Farm Friday

In keeping with my desire to live a simpler, more clutter-free life, on Sunday I suggested we go through some of the books in our basement and pick out some, one shelf at a time, to edit from our collection. While my mind is already there, Bill's is not; he didn't see a single book that we should eliminate. Instead, he asked me about some plastic bags I had stored on some other shelves. I reminded him those held books, magazines, and other papers I had saved from the farmhouse before we renovated it. I had put them in sealed plastic bags because, having spent decades in a vacant dilapidated house, they were filled with silverfish and other creepy crawlies that I wanted to kill. Since they had been bagged up for years it was a safe bet that everything in them was dead and we could now open them. We only opened a couple of the bags and here are some items of interest:

This is a political magazine for women dated July 7, 1928. What was especially interesting was finding this straw poll ballot and seeing who was running for president that year, and most interesting, the political parties listed:

Another find were these cutouts from magazines.

I assume the cutouts were intended to be used as paper dolls (anyone remember those?). Someone spent a lot of time and skill carefully cutting out these figures. In our culture, we wouldn't dream of turning magazines into toys; however, in those days, most people didn't have a lot of money and so were very creative.

On an afternoon walk with my faithful Ginny, I realized Georgia was looking a bit shabby:

It's time to get her some new clothes! She missed Gasparilla, but just might make Mardi Gras this year.

Last week we added four new girls to our chicken flock, purchased from a woman who clearly cared for them as they are friendly as can be. Unfortunately, when she got the hens, two of them were debeaked (she said she didn't know why) and they will always be at the bottom of the pecking order.

The goat babies continue to come. We now have 20 and think that should be about it for this season. Neo and Pearl continue to be spoiled bottle babies, escaping the pasture around their mid-day feeding, running in search of "mama" and "daddy." 

Have a great week!