Bama Planter

+Double Click each picture for a better look! Mint Julep Cabinet just pulled from an old plantation house in Alabama. All original. Inside is a cellerette for holding the liquor bottles. Under the marble top is an ornately tooled leather pull-out serving tray. I think the style is Empire-Rococo A bit of the veneer is missing on each side where a gentleman would rest his foot. I like the authenticity of that. This would probably date 1830s-1840s. Most likely made in New Orleans and purchased either there or in Mobile and brought "up the river" to the Black Belt region of Alabama. It's very heavy even without the marble top. This is only the third one I have seen since going to my first auction in 1968 as a teenager. One was in Roanoke, Alabama , at the Grandview Auction a couple o...

The front window of the cabin looks out on early morning in Alabama. Good morning to my friends. I thank you for taking the time to visit with me here a few moments. I love learning about all of your lives and seeing what you're doing to keep your life fun and stay on the path of personal progress. I thrive on the inspiration that I receive from each of you. I need help to get moving sometimes. Blogger won't let me leave comments yet. I am reading all of your posts and continue to be frustrated because I can't leave messages on your pages, but I promise, I have been there , like a thief in the night! ( Editing note: Andrew, my blogger friend in Mobile, sent instuctions how to get around the problem in his comment below, so I'm posting comments again. Thanks, Andrew!) Does anyone think I have too much furniture in this corner of the front room? Double click the picture and you'll see what I mean. I really should hide the television. ...

I made this picture early this morning standing in the front yard. The sunflowers have survived forty days and forty nights without water ( except from the garden hose) and have rewarded me with a really nice show. The Alabama sky is a beautiful partly cloudy blue this morning so I am inspired to work around the house a bit. You can look closely and see the honey bee has been inspired to go to work also. My house stays shady most of the time. The large bush on the left is a fig tree and it's full of fruit Welcome to my front porch. I sit here often and think of all the things I should be doing but have learned to take a break and just relax for gosh sakes.  I wish some of you were close enough to pay me a visit. It's lonely here sometimes. I'm a great front porch swing talker but I prefer to listen to you tell stories. I think there are at least four types of sunflowers growing. I like these because I get...

(Picture of my father plowing my garden earlier this Spring) My 87 year old father is busy watering his garden so I thought I'd post to say thanks to all the vets and those serving today in the forces. My father was in World War 2 and was with the Fighting 36th Texas T-Patch Division. He was in the Battle of Selestat and received a Purple Heart for wounds. He has almost lost all hearing in one ear since a shell exploded on top of a fox hole where he was one night.  The foxhole had beeen built a few days before by the Germans and was roofed with logs and covered with snow when the shell exploded beside it. My father doesn't tell many war stories but I know he witnessed several of his buddies and his sergeant killed while standing near him.  I know that a guy from New York taught him to keep his head down and to walk on the side of the street and not in the middle of it.  I know that as long as he heard the tat-tat-tat of German machine gun fire, he knew that h...

I'm ready to load my aunt's quilt top into the plantation quilting frame. This picture shows the wooden gears used to keep the fabric tight while quilting. Click the picture for a better view. Here is the quilting frame set up on the front porch. It is easy to take apart because only four little pegs hold it together.  One handle winds right and the other winds left so the fabrics are tightened for quilting.  This allows about two feet of quilt to be exposed at one time. I have the cotton batting from my field picked and in the basket for carding. Experts in these things tell me the quilting frame was made about 1850 which is nice to know.  I am glad that it is still useful for its original purpose.

I finally finished picking the last of the cotton from the side field. It is not hard to do, but it does take a lot of time.  I used one of the old cotton baskets but not for show or nostalgia but because it is what works best.  You can drag it along the row since it is so light weight.  It is also very easy to ring with the cotton as you pull it from the plant. Now I will quilt my Aunt Elizabeth's quilt top that she gave me. I use the cotton as batting with the seeds in it.  I have quilts over 100 years old and the seeds are there. It was not necessary to have cotton ginned ( seeds removed ) in rural Alabama!  The first cotton gins ( short for engine ) were little hand-cranked machines no bigger than a corn sheller.  If I could find one I'd buy it and use it. I got out my quilting frame ( still working after 150 plus years) and will get the process started.  I need Tasha Tudor to help me set this up. The gourd crop is out...