Fresh dug potatoes, yard sales

As I came through Bowie yesterday on my way to meet Mama at the farm, I spotted a guy selling potatoes. His sign caught my eye. “Taters fresh dug today – bakers”. I didn’t stop since I was focused on getting to the farm but after we finished up looking around I decided to head back to see if he was still there. I thought I missed him because I could not remember exactly where I passed him, but I did find him and pulled into the parking lot to see what he had.


He was almost out of the potatoes he was selling – only about ten bags left. As I got out and started talking to him I got this feeling that I was talking to Jethro Bodine from the Beverly Hillbillies. His accent was so pronounced that I kept him in conversation to see if it was being put on. I am pretty sure it was not. He was from Guthrie, OK and I am sure that not everyone from his home town speaks with the same accent that he does but it would be interesting to see.

I worked with a guy in the plant in Seadrift who was from Orng, TX. To most of the world the town was called Orange, TX, but that did not seem to work for him. If my memory is somewhat accurate, the two had about the same accent and dialect. Anyway, I bought a fifty pound bag of potatoes from him for $15 and they are the best we have had in a long time. Mama made me a fresh one while she ate a recently purchased one. Hers tasted stale.

The Fairfield house will be empty today. Victoria will spend a little time sweeping the carpets and then we will turn in the house keys, mailbox keys and the garage door openers. The roof is still in need of repair so renting the house will have to wait for a time, but we will be done with that house. All of our stuff is packed into the little house on Jennie Avenue – and it looks like a wagon load. Chase said it looked like we were in an episode of “Hoarders”. Even Mama is upset about the clutter and promises to get rid of things. I suppose her idea of getting rid of things and mine are different. I either give things away or I throw things away. Mama sets things aside to put in a yard sale.

In her mind they are as good as gone – out of the inventory, so to speak. The fact that I have to move them several times while we wait for the right weekend is a moot point. The fact that we have to set up things several mornings in a row only to take things down every evening between which we haggle about prices and get treated like we are trying to steal a dollar from some buyer even though we are selling items for pennies on the dollar, does not enter the equation. It’s as good as gone. I hate doing yard sales. I like to look at other people’s yard sales so I can remark about how much they are asking for their junk, I just don’t like having it done to me. (Maybe they feel like they are giving their stuff away too.)

It is a joy to get back into the “make due” mentality of farming. Everything is reused, re-serviced or repaired. Only what cannot be salvaged or saved is bought new. It is the only way to make it on a farm. I like the thought process that invented the saying, “Necessity is the mother of invention.” What was left behind on this farm has given us a good head start. It is fun to put it back into service.

The tanks (which Grandma insists on calling ponds) on the farm (which Grandma insists on calling a ranch) are filling up quickly because of the recent rain, but there is still a long way to go before they are where they should be. After the prolonged drought it was a relief to have to but gum boots to be able to walk on the property. For the first time since we walked on the property the ground was soft and in some places, muddy. I suppose that could get old, as it did in West Virginia, but for now it is a mess we will happily endure.