IF THERE IS A BATHTUB IN THE FRONT YARD.......

If there is a bathtub in the front yard.........you know you're at a house ripe for pickin'.  Yesterday, Cori and I went out on an adventure, driving to the middle of nowhere  Heppner, OR to meet up with Dave, who had told us over many phone calls and emails, that he had some items that we would be interested in.  We met Dave and his son, at a gas station in Lexington, OR and from there we followed him to one of two locations he would take us to.  Oh and by the way?.... the majority of the drive from Lexington to Heppner were on gravel roads only.  As I said to Cori several times through tears of laughter......." Lucy.....you got some splainin' to do"!

We are coming to find out that if there is a plumbing fixture, sink, toilet, or bathtub somewhere on the front lawn, we better don our gloves and flashlights and be ready to get dirty, and dirty we got.  We climbed, and sifted, and dug through boxes and shelves of what most people would call trash, but we prefer to call it unclaimed treasures from long ago.  Dusting off years of dirt and neglect, we found enough items to fill up the inside of Cori's mini van, and I'm sure we brought home an extra spider or two along the way.

It seemed like each item had a story behind it, but the best one involved this green chair.  When examining it, I mentioned the hole in the seat of the chair, to which Dave started laughing.  He said that chair was his Mother's favorite, and would sit it in all the time outside, however, when it rained, it collected water on the seat.  When she complained to his Father about this dilemma, he promptly took his gun and shot a bullet through the seat, immediately fixing the problem.

The old wood toolboxes?  Dave's Father built those when he was just a boy of 12 years old.  The kitchen scale was found inside an abandoned single wide trailer on the property, along with those license plates with the last registration dates of 1961 and 1965.   We couldn't pass up that old wood post gate with the rusty hinges either or the fishing creel that I'm sure could tell a fish story or two.  But we were far from finished picking when we left Dave and headed out to Pendelton, OR to visit Ken.

Once again, the bathtub told us we would be in for a dirty good time, and just look at the garage!  It was really too bad that 80 percent of what was in there was broken beyond repair, but we did manage to find an arm chair, two side chairs. and an old window that would find a life outside of a dusty jam packed garage.  We had a blast,  thankful that there are people that still hold onto vintage items, allow us to go hunting through their out buildings and are willing to part with them.  We look at it like modern day treasure hunting.