When my Dad died, among the many things I inherited was a pair of treadle sewing machines. One was my grandma’s (my mother’s mother) and one was from somewhere on his side of the family.
When you’re sorting through your parent’s belongings, the hardest thing you face is separating your memories of your parents from their physical stuff. I was able to do it to some extent. I decided to give the one from Dad’s side of the family to Mountain Man’s Lovely Bride and to keep my grandma’s.
I also decided to keep my Dad’s old reel-type push mower.
Now, I’ve told you all that so I can tell you this. My children, who both take after their father in the “sense of humor” area, promptly dubbed the two items as the “Armageddon Sewing Machine” and the “Armageddon Mower”. They both know and I believe mostly understand their father’s position on the whole “Our society is cruisin’ for a brusin'” thing. They also understand that, prepping or not, life must go on and that one can not live their life in fear and dread.
In return, I have told them both that I am spending my inheritance foolishly, and that they will inherit their grandfather’s substantial collection of pipe wrenches, cold chisels and mismatched screw drivers. I have also informed them that his collection of odd screws and bent nails were donated to the poor-and-starvin’, so not to expect those.
Of course, any tool is useless without some basic knowledge, so earlier this week I was delighted to stumble over granny-miller.com and her Treadle Sewing Machine Advice.
Now I can relax, knowing that I comfortably hold the title of “Most effort expended by a blogger to clear one tab on his browser”. 🙂