I Found a Ghost

I bought this trunk at an auction last week. It has a nice fitted inside, much better than a run of the mill trunk, and is made of good straight grain fir. I decided that a muting of the bright yellow paint job someone slapped on it during its long life would be a good thing. I sanded it and then applied some amber shellac to dampen the color.

The sanding revealed a big surprise. The trunk was an immigrant trunk, made in northern Europe (probably Sweden) in the 1890's. The sanding revealed a ghost. The address painted on the trunk originally reappeared in the sanding.

The address is:

AMANDA GREN
Lake Elisabeth Po.Co. Kandyohi
Minnesota, Nort Amerika

Kandyohi County is two counties west of Flannery Bay.

Today is Babe's
6th Birthday

He is my best friend
and a very good boy.
(We are singing Happy Birthday).

Mr. Flannery

I'm Going to Make Some Lights

I am really becoming enthralled with industrial design and making industrial pieces into lights. I have been buying a variety of strange metal type pieces with the plan to light them up. Last night I bought three candidates for the lightening treatment.

The fan looking copper plated item on the left is an old space heater. The wire heating element appears to screw into a light socket. I am hoping that just changing the element for an interesting looking bulb will make it into a nice accent lamp.

The middle piece is a unique minnow bucket. It will make a good lamp if I cut the bottom out of it. I will not do anything to it until I research the bucket. Some of that unique fishing stuff is too valuable to alter into lighting.
I also bought two of these Rock-it Automatic Fish Scalers. I already did the research and they are great lighting candidates. I have a string of Christmas lights with walleye pike shaped bulbs. I may just put it inside as a fishing decoration.

I bought 4 other lighting items last night. I have to pick them up on Monday. It will be an electrifying two weeks here on the tundra as I get things ready for the July sales.

Mr. Flannery

The Wonders of Walmart

I had many errands to run today in Buffalo, Minnesota. I stopped at the Courthouse, the bank, the hardware store, the burger joint, the dock and deck store, Second Hand Rose and then my favorite, shopping at Walmart.

I have this love hate relationship with Walmart. I love the prices and even the selection. I hate the fact that I always need something in the dairy section at the southeast corner of the store and a tube of toothpaste across 58 acres of retail space in the northwest corner.

So I started my trek across the acreage. Another perk being the ability to graze at the various sampling stations. Now I ignored one of the basic rules of shopping and went into the grocery store hungry, so grazing on samples seemed to be a very good idea.

Walmart always fascinates me. Near the front door, right by the checkout, Diet Coke in 24 can trays was on sale for $5. Further back in the store, Diet Coke in 24 packs was on sale for $5.98. I was contemplating this strange marketing strategy (and watching a woman place 2 of the $6 packs into her cart) when it dawned on me that there was a real lack of samples.

I passed by the Diet Coke dilemma and headed for the only sample station that I saw. I went right past the cracker area where they are selling salt-free Saltines, without spending much time contemplating this oxymoron. I was hungry and I wanted my sample.

So there it was, the only sample kiosk in operation was dealing with kitty litter!!! What the hell?? How do I sample kitty litter?

I didn't even bother to ask. I was fresh out of taking my cat with me to Walmart and I had no intentions of sampling the stuff myself.

Walmart, in addition to being a constant puzzle, was a great disappointment to me today.

Mr. Flannery

June is Busting Out at Gypsy Lea's

The June sale at Gypsy Lea's starts today, Thursday, in Sauk Rapids. Gypsy, Katie, Kris and Kjell fought through a 12 hour day in 100* temperatures on Tuesday to get things ready. It looks great.

My second (and final unless I am invited back) appearance at Second Hand Rose was much more successful than my first. My June sales were about three times higher than May sales.

Yesterday I packed up my trailer with outside stuff and headed for Gypsy Lea's. We have the best and the most outside display that we've had in the 3+ years that we've been open.

The City redesigned (which is urban planner speak for f--d-up) the street in front of the shop. In addition to having the street and sole entrance closed for two+ months last summer, they eliminated two parking spaces, narrowed the sidewalk from 9 feet wide to 4 feet wide, installed huge metal street light bases in that 4 feet and put in an awful, street blocking peninsula. We lost most of our outside display area. Today we are claiming peninsular space to display some of our outside stuff.

Iron beds, metal chairs, warehouse carts turned into tables are some of the outside stuff that we have ready for sale.

I really like this chunk of steel. I have no firm information on what it was originally used for, but think that it may have been a finial on a coat rack and that it is displayed upside down in this photo.

Kris' bright green vinyl covered chair is both comfortable and very 50's.

Larry bought this cupboard as a wreck at a farm auction. He rebuilt and reglued it, added the vintage tin to the door panels and gave it a nice coat of paint.

Mr. Flannery