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I Am A Gardender.... AND an Experimenter!

Valentines Day!! Did everyone remember to say "I love you" to all the people in your life? What do you do on Valentine's Day? Go our for dinner? Lunch? Share your gifts, time, love? I think I did a little bit of all of that. My Best Friend and I met for coffee this morning, lunch was shared with Hubby and one of my daughters and her little ones. We decided against going out to dinner tonight but our regular date night is tomorrow so we will do something fun then. Had two of the "grands" over to watch Trolls and loved them up. And a special surprise from my hubby....

First, let me say that we don't usually do much of an exchange of gifts. But while I was at coffee, he went shopping at an antique store for a gift for me. He knows I LOVE all that old stuff, especially the stuff that can still be used. I've gotten butter churns, a hand-cranked sewing machine, we have old Aladdin lamps around the house and just last week he surprised me with a cute little old timey sewing kit. 





A cigar box, pretty small but filled with interesting things.....

Sewing bobbins, tatting shuttles, dressmakers transfer wheel, screwdriver and super long and sharp sewing needles. 

And one more thing... a picture of this fine man on a tintype way in the bottom of the cigar box. Who knows who he is or was but finding him in the bottom of the cigar box was a real surprise.

So when I got home, there on my desk was another totally interesting gift.... check this out....



It is a cardboard type box filled with 18 different vials of SEEDS! Very old seeds. We found the date of 1905 on one of the bottles. 


Each of the bottles was labeled with the Latin name and its regular name in very fine and faint print. One had the paper on the inside of the bottle. From what we can figure out, they are all types of medicinal plants. Mentioning just a few...Russian Thistle, Castor Beans, Locust Tree, Meadow Rue and Blackthorn. 

Those who know me well, know that I am an experimenter. The first thing I wanted to do was to open the vials, take out a couple of seeds, start the growing process by putting them between damp paper towels and then plant them and see if they would grow. And then... wait until they were full grown and take some of their seeds from the fresh variety and recreate the little vials again from 2017.  It was also intriguing to think of who this may have belonged to in its history and why it was created in the first place. A school project? Seeds being taken into the West as it was broken so the medicinals would be sure to be in place in a rugged land? A Doctors kit? Well, I love history and the way things were done and making up all kinds of stories in my head about what I find. It was THE PERFECT Valentine's Day gift for someone like me!! I love it to the moon and back! And I will keep you posted when I decide to do the gardening experiment. 

My husband really knows me is all I can say. Happy Valentine's Day honey... and yes, I'd marry you all over again. (Did I mention we will be married for 42 years in April?) So hope your day was sweet and you were able to spend it with the ones you love. 

Thanks for visiting my Blog and come back again....




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