A good day for acquiring things

Today, The family and I went garage selling. I came across a good set of Craftsman vise grips for $1.50, two knives $.75 each and a really nice tent for $20. The tent was the nicest score. It is a four person coleman tent that a guy got for his grandkids to campout in the backyard in. The guy said they only used it 2-3 times and it looked like it. Everything was there for it. The tent stakes were still in the original plastic wrap never used. The rain fly didn't have a speck of dirt on it. All the poles were there and in pretty good shape. Other than a few blades of grass on the inside and a paper plate sized area of dirt on the bottom, the tent itself looked as of it had never been used. As soon as it warms up, I'll have to test it out with the kiddos in the back yard. Hopefully I can get them started in the great outdoors!

Nice finds.

That tent will help tremendously in this lifelong path of wonder for the kids.

Great finds!!!!

That's a good way to start, and start the kids.......my first tent was a Red Ryder...to match my BB gun...and I never looked back, Congrats!
I actually went to a yard sale yesterday and didn't buy anything.....LOL

The time you spend with your kids will be worth a million. Even if they do not get the camping bug they will still have fond memories of the time spent in the backyard.

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"Daddy, Whatcha doin?"
"Can you get daddy the cell phone sweety. It's right over there."
"That's it. Now can you punch the button that says "Mommy"? Good girl."
"Hello?"
"Hon, I uh, I got the Super Glue instead of the Seam Sealer......."

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_CP9grLiNUH...0/IMG_8209.JPG

Lol! Yeah, I'm off Friday, so I'm hoping I can get it set up in the back yard and seal the seams. There is also another spray that I want to look for. It is suppose to help repel water in general and prevent mildew.

Sweet deals are out there just waiting to be found! Congrats.

This mornings paper;
6 man tent, 4 sleeping bags, port-a-potty, used once.......$75 bucks.
No I don't need any of this stuff, but can you guess what happened?

I sure hope that port a potty had been cleaned. Wheeew!

Down the river from 'The place" was a 'camp"........You could see the blue, red and yellow, colors that were popular in the '80's.

Was there quite a while, so during hunting season I walked down there, and found a camp that had just been "left'.....all the stuff was new, and still had K-Mart stickers on it.
Tent, tent shower w/porta potty in it, cots, weed whacker, fishing gear, couple of plastic containers that had held different stuff but were open and destroyed.

Shower tent was on the river bank, and was washing out....hanging part of it over the water.
not wanting the porta potty to fall in I dragged it back away from the bank, as well as the remains of the tent.

Inside the porta potty was a mess, but I dragged it back to my 'camp' and cleaned it out and bleached it.

Seems the land had been bought late '80's, family bought all that stuff, hauled it off the road, and set up next to the river....to the joy of the mosquitoes.
Later that night was a thunderstorm, so the family walked out to find their car stuck next to the road.

Went for help from the neighbor, who related this story to me, and who did buy that lot 8 acres from that family after one "trip to their land".

They never came back, and I still have the porta potty, the rest of the camp has melted back into the river and bank....took a long time...you could see the big tent slowly falling in........so over the years I would pull it out of the water.

After crawling/working under house trailers, (oops sorry , manufactured homes) on plumbing and HVAC....cleaning out the porta potty wasn't so bad.
Just remember the 4 rules of a plumber;
1) shut runs down hill
2) don't eat with your fingers
3) The boss is an a$$ hole
4) you get paid on Friday
LOL, couldn't resist.

Somewhere in that list should be ... critters live under manufactured homes. I've run into more snakes and rats under those than any other type of dwelling.

This story is for Crash. There was a bug guy that I often ran into when I first started. It was a small town and he was the only guy that did pest control. We often had coffee together. I missed him for a few days and when he did show up he didn't look so good. I asked him what was wrong and he was having to take rabies shots (this was back when they were in the stomach). He crawled under a trailer to spray for bugs and came eyeball to eyeball with a large rat. He thought it would be funny to spray the rat. I guess that stuff is kinda high pressure. He said he hit the rat and knocked him back a few feet. The rat jumped up, shook himself off and attacked!!!! He bit the guy three or four times be he made his escape. It wasn't very funny but it was, too.

LOL, I hear ya......when something breaks under a MFG home.....there isn't a clean up....so everything is still there.

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Originally Posted by Rick

Somewhere in that list should be ... critters live under manufactured homes. I've run into more snakes and rats under those than any other type of dwelling.

This story is for Crash. There was a bug guy that I often ran into when I first started. It was a small town and he was the only guy that did pest control. We often had coffee together. I missed him for a few days and when he did show up he didn't look so good. I asked him what was wrong and he was having to take rabies shots (this was back when they were in the stomach). He crawled under a trailer to spray for bugs and came eyeball to eyeball with a large rat. He thought it would be funny to spray the rat. I guess that stuff is kinda high pressure. He said he hit the rat and knocked him back a few feet. The rat jumped up, shook himself off and attacked!!!! He bit the guy three or four times be he made his escape. It wasn't very funny but it was, too.

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When I first started in the business there was a three week training program at the company I worked for. On my last day of training one of the techs called in sick. They were handing out his work orders in the morning meeting, but everybody had a full schedule. I asked if I could run his stops, to which the boss said "No, you're still in training". I asked if he thought I would be any more proficient at the job tomorrow morning.....he gave me the work orders.

The last stop that day was inspecting a large (3,000 sq ft) home. There was a dog (Bear) that kept trying to come into the crawl space with me, so I installed the cover over the entrance as I entered. I was at the far end of the home and as my flashlight passed an area with plumbing, there were four eyes (two rats) staring back at me. Right about then, something jumped on my legs. I discovered that you cannot stand up in a crawl space that has 20 inches of clearance, no matter how many times you try. When I looked back, Bear was laying there wagging his tail.

I completely understand that in spades. I was wiring a log home underneath. It had a center block wall that divided the crawl space into two sections. When I first crawled in there was a danged possum sulled up in the corner hissing at me. I eased down the opposite side and when I went through the opening into the second portion of the crawl space something was all over my head. I was swinging for all I was worth to get it off me. It turned out it was about an 8 month old puppy that belonged to one of the builders. When I finally got out from under the house I told him he owed me a new pair of pants. We figured the puppy was afraid of the possum and overjoyed that someone came to rescue it. I wasn't quite as overjoyed as the puppy.

When laying down a moisture barrier under "The Place', ( really helped a lot!), had a role of visqueen heavy duty, 16 ft wide by 50 ft long.....cabin is 16' X 40', required that I crawl under for one end pulling the plastic with me.

It is folded to the middle, I had to role for side to side to spread it out....my hunting partner was waiting outside 'supervisin', so I asked him to crawl under with me as it would go a whole lot faster.

So, he did and was going well, but said, " Hey, there is something moving under here, (pretty dark)..".....LOL, so I said, "Don't look around, just keep moving, we will be out of here faster...".....LOL.
Got it done, and took a beer break.

How did we get to the crawl space from yard sales?.....We are so easily led astray.......LOL

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Originally Posted by hunter63

How did we get to the crawl space from yard sales?.....We are so easily led astray.......LOL

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But that is what I love about this place! You can have a conversation and let it flow without getting flammed by a moderator for going off topic. It is hard to stay on topic when you are ADOS! (Attention Deficit.....Oooh Shiney!)

Nice finds natertot .!!!

It is amazing what stuff people buy and then let sit and waste away.

hmmmmmmmmm, I have 2 sheds full of stuff. :) BUT, when you live off grid......who knows when you might need some 'stuff'.