after dark, and Tuesday morning, when Gary ventured out to work, with the temperature at about 5 F, the roads in county and city were still icy.
Having nowhere I needed to go, unwilling to brave the icy roads, and feeling rather cooped up, I decided to do some “spring cleaning.” I’d had my eye on the plates bordering the walls of our kitchen for some time.
sponged the walls. I’d been thinking this for at least the past year. My brainwave on Tuesday was that the kitchen step ladder just might allow me to do it all. Sure enough, with some care, and standing on the upper step of the two steps of the ladder, I could access both plates and walls.
The plates we have hanging in our kitchen are mainly Blue Ridge pottery plates and saucers, a line of hand decorated dishes made in the 30s to the 50s. We started collecting them in the early 90s, at yard sales, estate sales, and especially at those antique shops and booths that seemed to proliferate around then in former five and dimes and the like. We looked for different patterns, and took special pride in rescuing dinged up plates with lovely colors, enchanting hand done pictures of leaves, fruits and flowers, and coordinating sponge-painted borders – plates with chips, plates with cracks (sometimes lovingly repaired by a former owner), plates with crazing.
A late 19th century Staffordshire turkey plate:
A 40th anniversary plate (Royal Crown, made in Japan) which I found for a dollar or so at a yard sale, a week or two after we celebrated our 40th anniversary in 2011):