Saratoga is the August place to be-but nowhere is better than my backyard!

I have a couple of pictures here from August activities in Saratoga-The Travers, or the Mid-Summer Derby as they like to advertise on NBC.  We have our share of celebrities here for the summer and they are mingling with the regular people while they vacation here.  Many of them have second or third homes here, and because of the influx of summer money, we have a nice life up here in little old Saratoga Springs.  So, here are pictures of The Track on Travers Day and also Polo by Twilight.  You will probably recognize John Walsh of the Missing Person's show on a Polo Pony.  He and his son are avid polo players and are actually quite good!

There are other things to do in Saratoga other than watch horses.  If you take a trip slightly East to the next county over(Washington County) there is a Cheese Tour at the end of Summer where you will see sheep, goats and many other beautiful animals, including dairy cattle, llamas and chickens, chickens, chickens.  Here are a few of my favorite shots from the Cheese Tour, which will take place in September again this year.

But, as I said in the title, there is no place like my backyard for seeing lovely birds and other critters.  Sometimes when I am just poking around the gardens or staring out the window, a beautiful bird will appear, and if I have my act together I actually get a picture!  Oh sure, in the winter time I lure them with feeders just to break the monotony of whiteness, but it is worth the bursts of color to tempt them with suet and seeds. 

Have a lovely day and take advantage of the beauty that happens upon you!

New Links

I have been trying to stay above the 200 mark on Etsy, and have succeeded this week, with adding some new fun summer stuff and renewing some lovely listings.  Still want to get to the 500 mark, but it's difficult when there are so many other projects to complete! Today's project is to paint the siding under the back porch and prepare to paint the decking.  Yesterday was the cleaning and prepping-Ugh. So many spiders! 
I'm also going to provide a link to a new website(for me).  It's called Craftori and I'm using it to see if it drives more people to my Etsy shop.  http://craftori.com

Summer is fleeting, so slip into one of these and get out there!

Enough said.  Happy SUNDay!

Flowers and Fashionistas

Friday was a perfect day to plant the second harvest in the vegetable garden, considering the first planting didn't do so well I should probably deem it my first harvest.  The flowers have done beautifully this past week and I was able to fill a bucket with several varieties to create a bouquet.  Eventually I will hang this upside down to dry so the birds can enjoy the seeds, but for a time they will sit in a lovely blue vintage Ball Jar and amuse me. 

So what of the fashionistas?  I was going through some old family photos(on my father's side) and came across some pictures of the women who gave me my genes.  My grandmother had a stoic picture of my great-grandparents taken "in the old country", which was Greece.  She would always say I looked like my Great Grandmother and then say" She was Bohemian".  I always associated Bohemian with being a hippie, so I thought it was kinda cool that my Great Grandma was individualistic and a free spirit.  Well, she really meant she was FROM Bohemia, which is the old Czech Republic.  What was a grade school kid to know about that?  I found a picture of her and got rid of some of the stains and dings and she really cleaned up nice!

Not sure about any resemblance though.
The box of photos also contained several pictures of my Grandparents and their active social life.  When I knew them, they were a couple of old people who like to garden(thinking I got that gene) and go out for coffee and eat hot dogs at the Bug Light.  Simple, hard-working, boring.  Not according to the pictures I found!  They were hot tickets! Below is my Grandma with a couple of friends-she's the one on the left.  This was taken in the early 30's.  The next is with the family car in the 50s 

Look at them wheels!  Hope you are enjoying your weekend!

200!

Yesterday was alternately buckets of rain then sunshine.  I can't tell you where the time went, but I can tell you I spent the afternoon posting new old items to my Etsy Shop-North Country Classics on Etsy.  AND I now have 200 items for sale-woo hoo!  My goal is to get to 500 and stay around that number, but if you have ever posted anything for sale on the internets, you know it is time consuming.  My best listing speed is 20 items per day.  I still have to do stuff like laundry and eat, so fitting in taking pics, editing, writing a sometimes witty description, etc takes up lots of time!
Here are a couple of cool things up there now-mostly 70s clothing and also some rescued art.  We'll discuss that in more detail at a later date.

Here is the link to my shop on Etsy: 
https://www.etsy.com/shop/NorthCountryClassics

and to my FB page where you can see when new items are listed:
https://www.facebook.com/TeaAtThreeVintageOnEtsy

I know the name on the FB page looks wonky-it was the old shop name until I changed the focus from serving items and tea cups to clothing and kitsch.  This stuff is way more fun, although the serving and tea stuff is still useful for "the wedding planners"...

G.R.O.W.

So last year my gardens were thriving due to the right amount of rain, sunshine and attention.  This year, not so much.  I posted a few pics of 2012 gardens. 

So, this weekend was spent on Garden Recovery and Optimization Works(GROW).  It took me two hours last weekend to just FIND the vegetable plants under the weeds-and unfortunately, not only were they choked by the competition, we have rabbits.  Seems they like the same vegetable that we do.  Grrrr. 
I was able to start harvesting new potatoes because the rabbits don't dig for their food, but the kale and beets are looking pretty shabby.  Tomatoes are kind of scraggly too.  So, instead of having food from my garden, we took the time to expand the garden for next year and set out a Have a Heart for the vermin.  Until then I will have to depend upon Kilpatrick Farms to provide us with good healthy vegetables. 

Fortunately, after all our hard work there was PLENTY of mint for Mojitos!

Flashback Friday

It's summer in Saratoga, which means the racing season brings all sorts of people and money! That's great if you like the smell of cigar smoke and love wandering around town for an hour trying to find a parking space just to buy a cup of coffee at Uncommon Grounds.  Crazy stuff.  The track has been around for 150 years and boasts a rich history of winners and losers.  Fashion is also important if you are a person that wants to be seen there.  Hats and dresses, as well as suits and spats are part of the past and present.

I thought I would dig up a few old photos, or more specifically a few photos of old things as well as my grandparents in their heyday.  Fashion was important in the 30s even if you didn't have money.  My grandparents were people of little means, but when it was time to step out, they made sure they looked good-

These were most likely taken in the 30s and 40s.  Wish I had the dress today!

Below are some interesting relics discovered on my drives to Washington County or the Hudson Valley.  Some cool old stuff that was useful in its day.  I think the house is actually for sale. 

Enjoy your weekend! There is a change coming in the weather-finally....
S

The Wedding Planners

Daughter Shawn is here this week from Kentucky and we are hashing out some wedding plans.  Next year, on the day of the Summer Solstice there will be an intimate garden wedding in our backyard.  Happy it's the Longest Day of the Year, now let's have some decent weather!

Yesterday we went to several junk stores and thrift stores to look for Vintage China to use for the wedding.  Shawn is not a traditional bride and would like to also keep costs to a minimum during her quest for the perfect(for her) wedding.  First was the "junk barn" in Ravena, which is actually a Flea Market on Rt 9W.  If you are a picker, you need to go here.  Just bring hand wipes and CASH!  We came away with lots of dinner plates, cake plates, and salad plates of various vintage eras and colors, and are currently soaking them in dishwasher soap to get rid of the grime.  So far so good!  I have posted some pics below of other stuff I had found in my trips to the GW and Salvatore's as well as our hospital thrift shop.  The other items aren't ready for prime time yet.

Today is I think day 5 of our heat wave.  Enough is enough.  Need to get out and dig in the dirt, but not during the most brutal part of our way too short summer.  Hope you are all keeping cool!