Laundry day

I'm in love with Fridays in Amish country because that's the day of the week the laundry is hung outside to dry.
I'm attracted to the many colors of dresses, shirts and overalls, towels and wash cloths, sheets and quilts, and even socks on the lines that are strung across large yards under huge trees, from porches and even from barns.
A string of color set against a white farmhouse or a red barn is a pretty picture that I call art.
I've taken hundreds of Amish laundry photographs in Ohio and Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
Here are my latest photographs taken on June 26, 2015 in and around Mt. Hope, Kidron, Walnut Creek and Sugarcreek, and many points in between.
Click on photographs to view full size.

Happy Valentine's Day from glass collector heaven

 

In early December one of two Goodwill stores in Cambridge prepared to close and every item in the store was priced at 10 cents. I bought home nine glass swans that I found in the store in an old box. Each swan was wrapped in a yellowed page from the March 3, 2002, Columbus Dispatch.

Cambridge is well known among glass collectors as it is home to the former Cambridge Glass Company that produced glassware here from 1902 to 1958.

Current glass manufacturers in Cambridge include Boyd's Crystal Art Glass, and Mosser Glass.

Earlier this year I visited Mosser Glass where they confirmed they made my swan salt cellars, from 1973 to 2004. Mosser Glass was established in 1971.

The swans are small, measuring about 3 1/2 inches from end of tail feather to tip of beak.

My cost was 90 cents for the lot! There are no markings. They're selling on eBay for about $10 a piece but I think I'll hang onto mine.

 

In 2014 Mosser opened a brand-new, 2,100 square foot showroom and retail store. It was my first visit ever to the store. Wow! I love that place.

I bought a six inch cake plate - black raspberry color - and a bell jar.

The cake stand and bell jar on display was filled with very small pink glittery ornaments. I came home and filled mine with these boxes of conversation hearts candy for Valentine's Day. My boys ate them all, weeks ago.

I also bought a small jade bunny on a basket as next week I am putting my snowmen away and decorating for Easter.

I have as many decorations for Easter as I do for Christmas, and the bunny is my latest addition to my collection.

I see a set of mixing bowls from Mosser coming my way. Now I just need to decide on a color.

 

 

 

The end is near

The notice arrived yesterday.

"The end is near," it reads.

It is the end of my paid subscription to the newspaper where I was employed for a quarter of a century.

I'm relieved.

This is something I've been waiting on since May when I was fired.

Apparently I had my subscription paid through the end of this month and I continue to receive home delivery of the newspaper.

Those who know I got fired cannot believe I even still read the newspaper. They are like "I would have stopped my subscription as soon as I got my pink slip!"

But I paid for it so I'm going continue to take it.

It's not like they are going to give me a refund.

So first I look at the obituaries.

Then I look at the classifieds, and I always look at the auctions on Thursdays. Some day I'd like to go to an auction.

I sometimes read a whole front page story like the one about the man who fell from the Guernsey County Courthouse. Mr. Casto.

Written by the woman who was hired to take my place. Uggghhhh! But the story is magnificent.

I don't have any animosity toward her.

Just her bosses who didn't even say good-bye or thank me for the good things I did for the paper.

So now I'm trying to forgive them for that.

It will be good that soon I will no longer be reminded daily of this place.