Saturday morning at 7, Finn and I got our clothes on quietly, pulled the Scout out of the garage, and went to get breakfast together. Then we hit the first yard sales of the season.

This is a tradition that dates back to Finn’s infancy, when I would get her dressed and fed by first morning’s light, then set her in the backpack and hike the neighborhood while Jen slept in. She and I scored all kinds of things together, from bikes to desks to toys and tools, and Saturday morning was always the highlight of my week.

We started on our side of Frederick Road and worked our way back through the leafy streets until we hit the edge of the park. Finn was on the hunt for charms for her bracelet, and the first score of the day was a huge green glass ring the size of a doorknob and a small coin in the shape of a paw.

Across Edmonson, there was a huge community yard sale happening, so we parked the Scout and walked, hand in hand. At first the pickings were pretty slim until we hit a house where a kid was unloading extra LEGOs, and Finn picked up a good-sized bag for $2. I found her a copper pin with a cursive F which a nice woman named Frances gave her for free. At some point, we began following a dude up the street who was asking after old cameras and adult bikes at each house. After a few stops, we caught up with him as he rummaged through a box of old photo gear and walked away with a light meter. I swooped in after him to grab an old Nikkormatic with a 50mm f/2 lens. The guy gave it to me for $10 because he couldn’t get the lens to unmount (after paying, I walked away and had it off in seconds).

Later we stopped at the house of one of Finn’s kindergarten friends, who were having a yard sale and a lemonade stand, and we refreshed ourselves. I struck up a conversation with his father, who had seen the Scout around town, and we found ourselves hanging out for another hour while the kids played in the driveway. At some point I noticed he had an old lens sitting on his table and found it was another Nikon mount, and demanded he let me pay him $5 for it. He threw in a nearly new Lowepro camera bag with it, which is just the thing I didn’t know I was looking for, but fits my camera and four lenses perfectly. His neighbor was selling a pile of window A/C units, so I picked out a nearly new unit for peanuts and threw it in the back of the Scout.

After tearing Finn away for lunch, I got busy in the garage sorting through all of the bins of stuff I brought back from my parents’ place. I cleaned out and moved the toolchest into place, organized the drawers and put everything away. He sent me home with a spare circular saw, belt sander, drill, rotary sander, and a router, all of which will be hugely helpful. The router I’m going to build a table around (or buy an inexpensive table for) so that I can mill wood faster.

I organized a pile of spare wood left over from the porch job, moved the engine to the back corner, and knocked down the last parts of a rickety old shelf to put new wood hangers up. Then I found a place for an 8′ section of beam from Grampy’s barn. Suddenly there was a whole lot of room in the garage.

Later in the day I futzed around with the new lenses and got them both to work in Manual mode; the Nikkor 50mm f/2 lens is nice, but will mainly be a backup for the AI 50mm f/1.8 lens I’ve already got. The other lens, however, has been fun to play with. It’s a Nikon-mount Vivitar 28mm f/2.5, so it’s wider and has a huge focus range. I spent most of the weekend learning where its sweet spots are so that I can get faster at shooting completely manually with it, which is fun. 28mm is a great distance to shoot from, too–not too close and not too far away.

Sunday was another good day of work and play; Finn had piano and swim lessons in the morning, and then we checked out an E-state sale (Finn’s pronunciation) behind the elementary school. It was pretty creepy–like walking into the Silence of the Lambs lotion-in-the-basement house, but interesting to check out. The owner had been an artist in NYC in the early 80’s and then moved to Catonsville sometime later, but his style was arrested firmly in the Reagan Decade, so it was a time capsule of quirk trapped in a little purple house.

Then we got to work in the garden in the afternoon moving bulbs and plants around to try and take advantage of the new sunlight available now that the cedar tree is gone.

We worked hard on this project until 5:30 or so, and broke for a quick dinner so that we could meet the neighbors across the street for some time in the playground. The weather was perfect, and the sun was warm. Our neighbors had to leave a little early to answer the call of nature, but Finn was playing with another girl, so we stayed. Her mother struck up a conversation with us and we talked until after the sun had set behind the school and the air cooled off. Saying our goodbyes, I carried a very tired, very barefoot girl back across the street and we put her into bed.