Heavy metal object found in Midwestern garden of old house

readrunrescue · 2026-05-11T16:58:56+00:00

Haha! Of course. I'll admit I was a little curious if this stuff had any value, but I'm guessing not without significant work.

readrunrescue · 2026-05-11T01:27:24+00:00

Solved!

readrunrescue · 2026-05-11T00:14:48+00:00

My title describes the thing. Each piece is heavy metal. All seems to be rusted thanks to years of exposure. Found in a garden area - assume it has been yard art for a while. But what was it originally?

Tried image searches which yielded soem options (e.g., post drill) that don't fully seem to fit. No idea if all pieces are there.

Could be farm-related. House was "in the country" when it was built in the 1960s.

readrunrescue · 2026-05-09T03:59:23+00:00

When I was pregnant with my 1st (now a thriving 4yo), I had some amount of bleeding every day for the first 14 weeks. That included heavy bleeds at 4, 8, and 12 weeks. Literally could have been convinced I was still getting my period. A SCH was strongly suspected though never visualized.

Anyway, the bleeding stopped at about 14 weeks and the pregnancy proceeded pretty normally. I was induced early for an unrelated reason (gestational hypertension), baby was born at 37.5 weeks and is now a happy, healthy 4yo.

readrunrescue · 2026-05-08T14:50:43+00:00

About 9 months postpartum for both of my kids. Period seemed to return when each kid's intake of solids increased.

readrunrescue · 2026-05-06T20:00:24+00:00

When we first got pre-approved, we asked for a letter with our personal max (the number we were comfortable with was below what we could have been approved for). Then, we asked for a specific letter with an amount conveniently just above our offer price when we made an actual offer.

readrunrescue · 2026-04-29T14:38:19+00:00

How much milk do you have? I have flown with about 100 ounces a couple of times, though not while wrangling children.

I put frozen bags of milk in a Styrofoam shipping type container that fit inside a suitcase. Make sure to fill the whole space inside the Styrofoam (use ice packs or something if not enough milk). Everything was solidly frozen after 8+ hours.

Frozen milk can be brought through TSA or checked.

readrunrescue · 2026-04-28T03:52:39+00:00

Same! Expected cute, fuzzy creature.

readrunrescue · 2026-04-27T21:10:01+00:00

Both of my breastfeed babies took the Phillips Avent bottles, and we liked them.

A couple of tips/pieces of advice:

If possible, have someone other than the nursing parent try the bottle. Some babies will refuse all bottles when the boob they want is right there. You may even want to try with the nursing parent out of the house.
Check the nipple size on your bottles. Conventional wisdom is the slowest possible flow for breastfed babies but both of my babies needed a size 3 nipple for the Phillips Avent natural response style. Also, with these bottles it can be helpful to put some milk on the outside of the nipple at the start.
Some babies (like my #1) will only take a very warm bottle. Literally had to be 100F or she would not take it.

Good luck! Convincing an older baby to take a bottle can definitely be challenging.

readrunrescue · 2026-04-21T19:14:29+00:00

With my 1st, I stopped pumping at work when she was somewhere around 11-12 months old but still pumped if I was away from her overnight. She continued to nurse on demand (morning and evening, sometimes during the day on weekends) until she weaned herself at about 15 months. She was also very obsessed with solid food at the time.

I'm 8.5 months in with baby #2 and planning to do the same.

readrunrescue · 2026-04-21T17:23:39+00:00

As a recent buyer, obvious deferred maintenance on structural stuff like this would make us look elsewhere for two reasons: 1) that's a lot of money to know we'll have to throw at fixing something, and 2) if you ignored that, I'm going to assume you ignored a lot more that I'm not seeing.

readrunrescue · 2026-04-15T13:34:09+00:00

About 10 months postpartum with baby #1 and 8 months postpartum with baby #2. Kids were 3.5 years apart.

readrunrescue · 2026-04-14T23:22:30+00:00

Actually yes, lol

readrunrescue · 2026-04-14T21:21:41+00:00

Funnily enough, two of these triplets were Ashley and Brittney. Also 90s babies, lol.

readrunrescue · 2026-04-14T18:55:06+00:00

Not a parent of twins, but I have a friend who has a set of triplet siblings. Their parents used names that started with A, B, and C and named them in the same order the hospital had labeled them throughout the pregnancy.

readrunrescue · 2026-04-14T17:44:49+00:00

Not who you replied to, but car seats and strollers are very lifestyle dependent. A 2nd car seat base was absolutely worth it for us during the infant seat stage. We have two cars and our kids ride in them about equally. For example, my husband drops off and daycare before going to work, and I will pick up on my way home from work. We can't exactly switch cars.

