Today is the day for the Damariscotta Rummage Sale, by far the best such event in the state of Maine, with about two acres of rummage, all very cheap. We go every year and always clean up. This is also Aimee's big Birthday Treat.
The Rummage Sale experience goes something like this:
5am ish: Get up early, have a light breakfast, and do all the farm chores so you can be on the road about 6.45 or so.
7.30: Stop at Borealis Bakery for coffee and a breakfast treat.
7.45: Get in line with all the other happy sales-goers.
8.00 Gate opens. Punters flood in. Watch out for the occasional desperate "sales fanatic" types, usually a lady, who can be pushy. Arguments do break out over who 'saw it first.' But 99.9% are easy going.
8.01: Aimee disappears. I catch fleeting glimpses of her for the next three hours or so.
8.02: I'm in the tools section, about 2 minutes behind the vanguard. I generally find one or two nice power or hand tools I want in the first five minutes or so. Then I mooch around looking for bargains on secondhand hardware, more tools, books, clothes not a big deal for me becaus most of what's there is for smaller guys. The furniture section can be interesting.
8.45: I'm getting about done. Aimee still not to be found.
9.00; I go around again, just puttering now. Pick up some more stuff, start making a pile of boxes of books and tools in some strategic and secure spot.
9.15: Aimee still shopping somewhere.
9.30: Aimee still shopping somewhere.
9.45: Brush past Aimee in the crockery aisle. She doesn't speak.
10.00: Glimpsed Aimee for a second among the womens clothing. I decide to take a nap next to my boxes. Hot dog, maybe?
10.15: Aimee still shopping somewhere.
10.30: Aimee still shopping...
10.45: ....
11.00: Aimee appears with big box and several bags and piles of stuff. Tells me to stand in line at the check out.
11.15: Still in line.
11.30: I pay for all the stuff. (Aimee's birthday treat.) It'll be something like about $36.50 for a pick-up load including about thirty items of clothing, some crockery, picture frames (we always get these: have about fifty at home already) one power tool, several hand tools, a box of misc. hardware, twenty hardback books, ten paperbacks, may two items of furniture, etc, etc.
1.45: Moving the stuff to the car and loading it always harder than you think. But we get it done.
12.00: We go home
1.00 pm: Arriving at home, we now have to find places to put all this stuff. Boy, we sure do have a lot of picture frames.
It's a great Maine tradition, and we love it. Aimee loves it for about two hours longer than I do, but naps and hot dogs are good too. And it makes deciding what to get her for her birthday really easy.
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Welcome to our Farm Blog.
The purpose of this blog is for Aimee and I to communicate with friends and family, with those of our students, and other folks in general who are interested in homesteading and farming activities.
The earliest posts, at the very end of the blog, tell the story of the Great Farm, our purchase of a fragment of that farm, the renovation of the homestead and its populating with people and animals. Go all the way to the last post in the archive and read backwards from there to get it in chronological order.
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