Regrets?

I hope I don't live to regret telling Husband it's OK to put a lot of the old metal stuff from the cottage out on the curb for the recyclers to pick up. Piles of venetian blinds from 1960 are mixed with old stove pipe, old gutters, old galvanized plumbing pipe that came out from under the house, aluminum trim from bathroom walls, around the tub and kitchen sink, etc. We've already recycled much of it, but it still accumulated in the little cottage out back. Now that we're planning on moving in on Monday, we need a place to stash our six cats while the movers bring in the furniture. So the metal stash had to go!

One especially hard thing to give away is the original sink from the kitchen--an odd sized 12 x 30" cast iron monster that weighs a ton--and is rusted plumb through. I fancied making a small garden pond out of it, or using it in the greenhouse. Nah, that would never happen. For one thing, it's just too heavy--then there's the rust. Still, I feel a bit sad about not keeping it. It's a part of the history of this house.

The old cast iron sink as it was when we bought the house

I have to remind myself that never did we plan on doing a period restoration. Still, the sink is one of the things I noticed when I first set foot in the house, and the only thing I remembered weeks later when we came by to take a second look. I even asked Rudy "Now, which house was it that had the old sink?" I think it stirred some deeply buried memory of my great-grandmother's old house in Handley, Texas. I only visited there once, but still remember her 1930's era kitchen and a sink very similar to this one.

Metal is a hot commodity these days, and I know some wandering recycler will consider himself (or herself) lucky to drive by and see the "Free" sign sitting by the pile. There are many people now around here who feed their families from the money they get through recycling. I have to remember that when I get wistful about an old rusty sink that weighs a ton.

Happy trails!

bobbi c.