Buried Treasure for 'Show and Tell'

I found this pretty little Victorian scent bottle about seven years ago.   

  

At the time we were renovating our house, a former stable/cow shed/cart shed.   The area designated to become our kitchen needed to have the dirt floor level lowered by about three feet - major excavations were needed.   It soon became apparent that the excavated soil contained lots of broken china, bottles and jars...  It must have been the rubbish heap from many years ago.

Luckily, I was able to get the builders to work on a different part of the building, while I got down to some serious, and careful, excavation work of my own.    I found old poison bottles, lots of ink bottles, glass stoppers,  stone veterinary medicine bottles, jars, lots of beautiful broken china and stoneware, huge old hand-made nails and assorted agricultural equipment.   

It was exciting stuff!

As I carefully scraped the soil away from each 'find' I would get very excited

sometimes that care and excitement were rewarded.

The prettiest item I found was this scent bottle.  

 It was covered in dirt, and filled with mud and looked very different from this.

It was buried in the soil, three feet down, with lots of detritus and mud around and above it.
The stopper was immovable and no matter how much I soaked it, I couldn't get it out.
It has lived on a shelf with all my favourite finds - up high and out of reach of young grandchildren.

A few days ago I picked the bottle off the shelf and found that the stopper was loose. 

  It was a real 'Sword in the Stone' moment!     

Finally, I was able to get the soil out of the bottle and clean it up to reveal the true beauty of the cut glass.

It is very small and measures about three inches.  

Originally it would have had a silver top, something like these.  

The design has been cut through the top layer of cobalt blue glass to reveal the clear glass underneath.
It dates from about 1880.  

A similar scent bottle

A little research has turned up these similar scent bottles.

Another similar one - see the bottle stopper ?
My bottle is lacking the silver lid - such a shame!

Isn't it remarkable that mine has survived intact, and that the tiny glass stopper didn't get lost!

It would have been wonderful to have it with the silver top, but even without it, the scent bottle is beautiful!

I will never know who owned it, or why it was thrown away, but that doesn't matter.   

It is a pretty little object and I am delighted that I managed to rescue it.

I am  to happy to be joining in with my dearest friend,  Meggie on the Prairie, -  for 'Show and Tell'.
Her blog is a truly delightful pot pourri of life in Texas.

Horses Have Fun

I left the main roads behind and took the quiet country roads back home.

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There were alpacas in one field and just along the road there were horses... not just any old horses -  these were sleek and handsome dressage horses,  well wrapped against the cold of the day in their smart coats.

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Big, small, sleek, or rough, I love horses  ...  although I must confess a particular fondness for 'cart' horses, heavy horses, and rough ponies.

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What caught my eye this afternoon was a group of three horses.      They were by themselves, in a large paddock on the hill, this was a horse to horse moment.   Two were standing watching, while one appeared to be performing, as though in the dressage ring.

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I watched them for a while, then drove on,  pondering on the question of whether horses play and have fun, or do they worry about things.

Was the 'performing' horse running through a particularly tricky exercise, trying to get it right?
Was it showing the others a manoeuvre it really enjoys doing?
Or could it simply have been having fun or showing off?    I'd love to think so.

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Before I knew it I was back home and there were groceries to unload, logs to be fetched, hens needing a hot mash, and a sick husband to tend.

Back to the real world.

I took Toby to visit our neighbour,  Arnold.   A sweet old horse, enjoying his retirement.   He knows how to have fun.

How an Old Book came to Life

I love books and I particularly like old handwritten books.

I have told you about my old handwritten recipe books, but I don't think

I have told you about my collection of old account books.

At first glance, they look pretty dull.

Not so!

This is a page from an 1898 blacksmith's book.

I have thoroughly enjoyed wading through the entries, trying to decipher the writing,

checking out the charges, the names of the customers,

their farms.

This afternoon our lovely neighbour, John (aged 96 and still cares for Arnold the horse)

called in.   

He was great company and conversation was wide-ranging and interesting.

John spent his working life as a farm manager

and is a mine of information on the old ways of farming.

I showed him the ledger.

Suddenly that book came to life as John pored over the entries, deciphering the old writing.

Words which had puzzled me often turned out to be trade names which he recognised.

He told stories of the old days when farms had large numbers of working horses

and the local blacksmith was in great demand.

Machinery would be repaired, if possible.

We read entries about sheep cutters, turnip planters, dog chains, plough traices,

knives sharpened, a crow bar sharpened and repaired,

gates and  pitch forks, 

wheels were repaired and oak boards supplied for a coffin.

There is an entry to show that they cut 15 acres of hay for Lady Lothian at Blickling...

details of which can be found here,

suffice to say it is a very large old house and Lady Lothian ran the place after her husband died.

I'm not sure why a blacksmith would send his men to cut hay, but I guess money is money.

They charged 2/- per acre... 10 new pence.

The book has about 460 pages, packed with entries and the prices charged.

It will take a while to work through it, but I'm sure it holds

lots more stories.

Meanwhile, I am going to lend it to John.

He enjoyed poring over it, remembering the old days,

I think he will have hours of fun!