The garage sale

I returned from being away for 10 days and found the garden ALIVE!  It was a little stressed but nothing was dead.  Most of the plants didn't grow as much as I expected, but that's because they weren't watered as much as I would have done so.  I put the potted veggies that weren't ready for planting in my shower.  I have a skylight there so I knew they'd get sunshine and wouldn't fry in the 100 degree temps that we had during my absence.  Army daughter remembered to water these.  She forgot to water any of the other houseplants – some of them died.  She also forgot to water the little avocado tree but I soaked it well enough that although it was a little stressed, after the watering I gave it last night it was fine today.

We also returned from our trip with 9 new chickens.  They were hatched in my nephew’s preschool class.  They are about a month old.  We didn't get into the heat until the early evening so they too made the trip without problems.  They are in their cage in the middle of the lawn today and tomorrow morning I'm going to transfer them into the chicken coop.  Since they are a lot smaller than the rest of my chickens they will have their own space to run in and out of.  They will have a water source and food source without having to hang around the big chickens.  After a few days they will all get to know each other and will live peacefully together.  I hope none of the new chickens are cockerels but if any are I'll deal with it.

Sister’s neighborhood was having a neighborhood wide garage sale.  It got me to thinking about getting rid of some of the stuff that I have here.  While I do want to keep everything that I may ever need here and on hand (I really don’t have everything I’ll ever need) how much extra do I need?  For example, when I remodeled the house we had a box of blue plastic electrical boxes left over.  How many of these will I really need?  What about the kids clothes?  I have a bin for almost every size (of course not for girl who is growing out of the 12 and into a 14).  0-3 months, 6-9 months, 1 year, 18 months, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, etc.  The grandkids that with me are in 8 and 12-14.  I don’t want to get rid of all the clothes in the smaller sizes but do I need more than a couple of sets of each size?  There are younger grandkids but in a SHTF situation how many clothes sets do they need?  When the 2 and 3 year old come over I wash their clothes every other day so do they need more than two sets of clothes per season? 

The grandkids Sunday School had a used book sale.  All the left over books are in my barn.  The school said they don’t care what I do with them since they were all donated and they don't want the leftovers.  Most of them are books that I’d never read.  They didn’t sell at 25 cents each!  Why are they taking up space? 

I have a bunch of toys that the kids used to play with.  They don’t now.  How many do we need?  I’m not talking about getting rid of forever stuff.  There’re plenty of things around here that I will never get rid of but there are other things that I look around and ask myself why it’s here.   After a while you don’t even notice you have the stuff.  For instance, in the corner of my garage is the freezer.  It’s an upright freezer.  On top of the freezer is a huge Italian bottle.  I don’t know why I have the bottle other than it was given to me and the person said it was worth a hundred dollars.  So why have I kept it for at least 7 years?  Certainly not for the beauty or enjoyment of the thing.  Also not for the monetary value.  I’ve kept it because it doesn’t really even register in my brain that I have it.  It’s just something taking up space on top of the freezer.  It doesn’t bother me, I don’t bother it.  It’s time for it to go.  Maybe I could get ten dollars for it.  That’ll buy me some real supplies. 

If I had a garage sale I’d bring the stuff out to the road.  Nobody would actually drive down the driveway to the garage.  I’m thinking about it.