Once again David and I got into our Jeep and headed out to the country. This time we had a purpose. A bunch of ladies who call themselves the Country Friends, who do live out in the country have a sale every Autumn, Winter and Spring at their various homes or little stores on their properties.    It’s in the middle southern part of our state which means we drive hills , past lots of farms and through woods to get to every store.  One of the ladies even has a whole pioneer village built in her back yard!

Much of the items for sale are made by these ladies and there is even an artist who has her paintings for sale.   The last time we did this I purchased a mustard seed necklace one of them had made and I wear it all the time.  I also found an old wooden table with red legs that we have out on our back porch now.

I got a few treasures along the way this time, also.

I collect egg scales and I found this simply wonderful one that lights up so you can see inside the egg.  I weighed one of my eggs on this and it flew past the extra large.  I know my hens lay really nice eggs so I was glad to see just how big and good their eggs are.

I found this cute little lighted tree.  When I  brought it up to purchase another lady cried, “I wish I had seen that!  I would have bought it!”  It pays to be quick and decisive at these sales because once something is gone, it’s gone.

The tree has tiny baskets on it that I will put tiny pumpkins in for Fall and birds on the limbs.

It’s just magical lit up.  I have a bunny tree kind of like this one I put out at Easter time.

I’m not even going to tell you what I paid for this lamp, but it was so cheap, I grabbed it immediately.   I think the lady thought maybe she priced it a little low.  Let’s just say, I would have probably paid her twice what she was asking.  But don’t anyone tell her!  One thing David and I learned when we had a business. Don’t under price your merchandise or people will think it’s not worth it.  Sometimes we’d price something so high, especially if we didn’t want to sell it, and by George, there was always that one customer who just had to have it and we’d sell it.  David sold an old treadle sewing machine right out from under me once and I told him he would have to  find me another one, and he did and it now sits proudly in our front hallway.

The lamp  has these wonderful deer at its base.

And once again I think this looks magical, too.   It’s just perfect for this time of year. And right on to Christmas.

One of the ladies’ husband made this barn.  He wanted to make it a birdhouse, but she told David she wouldn’t allow him to cut a hole in it. Well, guess what?  David is going to cut a hole in it to make it a birdhouse.  It will make a wonderful birdhouse. Speaking of birdhouses. We have a little blue wren house in my kitchen garden and yesterday David and I watched several fat sparrows trying to get into it, but they couldn’t.  They just wouldn’t give up!   Several years ago we had a wren house and a sparrow tried getting into it, got its head stuck and David and I had to work to get that sparrow out of that tiny hole in the birdhouse.  Finally we managed it and it flew away, probably to tell its family of the adventure he had had.

These darling little jack-o-lanterns on a spring were for sale at one shop.  I bought two and put them on a picket fence David had made. He’s been making picket fences out of some old dog ear fencing we’ve had laying around for a while. I told him he could sell them they are so nice.  I will have to show you what these look like on one of them.

These are so cute and a nifty idea.

We got a new liner in our pool the other day and David had to swim even though the water was only 72 degrees.  Brrrr, Not me. My next post will show how it all was done from emptying the pool to filling it back up again.

Here’s to country friends and shops and may they live forever! Bye.