State Of The Estate

The result of 2 weeks of clearing.

This weekend I have again joined the battle against #TheHoard. This is my pet name for my mother's estate, a collection of things acquired over 89 years.

There are so many things. Most of them have some small value, but not enough to make hauling it to a flea market worth the effort. Although, I'm going to have to do something to get rid of it all. Now that I have one small section of the barn cleared out, I can see this is going to take all summer.

I was afraid that my own inner hoarder would be jumping up and down clamoring to keep the majority of it. So far it's only been a few tools, a couple of rugs, a brass ashtray, two shot glasses (from the bar we once owned) and a copper nick-knack.

But it's in such an out-of-the-way area that I'm thinking I'm going to have to haul all this to the flea market. It would be a tremendous amount of work. Everything is priced, so THAT much is done. 

It's tempting to trash it all.

However, every last bit of this stuff is useful on one context or another.

I did have one very interesting customer, a Mennonite family from Lancaster Pennsylvania. They bought a lot of stuff that I was selling at rock bottom prices. (There are hundreds of small items that I'm selling 5 for $1.)

Here's the fun part -- rumor has it that my father's mother was Pennsylvania Dutch...also known as Mennonite...from Lancaster county Pennsylvania.

A very interesting article I found in my wanderings says that we tend to like people who have similar genes. (This could be pure BS, but who knows?) All I know is this -- I really liked the family.

They could be my cousins.

My life is strange like that.