grace grits and gardening

ramblings from an arkansas farm girl

  • Home
  • About
  • Media
  • Crafts
  • Farm
  • Food
  • Garden
  • Reading & Books
  • Sunday Letter
  • SHOP!

Trash or Treasure?

April 9, 2012 By Talya Tate Boerner 5 Comments

I enjoying spending an occasional afternoon wandering around flea markets and estate sales, looking for some old hidden antique. But I hate having a garage sale and trying to peddle my own junk. I’d like to pretend my time is worth more than the $200 I might earn in dollar bills and quarters. Even in my current happily unemployed state, I could be doing something more productive like scrubbing my toilets or weeding the flower beds. Nevertheless, every ten years like clockwork a moment of temporary insanity comes over me like strep throat, and I succumb.

Last weekend my neighbor had a sale complete with two porcelain toilets, a snowboard and the requisite two ton treadmill. In preparation, she posted pictures on Facebook and friends asked 1) if it was debris from the recent Dallas tornadoes, 2) if she was a hoarder, or 3) if she had kicked her husband and his stuff out onto the lawn. Her husband responded with, “Does someone have a stick? Would someone please poke me in the eye.” He hates garage sales too. 

It’s funny how one day you are happily living with those objects in your house and the next morning before sunrise you’ve thrown the mess outside like dirty dish water. Those faded t-shirts that you were wearing just last week look so different strewn around the front yard with strangers rummaging through them, don’t they? 

Last year John and I had a garage sale along with several families on our block. John disappeared for thirty minutes and returned with a set of bowling pins and a heavy meat grinder he bought from our next door neighbors. Really? This totally defeated the purpose. Why didn’t we all just swap our crap around the neighborhood at the next porch party without exchanging money? Or how about “I’ll give you one of my dollars for those books and you give me one of your dollars for my old towels?” Deal!

The next time John shoots a deer, I will be able to grind up meat and make deer sausage for the neighbors. If you know anything about John, you know we are much more likely to buy a bowling alley.

John’s meat grinder.

talya

Musical Pairings:

Sammy Kershaw, “Yard Sale”
Paul McCartney, “Junk”

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Munger Place

Wanna receive my monthly Newsletter? Sign up here!

Comments

  1. Anonymous says

    April 9, 2012 at 12:24 pm

    Very funny. Has John ground up any meat yet? I too hate yard sales, but I think about having one every once in awhile. I am only in an apartment in Texas, and I have been wanting to have a “hall sale”, instead of a yard sale. Do you think that would work? Let me know when John buys that bowling alley. Talya’s mother

    Reply
    • grace grits and gardening says

      April 9, 2012 at 12:30 pm

      The meat grinder has been living in the garage since he bought it. I’m sure it will stay there until our next garage sale.

      Reply
  2. Kaa says

    April 10, 2012 at 6:05 am

    I would rather gather all my stuff into a big pile and then attack it with a flame-thrower than have a yard sale. At the very bottom on my list of Things To Do Ever is a yard sale. The thought of arguing over 25 cents when someone is getting a $300 piece of equipment for $5 makes me want to go up a tower with an assault rifle. ๐Ÿ™‚

    Reply
    • grace grits and gardening says

      April 10, 2012 at 7:36 am

      I totally agree.

      Reply
  3. Anonymous says

    April 10, 2012 at 8:45 pm

    That is soooo totally hilarious, Talya! And whoever Kaa is – she is responsible for me spewing coffee all over myself and my laptop! (But it was soooo worth it for the laugh!) Talya, I love the occasional yard sale, flea markets, estate sales, and antique stores! Wish we lived closer! When you move to Arkansas we have to make a date to do the Hwy 64 yard sale. Once a year, from east to west – Hwy 64 has a massive yard sale all the way across the state! And there’s lots of bowling alleys along that route we could check out for John! ๐Ÿ™‚ courtneysmum

    Reply

COMMENT: Cancel reply

Talya Tate Boerner


Hi! I'm Talya. Writer, Reader, Arkansas Master Naturalist / Master Gardener, Baylor graduate. Author of

THE ACCIDENTAL SALVATION OF GRACIE LEE

and

GENE, EVERYWHERE: a life-changing visit from my father-in-law


Click to BUY NOW!

Gene, Everywhere

Never miss a blog post! Subscribe via email:

Receive my not-very-regular Newsletter?

Most Popular Posts…

  • Yum Yum Cake - old southern recipe!
  • Sunday Letter: 06.19.22
  • Homepage
  • How to harvest Coneflower Seeds
  • How to Repot an Orchid

Most Recent

  • Sunday Letter: 06.19.22
  • Sunday Letter: 06.12.22
  • Book Reviews: April / May 2022
  • Sunday Letter: 05.29.22
  • Notes from a Garden Tour

Grace Grits index

Prior Posts

Search Categories

Tags

A to Z April Blog Challenge Autumn BAT Book Reviews childhood Christmas creative writing prompt Dallas Desserts Eureka Springs Fall Fayetteville Food Gracie Lee Halloween Hemingway-Pfeiffer home humor Johnson Family Keiser Lake Norfork Lucy and Annabelle Mississippi County Mississippi Delta moving Munger Place Nana nature Northeast Arkansas Northwest Arkansas Osceola poem Reading Schnauzer simple living simple things spring spring gardening Summer sunday letter Talya Tate Boerner novel The Accidental Salvation of Gracie Lee Thomas Tate Winter Wordless Wednesday
Follow on Bloglovin

Food. Farm. Garden. Life.

THANKS FOR READING!

All content and photos Copyright Grace, Grits and Gardening © 2022 ยท Web Hosting By StrataByte