90° and Counting

I am jumping for joy. Summer has made another appearance in the form of a little heat wave. Those of us along the coast have stayed a tad cooler than the folks inland or those getting extra heat from the cement and asphalt of the cities of the northeast.

We seized the opportunity of good weather on Saturday to have a yard sale. The forecast was for mid-eighties and no rain. Somewhat too hot for a yard sale but at least clear skies. I had piles of heavy boxes to carry up from the cellar so I started the night before. I set up the folding picnic table at the edge of the drive and placed all the boxes of tools and hardware underneath. The lot was covered with a tarp and weighted down with granite for the night. In the morning the books, household items and furniture would be carried out.

I set my alarm for 5 a.m. We had advertised in the GDT that we would be 'open' at 9. When we checked the ad we discovered that there was another sale listed on our street. They were starting at 8 a.m. So.....we decided we'd have to begin earlier than we wanted. The alarm woke me. It seemed to be darker outside than it should have been. It was foggy. I dragged on some old clothes and headed downstairs to make coffee. As I was filling the coffeemaker I glanced up at the kitchen clock.

4:16 a.m.

Huh?????

I walked to the parlor to check the mantel clock.

Yep, 4:16.

Back upstairs to the bedroom. That clock read 5:17. How did the time get changed?

I reset the clock and then set the alarm once again. Back to bed, fully clothed, for a half hour nap.

The first 'customer' arrived at 6:30 and I sent them away. We still had more than half the stuff to unpack! Shortly after 7, we had everything in place and more people began arriving. It was about that time that the sky let loose with a downpouring of rain. Heavy rain. We scrambled to get all our stuff covered with blue plastic tarps. It rain for about fifteen minutes and people stood with arms stretched upwards, supporting the tarps high above their heads. They continued to look and buy. We got soaked. As the rain ended and blue skies finally appeared, we 'untarped' our goods. Now it was time for the mosquitoes. This really annoyed me and I finally managed to find a spot in the sun without the pesky bugs.

People bought some strange things. Yes, I realize that this means that we had strange things for sale. One man bought three large boxes of scraps of wire, mostly single strand insulated stuff. Another man bought four big wooden boxes of very large (and very dull) drill bits and bores. He said that he makes sculptures from them. I thought it might be interesting if he added some dull, burned, circular saw blades to his work. He didn't think so and passed up that box. Thankfully, we sold some of the bigger items like two beds and two rugs, and a very old iron 'witches brew' pot. Most of the hand tools were sold. Some of the tools that didn't sell have now found new homes. A table saw is going to friends, a hand held boat searchlight (12 volt) and the 'Big Daddy' riveter are going to a local guy that has an ocean salvage, mooring gear, and underwater video business. We were worn out by the end of the day but I did take the time to shoot some pictures of my irises! I have three enormous clumps of them. Right now there are somewhere around thirty blossoms and twice that many buds.