I'm a Collector

I’m a collector and have been since I was a kid. I saved all my books, and a few horse statues that had been given to me. When I became an adult an moved to a small farm I collected small chicken statues and pictures because I had chickens and still have five now. I still have a lot of the statues, although most of them have been packed away.

 

Just a few of the bells I've collected over the years.

The next thing I collected were bells – bells I bought on vacation and bells my parents got for me when they went on vacation. Today almost all those bells are packed away.

Then I went to the Augusta Heritage workshop in West Virginia. I wanted to sign up for a laptop dulcimer class. The only two classes were for beginners and advanced. I’d already taken a class where I made a cardboard lap dulcimer and continued on with the instructor and went to a dulcimer event where I bought a beautiful lap dulcimer. I was beyond beginner, but not quite good enough to be considered advanced so I signed up for a spinning class.

 

More books with small pots I collect, too.

I found that fun and ended up buying a spinning wheel as well as the other things necessary to brushing wool, etc. Well, I enjoyed that and because I was working with wool, I started collecting small statues and pictures of sheep. Eventually, I lost interest in spinning and a few years ago I gave my spinning wheel to a niece who was interested in working with wool.

Now my bells, most of my chickens, but not all and my sheep are in boxes in the garage. My laptop dulcimer is by the piano with a missing key. I haven’t played it in years and years, nor have I played my guitar in years so I don’t have fingers tough enough to play it. It’s also in my living room.

The south wall of my library the wall to the right is total books.

My biggest collection of all for years has been books. I probably have more than a thousand books in my house if you add up the books in every room in my house except for the kitchen which only has a few cookbooks. And I have boxes of old books in my garage, also. Only one wall in my library doesn’t have bookcases on it. That has a large window for some of the orchids I collect, a desk, and a combination radio/CD, cassette and record player. I have hundreds of CDs and cassette disks. CDs are another collection of mine. I have so many CD’s with a wide variety of music. I go to a lot of folk and Celtic concerts and always buy a CD from the group playing. I have a collection of classical music, too, and song books from the days before the sound board on my piano cracked.

 

Every one of my multiple gardens has daylilies.

I guess I should mention that I have hundreds of daylilies outside, too. I can’t resist ordering some from Gilbert H. Wild & Son when they send their sale catalog. How can one not resist ordering a daylily named Witches Wink, or Tiger Kitten, or a daylily with a family member’s name like black eyed Susan even though my daughter doesn’t have black eyes.

What do you collect?