Kentucky, Fall 2021

On our way to Indiana in the fall of 2021, my wife and I stayed a couple of days in a small Kentucky town, where she was born.  Her sister and brother in law from Florida met us there.  There are few relatives left here, but their genealogy runs back many years in this area.  Chasing that genealogy was part of the incentive for this brief visit.

When not visiting the local library and graveyards, we killed a little time visiting an antique store a few miles outside of town.  Since I could not be out shooting local landscapes and/or farm scenes here, I consoled myself with making a few images of old antique items with my iPhone.

Chew on This

In the parking lot of the antiques store an old GMC truck, with the store name painted on the passenger side door, drew my attention.  It appears that this truck had been sitting for years in one location and had to be rescued from a tree that had grown between the front bumper and the body.  The windshield interior is covered with mildew, which seems appropriate for the cloudy, rainy day.

Look what I bit off

Near the truck were a couple of old, rusty farm implements.

Cultivator
Seed Planter

Inside the store, I snapped a few images of some of the old items offered for sale.

Crush It

I drank Orange Crush soft drink from a short, dark brown bottle in my very young days, but I never saw it in these screw top jars.  Maybe these predate those more common little, brown bottles?

Perfect Mason

Ball Mason jars seem to be one of the most common items found in these type stores.

Zenith

I can actually remember some older folks having these old radio and/or record players (bottom pull out here) in their homes, when I was a young child.

Ballantine’s

Other frequently found items are old wooden crates for bottled beverages and/or liquor.

Sewing Tractor

Creative, crafty people sometimes come up with unique ideas for transforming antiques into whimsical items, like the sewing machine tractor in the image above.  This was a first for me, I had never seen this done anywhere else. There were a couple of these in this store.  The other was labeled as a John Deere.

On to Indiana next,

Ken

 

Sue’s Place – Kentucky, September 2019

During our September, 2019 visit to Liberty, Kentucky, we stayed in a VRBO rental near Russel Springs, Kentucky and the Cumberland Lake.  The rental was in the country about a 45 minute drive via country roads to Liberty.  Nearly each day, we drove by an interesting looking country antique place.  What initially caught my eye was an old, rusty Ford pickup truck out front with the sign “Sue’s” on it.

Sue’s Ford Truck iPhone photograph with edits in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
Sue’s Truck and Driver iPhone photograph with edits in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
Sue’s loaded truck iPhone photograph with edits in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.

Late one day on our way past, I decided to stop to get an iPhone shot of the old truck.  It was just after hours for the antique place, but the owner, Sue, saw us and came out to chat with us.  She actually opened a couple of the small store units and let us look around.

Sue’s Place iPhone photograph with edits in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.

Barbara bought a small item that she liked and I browsed around, mostly outside, shooting interesting objects around her stores.

Sue’s Place Signs. iPhone photograph with edits in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
Sue’s Place iPhone photograph with edits in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
Sue’s Place Signs iPhone photograph with edits in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
Sue’s Place Signs iPhone photograph with edits in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
Sue’s Place A&P Sign iPhone photograph with edits in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.

Sue even told me to check her yard decor at her house next door to the antique stores and invited Barbara into her house to look at her antiques.

iPhone photograph with edits in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.

Sue had interesting yard decor with a definite country flair.

Sue’s Yard Decor. iPhone photograph with edits in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
Sue’s Yard Decor. iPhone photograph with edits in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.

Sue had numerous old grinding wheels and grist mill wheels.  These must have been a real chore to move around.

Sue’s Yard Decor. iPhone photograph with edits in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
Sue’s Yard Decor. iPhone photograph with edits in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.

There is something very appealing, nostalgic and comforting about country yard decor such as Sue’s.

Sue’s Yard Decor. iPhone photograph with edits in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
Sue’s Yard Decor. iPhone photograph with edits in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.

As I was browsing around Sue’s yard, her husband, a retired school bus driver, arrived after doing some tractor work for someone.  We chatted about the old truck, which he had wanted to paint, but Sue did not want the truck painted, which I think is fortunate, as it looks quite appealing in its current rusty state.  Sue’s husband showed me a photograph of an old automobile in a pasture, which he was acquiring from someone he knew.  He said he would paint that old car, since he was forbidden to paint the old truck.

Before we got away, I was fortunate to get a sunset shot, although it is only via my iPhone, which does not handle the high light contrast very well.

iPhone photograph with edits in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.

Sue’s husband also had put small lights in the old truck’s headlight holes, so I got a shot of the truck with the light on at sunset.

Sue’s Truck at Night. iPhone photograph with edits in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.

It is always amazing to me how friendly our country people are and it is always a pleasant surprise to meet people like Sue and her husband.

That’s all for now,

Ken