Pickles, Old Toys, and Arsenic, Oh MY!

It never fails that odd and funny things always seem to pop up on my radar. Here are a few from the last couple of weeks, some antique related, some not.

We never use our front door; it’s just more convenient to enter through the garage. I went out the front door last week and realized that I still had a sled and Christmas wreath decorating the porch. It's June. I was feeling lazy, so I just laid it down behind a giant weed tree. (*weed tree is a weed that gets so tall that it is often mistaken for a tree. I believe it’s a technical term)

Years ago, before I worked for the local school district and before I owned the shop, the hubs and I used to put in a reasonably decent size garden; our kids never wanted anything to do with it. Flash forward, my son comes home tells me he has joined the community garden and is into fermenting foods and is going to develop a line of pickles called, “Kenny T’s Zesty Long Boys.” Hmm. Interesting. Can’t wait to try them.

I don’t watch a lot of TV. I’m one of those people who like to read. Don’t get me wrong I have a severe Netflix addiction. However, I temper it by watching an episode, also known as sleeping through an episode. You get the idea. But I did start to watch a show called “The Toys that Made Us” very interesting for all you toy collectors or anyone looking for their holy grail, or a toy from childhood that you can’t find. Mine is a S

. Original in the box over $300. Reproductions are about $150. Someday it will be mine, I say in my best William Shatner voice.

I’ve started to read The Poisoner’s Handbook by Deborah Blum. It’s about the evolution of criminal science. It’s mostly history, and I came across some interesting tidbits about Arsenic. There was a face cream for women called, Fowler’s Solution it gave women translucent skin, while slowly poisoning them. Arsenic was also used in many dyes to provide items green tones from brilliant emerald to a soft moss color. Manufactures of all sorts of products used this dye such as clothing, artificial leaves on hats and wreaths, greeting cards, fake plants made of tin, carpets, soap and faux malachite for jewelry. Maybe my next book will be a play, Arsenic and Old lace seems appropriate.

Well, that’s about it. Instead of blogging, I should be making a To-Do list. 1. Get sled off porch, 2. Pull weeds. NAH, I think I’ll just watch Netflix and have a pickle.