and pottery to bid on. There were four tables set up with box lots on them, which they auctioned off first, waiting for a larger crowd. As they emptied the tables, they took them down to make room for more people. They had trays set on the tables full of odd china and glassware. I bid on and won a few items for a couple of dollars just because no one was bidding. I was interested in a few items that I was outbid on, but that was okay.

I also got a few nice shabby chic items, an antique white ironstone wash pitcher with a chip, an antique English stoneware wash bowl with a crack, and an antique Wood & Sons chamber pot with a crack. I got all of them for under $5!

I bid on a vintage Quebec hooked rug which had gotten damp from the rain that morning. Nobody was bidding on it because it was wet so I got it for $20, I think I got a good buy. Now that it is dried out, I noticed that there was a little bit of bleeding but it is in otherwise good condition. I think it may be from the early to mid-20th century.

I'm going to do some research on the design to see if I can narrow down the time frame. The rug was hooked on burlap, probably a sack. The border is sewn on by sewing machine, it must have been a heavy-duty one. The material used to hook the rug looks like a knit textile, usually seen in woven rugs. The black is not colourfast, at least, not the black that's around the outline of one of the flowers.

Next one

Leaves Are Down, Lights Are Up

Before you know it, the first snow is going to be flying, the weatherman is calling for flurries next week but it is mild today. The trees are bare and my clematis is still flowering! Nothing spectacular, the leaves are all turning brown, but there are still a few buds on it. The snapdragons are still flowering and the sweet peas are straggling, otherwise, the rest of the garden is going dormant, except the weeds! I look out the door at my vegetable garden and I see green everywhere.

I brought the cactus in that was in the front garden and re-potted it. I think that it liked the full sun better than the indoor lighting, it is surviving but not thriving. I'll put it out next spring after the chance of frost is over.

My husband brought our Poinsettia inside about six weeks ago, and I brought it up from the basement last week. It was in the utility room and the light was on a timer so I was forgetting about it all the time and it was dropping leaves. The first buds were coming so I hope it will keep flowering. I'll know in a couple of weeks if the leaves start to change.

I am going to over-winter the fuschia downstairs, in the laundry room, it's been in the garage since before the first frost. I have to bring in two rosemary plants that are in the garage as well, I have to re-pot them into a smaller pot for in the kitchen for the winter.

The Christmas lights went put up yesterday, before the weather changes. There are a lot of lights this year, there are two less bushes to put the lights on this year. My husband already mentioned this morning what furniture needs to be moved where when we put the Christmas tree up.

Gardening - Herb Garden Rejuvination Long Overdue

I had a couple of planters containing some sages, oregano and thymes on the deck all summer. Now that fall is here, I had to replant them in a more permanent place in the herb garden behind the garage. The only problem was that the herb garden had been neglected and was severely overgrown. There was a wild grape vine growing out of the middle of it and the oregano was spreading over the chives and they were not getting enough sunlight.

Before

There was catnip growing here and there and a wild grape vine was growing over the lattice and covering the rhubarb. I had to prune back some mulberry suckers that were growing from stumps beside the fence. There is a row of stumps from cedars that were cut down before we were here that make it impossible to dig up the mulberry, so, I just keep pruining the suckers.

The hoses you can now see beside the fence were once a garden hose which the dog chewed up last year. I decided to keep them to lay out in the garden if earwigs got to be a problem. There were no problems with earwigs this year, but the garden snails have really been bad this year. I told my husband, who likes Escargots, that I was going to start a snail ranch, so he could have all he can eat!With all of the grape vines, mulberry suckers and various weeds gone, I can actually see my rhubarb and chives, which the snails have been having a feast on. Now, to tackle the oregano!
I was digging up and pulling out oregano for a couple of hours, then I had to get the roots out so that they didn't grow new plants all over the place. I decided to keep only a small clump of it and pulled up the rest. There was enough of the herb to fill two garbage cans!


After I got all of the oregano dug out, and cut back, I was finished for the day.

Day 2

I dug up a couple of clumps of chives and replanted them closer to the rest of the chives. I then started to replant the sages and thymes.
The last of the plants was a new variety of oregano, which has a purple coloured leaf. I hope this one doesn't grow out of control.

Back to Business - Earlybird Vintage & Collectibles

I have been working on opening an online store "Earlybird Vintage & Collectibles"



and I hope to have the "Grand Opening" sometime this month. I have boxes and boxes of inventory and I am getting more every week, going to yard sales, flea markets and auctions and getting some great bargains.

My entrepreneurial endeavours began a couple of years ago when I decided to open an eBay store. I had a Paypal eBay seller's account already, but I had to open a business account, which is free and takes care of a lot of paperwork, i.e. invoices, receipts, sales records etc. It also allows me to make Paypal buttons for any website.

The eBay store lasted for a month and a half, I had to have eBay listings in the regular auction to direct traffic to my store. I only had two store sales in 6 weeks and the sales from the regular auction and store sales just paid for the cost of the store.

I hope that this time the store does better. I am using Viviti website builder to create and host the store. I am able to add Paypal buttons to the pages easily wherever I want, as many as I want.

I have discovered a fairly new auction site, SeeAuctions.com, which is an alternative to eBay, for buying and selling antique, vintage and collectible items. I have registered as a seller on the site and have just received the confirmation email so I'll start some listings this week. What I like about the site is that they do a check of the sellers to ensure that they are legitimate, something that eBay should do also. And besides that, the first year is FREE! Whether you have one item listed or a hundred, the price is the same. SeeAuctions.com uses Google shopping cart and Paypal so there is security and Paypal Buyer's Protection on your purchases. SeeAuctions doesn't charge commissions either, all the money you make is yours! You can read all about SeeAuctions.

My Gardens - My Front Backyard Gardens

I think my ribbon grass is taking over the pond, I'm going to have to divide it already, I just planted two 6" pots that I bought at the Leamington Horticultural Society's spring plant sale last year. They seem to thrive in the arid conditions, maybe I'll plant the divisions in the back corner of the yard.

This spiderwort is getting overgrown as well. I have chives, 3 strawberries, leaf lettuce and a strawberry spinach growing in the wire basket that my husband rescued when the town was cleaning up in the fall.

My gooseneck loostrife was growing into my clematis so I had to dig up the offshoots near the roots of the vine. I repotted them into two pots. This was another find at the plant sale.

The cosmos self-seeded so I just thinned the seedlings out where they were. The gooseberry bush, behind them, was a seedling about 8" tall when I bought it last spring at the plant sale. I'm hoping that it will be productive this year. My neighbour gave me some raspberry canes, front left that are starting to take off. She was told they were an everbearing variety and should produce fruit this year. We'll see.

I had to prune my trumpet vines back to the fence. They are invasive, and I'm constantly finding new shoots coming up in the garden and lawn. My sweet pea vines are getting too heavy for the netting that they are growing on.

My water lilies are doing great this year, the first week of blooming there were 11 blooms out at once!

The dogs knocked the flagstones from the edge of the pond. The feverfew self-seeded also, and there are tons of them now. They are good medicinal herbs if you are a migraine sufferer. The tea, made from five or six fresh or dried leaves steeped, sweetened to taste, and sipped slowly relieves the migraine and accompanying nausea. A daily tea is said to be a preventative. The tea has a floral flavour, similar to chamomile tea.


I had to take a close-up to show this golden sedum, bought at the plant sale, it is a ground-hugging plant. Next time I'll post pictures of my back backyard, the dog's playground.