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?

Hidden Treasure

This house was never a home. It's in the pasture at the Ninnescah, and it served as a hunting cabin for a number of years.

The hunters don't use it any longer. They still hunt at the pasture, but they don't bunk at the cabin.

I peeked inside when we moved cattle this spring. Mostly, it's just a mess of discarded furniture whose stuffing has been pulled apart by visiting critters and a leaky roof that exposes the things left behind to the elements.

But in one of the cabinets, I found these dishes. I am under no illusion that the Antiques Roadshow will be calling any time soon. But I liked the play of light through the window on the old dinnerware. It was kind of like finding hidden treasure as I waited between loads of cattle.

It's amazing what treasures you can find, if you just take time to look.

A ride on a four-wheeler reveals the vivid colors of the prairie flowers blooming under the clear, blue Kansas sky.

The spillway in the pasture was a favorite fishing destination for Randy and our kids.

We just rent the pasture, and I understand that the owner's family also made plenty of memories dipping a fishing line in the rushing water.

Randy and Brent caught these fish at the pasture many years ago. This snapshot has been on my refrigerator since then.

So has this one, with Uncle Randy sharing his love of fishing with nieces Emily and Amanda.

When Jill and Brent were elementary school aged, Randy took them on camping trips - just Dad and the kids. They stopped at the grocery store and got to buy stuff Mom wouldn't buy. They learned important life skills like poker. They slept in a tent and floated in inner tubes. (It has been awhile since those days, but Jill wrote about her most recent outdoor adventure on her blog after a July 4th camping trip.)

And that leads us back to hidden treasure. No, the outings with Dad weren't really about junk food or poker or sleeping in a tent or fishing:

"A lifelong blessing for children is to fill them with warm memories of times together. Happy memories become treasures in the heart to pull out on the tough days of adulthood. "

Charlotte David Kasl

Wishing you a day where you uncover hidden treasures in the ordinary things of life and make extraordinary memories!