A Different Kind of Paycheck

There's not a paycheck made out to "Kim Fritzemeier" when I help with cattle or run to the parts store.

But don't think I'm without benefits.

I've enjoyed using one of those benefits this winter. I found a red Pyrex bowl in an old hunting cabin when we hauled cattle out of the pasture in November.

(This photo was obviously taken in the summer, but it shows the old hunting lodge in the Ninnescah pasture.)

It's definitely not ready for Antiques Roadshow. There's a rusty mark on the rim and the inside white is not without blemishes, no matter how hard I scrub.

But it was just what I needed to replace a bowl that fell victim to the great kitchen disaster of the 2010 Stafford County Fair.

I now have a vintage red Pyrex bowl to replace it. The red bowl probably began its kitchen life in the 1940s as one of four nested, primary-colored bowls. It was the company's 400 series of bowls, and my found treasure is marked "404," a 4-quart bowl just perfect for letting bread dough rise.

I suppose the bowl originally had a place in a farm wife's kitchen. Maybe she even used hers for bread, too.

At some point, her husband "appropriated it" and took it to the hunting cabin. Maybe it held the catch from a fishing trip at the pasture's spillway.

While the guys hauled a trailer, I was left to my own devices at the cabin.

Look carefully: You can see the pickup and trailer outside the chicken wire of the cabin window.

I dug under the layers of an era gone by and prayed I wouldn't find any mice. Instead, I found the red bowl.

And, if online selling sites are to be believed, I would have to pay anywhere from $9.95 to $17.95 to $32.00 to get one of these beauties.

Who says I don't get paid?