Cliff's toys and keepsakes

In an entry on my AOL journal, I posted a picture of hog-butchering that took place in my husband's shop. A couple of readers noticed Cliff's collection of keepsakes and toys in the background and asked to see these goodies closer up. I'm posting the pictures here because Blogger lets you click on a picture and make it HUGE, so you can see any tiny detail you're after. Enjoy.

By the way, we found these bookcases, cheap, at a garage sale we happened to see fifty miles north of here. As you can tell, Cliff desperately needs another showcase of some sort: This one is running over.


The wine-bottle is from a friend's vineyard and winery. He keeps saying he's going to go to paper labels, so we saved one of his fancy bottles. On the upper right, see the plaque that says Cliff "hearts" John Deere? That was given to me for Cliff by an Internet friend (Bado) who I met in person at a "chat room reunion" in Tennessee.

The carved pig up there on the left was made by my cousin's husband who passed away last year. Many of the toy tractors are models of real ones we've owned. There are pins collected from tractor shows, and mementos given to us by friends.

I happen to admire Harry Truman, so I'm the one who bought a copy of the plaque he always had on his desk as president: "The buck stops here!" I was going to buy one when I was visiting Truman Library, but the price stopped me. Instead, I found it on Ebay much cheaper.

Most of Cliff's tractors are Ertle brand, and not really too expensive. He does have a couple of "precision" ones that cost over $100. They are very detailed, and the steering wheels actually work on them.

So there you have it.