Busy People, Busy Day

My daughter has assured me that a very few people will get the reference in this headline (except perhaps my other daughter). It's the slightly mangled title of of one of their much-loved childhood books by the author Tibor Gergeley. It's a phrase we've used for years, when we're getting, well, busy...


I'd promised to have Spain photos up, but I'll just put vacation photos off for awhile and continue chronicling the 4th of July activities. (Aren't three-day weekends just the best?) It was a busy weekend, in the best possible way.

After our fruit and veg extravaganza of Saturday, we spent Sunday a.m. at the Hansen's Grove antique show, an annual 4th of July event in Solon, Iowa. Dealers come from all around and as it's an outdoor show it's always a little dicey as to whether the weather will hold. This year, storms were predicted, but there wasn't much rain until the end of the day, so the sale went on as scheduled.

The number of vendors at Hanson's Grove was down this year, largely due to the fact that the field that previously served as an overflow sale area and parking lot was actually planted with corn. There was a shuttle bus that would take visitors to another part of town for the rest of the sale, but we opted out.

Still, there was plenty to see. These shows are always a mix of vendors who know just exactly what they've got and set their prices high and other vendors who focus their collecting on one particular area, but may not know quite how to price other things they may acquire along the way.

So while at first I thought the sale would largely just be an opportunity to look, but not buy, I did make a couple of purchases along the way that made me happy.

Although it's the dealers who don't put much thought into their displays that tend to have the best prices, I love it when vendors create enticing vignettes to show off their wares.

I'm drawn to furniture (although I need nothing and don't have room for anything else, even if I did buy), quilts, pottery, things depicting animals, and (what a surprise) the handmade, quirky items that show up now and again. I was also very taken with the small sewing machines below and other toys. And I love when things are used or displayed in unexpected ways, like this "graveyard" of pieces that belong on old harvesters and other farm machinery—so much more striking than if they were piled in a basket.

In the end, we purchased an Iowa dairy milk bottle to add to our collection; eight small bread plates in the Spode Tower pattern, a blue and white china I grew up eating on at my aunt's house that will go nicely with my plain blue and white Dansk dishes; and a present for someone who occasionally reads my blog...so I can't talk about that one. But all three were decently priced and I felt very pleased at noon, when we headed home.

The rest of the weekend included some heavy-duty gardening and a couple of trips to the Iowa City Jazz Festival, the best part of which was hearing Lake Street Dive, a fabulous band from (mostly) Brooklyn. The enormously talented bass player is the daughter of a close friend and plays in several bands (including Joy Kills Sorrow). Lake Street Dive is so much fun to listen to—the lead singer has an absolutely stunning voice and the songs are mostly original (except when they take the occasional Jackson Five song and turn it on its ear). They're also fun to watch because they're obviously having so much fun together.

As much as the music, I loved sitting in camp chairs under the trees with my husband and friends, just hanging out, taking in the people and the pups who strolled by. It was a totally relaxing way to spend several hours. Like I said in my previous post, three-day weekends are the absolute best!