B and I went to a consignment auction last weekend.

We certainly didn't need more stuff in our house. It was more an opportunity to get out, have a look around and relax all day doing virtually nothing.

Even so, I did come back with a nice mantle clock, and B found a chair she liked.

We might have brought home one or two other bits and trinkets, too.

It's a disease.

Odds and ends abounded. I've never seen so much blue enamel and so many kerosene lanterns in one place.

There's something for everyone to collect.

Not only did they sell this ... somebody bought it!

It's a Crock and None May Abide It

One thing they had plenty of at the auction ... crock after crock. Highly collectable. If I could manage to find about a hundred of these in a derelict dairy out in the boonies, it'd be more lucrative than winning the Powerball.

Little Birdie With a Bill

When searching through the flotsam on the tables, one must remember to glance down at the floor from time to time, else you'll miss surprises like this one.

Creepiest Child's Toy Ever

Instead of reselling at auction, some things should be taken to the woodpile and recycled into a million little pieces with a very large axe.

It's the Dane County Farmer's Market on capital square! We planned to get there bright and early, but instead arrived at the usual time – about nine-thirty, maybe tennish. The sidewalk is normally packed shoulder-to-shoulder by that time with people moving in the usual counter-clockwise direction around the square.

One day, owing to a fluke in our weekend timetable, we arrived at six-thirty or quarter to seven and found we were one of about two or three dozen people who had the whole place to ourselves. We vowed to try doing that again, but it was a pretty empty promise. One of us doesn't get out of bed on the weekends before eight o'clock. Ever.



Barb loves peppers!

I think she's got some heirloom onions in her mitts there, too.

She hardly made it down one street on the square before she'd gone through nearly every dollar of the double sawbuck she set aside for the farmer's market this weekend. She just can't pass up a table covered with herbs and spices, and there were plenty of those.

Although there are quite a few vendors selling cheese, eggs and meats, the stalls along each street on the square are normally dominated by small farmers selling their fruits and vegetables at the market.

Barb is a big fan of the peppers and is easily drawn in by something new. She seems to be big into the heirloom veggies right now.





A few brightly-colored chilis on display.

Honey Bears

The bee keeper who sells these at the market also came to our house this spring to rid us of an infestation of carpenter ants.

Clearly, this is a woman who knows a thing or two about bugs.

Gladiolas!

The flower that looks and sounds like a fiesta.

Food! Glorious Food!

There's always plenty to sample at the farmer's market, and nobody gets into the samples more eagerly than the kids ... although I have to admit I was a bit surprised to see this tyke digging in to pesto pasta like there was no tomorrow.

Organic Gardening finally goes too far

None of that fake dirt for me.

Cherry Tomatoes

Cherry-sized but not necessarily cherry-colored.

A Pretty Pony

Sorry to foist another snapshot of a car on you, but I don't see these on the streets nearly as often as I used to – practically never, now that I think about it – and certainly not as finely cared for as this one. Not a spot of rust anywhere! And the interior was immaculate!

Was there ever a better-looking American car? Was any American car more iconic than the Mustang? I'm not crazy about cars, but even I have to say the Mustang has a classic style that hasn't been matched.


The Mustang has a set of lines that make it instantly recognizable up close or at a distance. Designers of modern editions of "mustangs" feel that all they have to do is slap together a car with identifiable features – the tail lights, the air scoop, the gas cap in the middle of the back – and they've produced a faithful update, when all they've done is produced a poor sketch by tracing over an original.

This Mustang has benefitted from a few modifications, as most will, the mag wheels and flash rims being evident. The guys in my neck of the woods who owned Mustangs almost always pulled the original engines and dropped something really huge in its place. But even with changes as obvious as these, this is still undeniably every inch a Mustang.



As I said, I'm not crazy about cars so I don't know why I'm gushing over this one. It was built using engineering techniques not much more advance than Detroit used to build the Model T. Its tail pipe probably emits more CO2 than a coal-fired boiler. It's not even especially comfortable to sit in for very long, but I'd love to drive this little pony around town just once (it occurs to me now that, while I've ridden in a few, I've never driven a Mustang). This was truly a one-of-a-kind. Too bad more domestic cars didn't have this kind of class.

(Not a spot of rust anywhere!)

A doctor's car?

Or a duck hunter's, perhaps?

I spotted this license plate on a Chrysler parked along Carroll Street; My Darling B provided the caption.

Setting Free the Bears

A side entrance to Ragstock on State Street, and its reflection in a conveniently placed mirror.

Madison's In The Details

If I were a betting man and I had to guess what the Hovde Building on the corner of West Washington Ave and Fairchild Street must've been in a previous life, I'd have to put all my money on the headquarters of a regional utility. All those generators and lightning bolts must mean something.

... and pull back to the long shot ...

The Hovde Building's actually quite fetching overall, in the style of buildings from the 1950's or thereabouts.

Watching over the remains of St. Raphael's

This curly-haired visage looks out over an entrance to the burned-out cathedral.

Saint Raphael's cathedral was gutted a little over a year ago after a hobo started a fire in the attic spaces.

Only the walls and the steeple remain standing on the 200 block of West Main Street.

The sky seen through the broken windows of the steeple tower still hold the power to surprise the passing walker.