Surprise in the Garden-Deer-More Finds to Keep

  Finally a day with no rain-however that returns again tomorrow-sigh -we are saturated here in Missouri as are other surrounding states.Flooding everywhere.

   I dug up those fire bricks that I used for my dutch oven cooking-baking, and gathered up outdoor grill stuff that I want to take along. I decided to walk around the garden to see if there is anything I wanted. I decided on the one iron bed headboard and will decide for sure if there is a spot for it-perhaps amongst the iris flowers or next to a tree. That Weber fire pit works out well for starting charcoal when I am needing lots of it for dutch oven baking, and the big heavy pot is perfect for ashes. Not sure on the little plastic seat but that does come in handy.

Of course this heavy grill is coming with-the guys are supposed to be designing a way for me to raise this up and down on wheels-that would be really nice as this is too heavy to move

   Here is the surprise though-do you remember these plants? Couldn't believe my eyes as these are not suppose to reseed here, so I walked to the back of the garden where I had the biggest patch-and wow some there too. I may try to dig these up and see if they will transplant for me.

These are indigo plants-so excited that they came back especially after a very cold winter.

Last night a bit before dark some deer stopped by. One was jumping up to bring the mimosa branches down so they could eat them.

I found more cast iron to keep-Hubs had picked these up real cheap at a flea market. I wasn't crazy about them as they are from China so the cast iron is not really nice-but he liked them for fajitas. So I worked on seasoning them this morning. Don't look at my dirty stove-living between two houses I have not kept up the cleaning here-figured I do a really good job when we are done moving.

There are two that say tobasco on them and three plain ones

And I decided not to put these heavy copper pans out for sale either. They need retinned which I don't know how one would do that-but they can just sit and look pretty on top of the cast iron rack shelving.

I am off to make up a big salad for us  happy Mid week.

Cast Iron Collection

  Of course we have a very large cast iron collection. 😃

   We had picked up pieces in the early years of our marriage, mostly at farm sales and garage sales, a few flea markets. We only buy vintage, with the exception of a few Lodge USA pieces.
  I have never had a good place for my collection. Allot of it has been stored in an outdoor shed or garage over the years. So some of it needs to be scrubbed down with fine steel wool to get the rusty spots off and re season.
  We had a big discussion that I could not keep all of it-sigh-I understand really I do but I compromised suggesting that I was looking for a  heavy duty wire shelving that will hold at least 800 pounds per shelf-and would take only what I can store there with a few pieces I use every day in the kitchen oven. Hubs agreed to that.
  This home in the woods has really never gotten finished to our liking, mostly do to Hub's poor health and going back to work when the economy crashed back in '08. That really hurt our retirement-but then it hurt all of us in one way or the other. So since we have always in the past enjoyed flea markets and sales and with Hubs keen eye on vintage-well we ended up with too much clutter. So I understand he wants to do away with most of the clutter but still have a home that is homey and easier to clean. I am sure the Property Brothers would go nuts with our collectibles lol.

  I just took a few photos-please excuse all the dust. So far this is what I want to fit on those shelves. In the kitchen I do still have around 6 or 8 more pieces I use every day.

These were quite a find and the three lamb molds are three different sizes and we bought them from someone selling them at a garage sale that were their Grandparent's pieces.  So no I don't want to part with these yet. A few months ago I finally found a recipe for these cast iron lamb molds.  I have tried several times with pound cake recipes and just never worked-so hoping to do that one of these days.
  On the top left is a vintage chocolate candy mold-I may do some research on value and sell that one-maybe lol

Close up of rabbit candy mold

This is pretty much all of it except for the two large Lodge dutch ovens, and the ones in the kitchen

I remember when we bought these pans which I thought looked like soap molds-perfect size for soap. We bought them at a house estate sale and was told they were all primitives USA pieces.  The heart pan was unusual and has a different marking on the back, the top piece is upside down and has tall legs-perfect for over the fire

These small pieces are salesman's samples and the upside down one has the legs too. Under that is a corn bread pan and under that is another more rare piece for corn sticks or bread sticks I also saved one fish shapes cornbread pan from Lodge.

Waffle iron I did sell one large cast iron waffle pan on Ebay-that one was designed to cook over a wood cookstove-or outdoors over a fire-it had a deep base that it sat on  That blue enameled cupcake pan is a newer piece but I always loved it.

Numerous dutch oven type pans with lids, I love that taller sauce pan with lid in the back-perfect for beans over the fire. The larger piece in the middle is hand hammered copper  and I use that square pan for brownies

My newest pieces the two lodge dutch ovens with legs-for cooking-baking outdoors over fire. The two water steamers need a good cleaning, one for each of our woodstoves here in the woods-my favorite is the one with the bear on top-My Mom bought me that one for Christmas one year. In the back right is a vintage piece.  We have a large woodstove up at the lake house too.

  I have about this much cast iron left over to put in the auction, so I have really cut back-thinking on what I would use as well.  This move has really been difficult for me-but I am getting there.  Deep down I am just not ready to leave things behind where as Hubs is ready for it now. 
    Once moved I know it will all be ok in the end.