As I’ve mentioned (possibly too many times), the whole COVID thing, followed by the social unrest thing, has totally messed with the neighborhood garage sale scene in the Twin Cities.  In 2020 most of my favorite neighborhood sales were canceled.  I say most, but not all, because the Lowry Hill & East Isles sale was held in September and I picked up a few things there.

I was really hoping that some of my other favorite Minneapolis neighborhood sales would be back this spring, but was disappointed to find that many of them were canceled once again in 2021.

So I was super excited when my picker, Sue, shared some info with me regarding a combined neighborhood sale.  Usually these neighborhoods have their own sales, but this year Nokomis, Standish-Ericsson, Longfellow & Corcoran banded together to have one giant neighborhood sale this past Saturday.

It wasn’t until I was able to download the map at precisely 7 a.m. on Saturday morning (they withhold the map until then, I assume to prevent people from showing up the day before looking to score all of the good stuff) that I saw just how many sales there were … 139 to be precise.  Eureka!

My sister picked me up bright and early and we headed out, armed with the map and lots of bottled water.  You see, even though the prior weekend I had to bring my potted plants inside because we had temps in the 30’s at night, this past Saturday we had a high of 97.

What the what?

Can you say ‘not acclimated yet!’?  I thought 75 was a little on the warm side earlier in the week.  I certainly wasn’t ready for 97.  Well, let’s be honest, I’m never ready for 97.  And some of those Minneapolis alleys just bake in that hot sun.

All of this to say that my sister and I did not hold up well against the heat.  We only managed to last until about 11 a.m.  We made it to a mere fraction of the sales, and this is my slightly pathetic little haul.

Hmmm.  Not exactly noteworthy is it?

Let’s mention the ‘toolbox’ first.

I put that in quotes because it’s actually a tackle box, not a toolbox.

And for that reason I almost walked away from it because I wasn’t sure I wanted to tackle it (sorry, couldn’t resist that terrible pun).  But it was only $3.  How could I pass it by?

Especially since we’d just come from a sale with this toolbox …

Your eyes do not deceive you, that is a $40 price tag!  WTH?  To be fair, I did not open it up to see if it was filled with gold ingots.  There was a second toolbox right next to this one that was priced at $60!!  Perhaps they both were filled with high quality vintage tools of some kind?  I really don’t know.  I was so stunned by the sticker shock that I was afraid to even touch them.

After the shock of those price tags, the $3 on the tackle box at a different sale seemed like a no-brainer, so I grabbed it.

I also picked up this chicken feeder at a fairly decent price.

I’m planning to turn it into a flower planter that can be hung on the wall.  I’ll keep you posted on that one.

I hemmed and hawed about purchasing this pair of chairs.

I thought they might be fun to paint up for Christmas, like the smaller kid sized chairs I’ve done …

I’m totally not sure if they will sell as well as the smaller ones, but it’s worth a shot.  If this idea is a bust, I’m only out $20.

I also picked up a few smaller items …

The scale isn’t in the greatest shape, but I remembered my friend Jackie’s scale in her garden and thought this one could be used in a similar way …

The galvanized containers have already gotten some transfers added to them.

Those are IOD transfers from their Classic Pots set.  Just a quick heads up on these.  These are the new IOD version of these transfers and they are black.  You can still find some of the old versions of these that were marketed by Prima Marketing (called French Pots 3 and 4) and although they are the same design, those old ones are a dark grey color and don’t show up nearly as well on galvanized metal, FYI.

As you can see, the black ones looks great on galvanized metal.  In addition, they were actually quite easy to apply over that ribbed surface as well.  I wasn’t sure how that would work out, but it was no problem at all.

These would be quite fabulous with some small standards planted in them, or maybe even just a small lemon cypress.

I couldn’t resist the little mustard jars.  They make sweet little vases.

Now, not to worry, even though I didn’t have an amazing haul on Saturday, I did come in to work on Monday to find a few goodies waiting for me that my picker had found (we also work together at the day job, fyi).  I didn’t photograph them all, but here’s a cute little kid sized chair that I’ll also probably hang onto until it gets a Christmas makeover.

One of the items in Sue’s box was this massive vintage screw driver.

This thing is about a foot long.  And it has such a gorgeous patina.  Sue has an eye for patina, and an eye for a bargain.  It was only 25 cents.  She’s thinking I can do something with it.  I’m thinking it would make an amazing handle for a cabinet of some kind.  I wonder if Ken could figure that out?  Do you have any ideas for it?

I also stopped at a couple of sales on my lunch hour yesterday, which totally proves that I am a glutton for punishment since it was once again in the upper 90’s and even more humid than last Saturday.  But I did find a few more goodies including a sled that will also go in the ‘stuff to paint for Christmas’ pile.

I also nabbed another toolbox.

In keeping with my ‘sticker shock’ theme though, at the very same sale they had another vintage toolbox that I saw first and it was priced at $25.  Far too high for me.  But then I walked into the garage a bit further and found this one for $2.  Isn’t that odd?  Two vintage toolboxes at the same sale, one is $2 and the other $25.  What gives?  I even went back and checked again, yep, that first tag definitely said $25.  So then I opened up that toolbox to look for the gold ingots, but nope, it was empty.  Go figure.

Finally, I also made a bit of an impulse buy at the lunchtime sale.

It would be totally fair if you’re thinking ‘uh, what in world is that, and why in the world did you buy it?’

Well, because I’ve been watching so much of Monty Don on Gardener’s World lately, I’m fairly sure that this is a seed tray tamper.  Here’s the only picture I could find of Monty  with his seed tray tamper …

See it there to his right?  Basically it’s just a flat bit of wood with a handle that you use to tamp down the soil after you put it into your seed tray.

I plan to give it the quandie treatment, and then who knows?  I may keep it as potting bench décor, or I may just try to sell it on.  I’ll never actually use it.  Minnesota’s growing season is just way too short to grown things from seed.

So, I’m curious, do any of you own a seed tray tamper?  Or do you think this object is something else?  Leave me a comment and let me know.