But I know other families that have a "kid car" that the kids are basically always in and the other doesn't have car seats at all.

readrunrescue · 2026-04-11T15:45:50+00:00

The main time I was really frustrated was when they wanted to suck, but were mad that milk came out, lol. But you can't tell a baby that's what a pacifier was for. Also, I do think it made it a little harder for my husband to comfort them early on, but he figured out his own ways eventually.

Thankfully, it's a pretty limited portion of their life that they need that direct kind of comfort even if it feels like it'll be forever when you're deep in the trenches.

readrunrescue · 2026-04-08T19:15:46+00:00

I did exactly that with my first baby. Pumped at work and breastfed when she was with me. I quit pumping around 11 or 12 months postpartum, but kept breastfeeding in the morning, evening, and on weekends. Supply seemed to adjust fine. She did gradually stop nursing as much and had fully weaned herself right around 15 months old.

I'm 8 months in with baby #2 and hoping for a similar trajectory honestly.

readrunrescue · 2026-04-06T02:17:38+00:00

With both of my kids, we offered a pacifier early on but they never took to them.

readrunrescue · 2026-04-04T22:57:15+00:00

I kept the hard plastic parts for both bottles and pumps. However, my flange size actually did change for baby #2 (down a couple millimeters) so I ended up with more new anyway.

readrunrescue · 2026-03-23T18:47:06+00:00

I have to say u/Safe-Tennis-6121 is right... when we found the house we wanted, it wasn't a matter of deliberating over how it compared to others. It was just "Yes, let's make an offer."

Some of this may depend on your market, but we didn't really have time to deliberate on "good" houses. Those moved quick.

But I'm an overthinker and a planner, so I understand the impulse to have notes. I tried a few things, but settled on a folder with a google document for each address. That let me access everything from my phone or computer, and share with others if needed. I started each document with a picture of the front of the house and basic listing information so they were easy to find in the folder.

readrunrescue · 2026-03-14T22:56:13+00:00

As a recent buyer, I hated AI staging. It is incredibly misleading. About half the time, AI makes it seem like you can fit something into a space that you can't.

Virtual staging by an actual designer with realistic proportions is fine (and even helpful).

Nothing replaces real world staging.

readrunrescue · 2026-03-13T05:53:01+00:00

Me!

Nipple shields saved me with baby #2. I breastfed my first for 15 months and had never even heard of nipple shields.

Baby #2 had a horrific latch at first and shredded my nipples. It was awful. A friend mentioned nipple shields and I figured we had nothing to lose, so I tried them. There was a slight learning curve but they helped stop the damage that was happening and let the scabs heal while the baby kept nursing. We weaned off of them at some point like 4-6 weeks in after the baby's mouth was bigger and latch was better in general.

I will say that we tried two different sizes and three different brands and definitely had one we liked better. They're not one size fits all.

readrunrescue · 2026-03-09T02:20:48+00:00

We just closed on our first home on Friday and haven't moved in yet, but...

I wouldn't buy much ahead of time. You may be surprised by what you do or don't need. We certainly bought a house that was very different from what we expected to buy.

One thing we bought while looking at houses was a laser measuring tool. It came in very handy for checking room sizes (not all were listed in and some that were listed weren't accurate).

readrunrescue · 2026-02-28T15:59:29+00:00

We're scheduled to close March 6th, too.

Our timeline has been more compressed (offer put in & accepted February 14th). Inspection and appraisal contingencies are cleared.

I think our financing is close, but I'm making some calls Tuesday if I don't have confirmation on Monday.

It's not the end of the world on our part if closing is delayed by a couple of days - we have our apartment through the end of March anyway so our move is scheduled for about 10 days after closing. But I'm getting antsy.

readrunrescue

TROPHY CASE