I about lost it when I looked in the paper (online) and saw not one but three neighborhood yard sales - in September, no less!
As it turned out, we only went to two. The best area doesn't have a neighborhood name that I know of, but is sandwiched between Lake Nokomis, I-35W and the Hwy 62 freeway in Minneapolis. Two adjacent alleys running for six blocks. All of the sales were in the alley, making it very easy to go from one sale to another on foot. We only had to move the car once.
Find of the day
Lots of great vinyl
price - 25 cents to $1
sold
I've written two separate articles here about my passion for ChaCha/Mambo music and Swing. I scored a great Perez Prado record, and found a mint copy of this great Asleep at the Wheel record to replace my scratchy copy. I also found Congalese choral music and the best of BB King. Janie got a Supertramp record she had fond memories of.
Other things we did or did not buy
Plaster toucan
price - $1
sold
This isn't quite right for my mom's shop, but we're going to take a bunch of stuff back to Colorado and have our own yard sale there. This has to be in it.
price - $1 (on average)
sold
These will be going in my mom's shop. I got two heavily insulated ones, and a brand new Pendleton.
Catnip bubbles
price - 25 cents
no sale
Great idea, but the seal was broken. I don't buy anything at a yard sale if it's been opened.
Motorcycle size pop-up camper
price - $1,300
no sale
It got us thinking though. This camper is small enough to pull behind a motorcycle! Now that's a way you could go camping and not suck up a lot of fuel. (Tent camping is too much work for us, and a trailer of some sort would be just right.) Smile, Janie.
Stuffed fox
price - (I don't know! Bleah!)
no sale
Snowblower
price - free
no sale
I love to shovel snow, and you couldn't pay me to run a snow blower. The notes said, "Carburator doesn't work. Will run if you spray starter fluid directly into the intake."
Great.
"Honey, put the emergency room on speed dial. I'm going to go run the snow blower. Have you seen that bottle of Everclear?"
Girlie mug
price - $1
no sale
This could match my mud flaps (not).
Skateboard with shocks
price - $20
no sale
I don't know much about skateboarding, but I'm pretty sure having shock absorbers on a board blows (dude).
We then moved on to the Bancroft neighborhood. Not as good a sale, but they're just in their second year. This wasn't as much fun, because you could tell some of the sellers were desperate to supplement their income. Still there was some interesting stuff I haven't seen elsewhere.
Pogo stick
I don't think he wanted to sell it.
Corner china cabinet
price - $50 or best offer
no sale
We didn't need it. There's nowhere in our house it would fit in. It was a spectacular deal, and we're sure someone took it.
Mechanical cat
price - $1
no sale
This, children, is why kitties lick themselves.
Someone's leg
price - (didn't ask)
no sale
Record vacuum
price - $5
no sale
I've heard of these, and was privileged to be able to photograph it in it's natural habitat (a garage sale).
Okay, that was that. We stopped by one of our favorite Thai places for:
Vegies and tofu (mild) for Janie
Silver thread noodle salad (as hot as the insurance company will let them make it), for me. Mmmmm, the flavors of lime and shrimp and fish sauce and cilantro with peanuts and chicken and ripping chile. Oh. My.
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Comments: 29
Dorothy, community yard sales are a lot more fun than running all over town.
We stopped at the Sawat Dee (sp?) on Hennepin in Uptown. They have the best silver thread noodle salad. For pad thai and spring rolls, we go to Ruam Mit in downtown St Paul. The Twin Cities abounds with great Thai food. The fruits of being welcoming to immigrants.
THANKS!!
Dave, there's a church in Paonia, CO that used to have remarkable auctions: grapes, boxes of old bottles, cars parked out front, boxes of baby clothes, tools, on and on. I took my wife there a few years ago and it had changed. A little pile of stuff on a table, and a few sad looking folks eyeing us as we walked in, like "Why are YOU here?" It was sad. I don't know what happened. Yes, I love auctions too.
Stephanie, it's great to get your kinds interested in yard sales early on. If a person gets in the yard sale habit, they'll always have prosperity, I think.
Cheryl, I like the way the nature of the stuff varies from one part of town to another. Around the lakes, wealthy people have nice things they just want to get rid of. In Uptown there are kids giving away things their aunts and uncles must have wanted them to have (eek), and Nokomis can be solidly blue collar - just right for finding lots of cha cha and mambo records.
I was in a communty yard sale myself this weekend. Sold a bunch of stuff! I didn't have my camera but commented to my friends how I wanted to photograph some of the stuff we saw.
I have to say...LOVE the Toucan! And we tried the catnip bubbles once, our cats did not like it and the bubbles didn't last long.
I think people are in the mood to shop - I was very busy this weekend at my demos (I'm a sample lady LOL).
Wish I could have been at a garage sale instead.
It was cool. Janie put on the heavy green shirt shown above as soon as we bought it. I'm pretty much indifferent to heat. It's part a guy thing, but I've lived at logging camp in the winter, and gathered flat sandstone in 106 degree weather. Nothing fazes me. I like walking in the rain, etc.
Cynthia, I pretty much stick to South Minneapolis and the West Side of St Paul. (You're safe).
Curried duck, eh? I'll have to try it. All of the Sawatdees I've been in were quite different . . .