The Very Big Clean Out or What Is This?

Or as littler grandson calls it' keen' out.
So down in the basement we  go.  My decision to start beneath us. I've spoken of the basement before because it has been the repository of the most interesting collection of items for many decades.
For instance,
 3 pin ball machines.
  A pet bathtub for large dogs
A kiln
just to name a couple of the larger items.

 Hubby is proud of his fix- it skills as I've mentioned before.  To that end he has collections of things.  Big boxes each filled with possibly useful items...various sizes of metal tubing, many pieces of wire of varying dimensions, all the old small appliances from his father's house and his, all the electronic stuff, plus all the nails, brackets, and bric a brac from triple decades of trips to the hardware store.  In one corner is a collection of old mops and brooms saved for their wooden handles that could be pressed into service if needed. I know without asking that all this will move with us if we go.

A genuine LLadro, perhaps relegated to the basement because she has a slight fracture in her headband.

So to begin the little clean out, we start by moving  things around, pulling out things pushed deep to the back of shelves.  We uncover not one but two hammocks...obviously new, never unrolled.  Hubby has no memory of either.  We decide to save them.

We find a stash of camping equipment, two bed rolls, tarpaulin, a small pup tent, and an old Coleman's lantern still in its box.  Hubby has never been camping in his life (they had a cottage) and has no idea how he came by this stuff.  Too good to be thrown out, we put it in the Value Village pile.

 We discover a metal box containing three old blue coloured  bottles.  Hubby does remember these; he had found them at the site of the original home on the property. We keep these and add them to the ones I knew about in the storage room.

 We find a box of New Year's Eve metal noisemakers he is pretty certain came from his parents.   A banker's box of his old daytimers' notebooks  and several boxes of old notebooks once opened reveal what looks like a strange language though English words are dotted here and there. He explains these are some of his old coding books; he wrote computer code for a number of start up tech companies back in the heyday of the computer revolution. I'm interested by how this looks on paper..indecipherable yet clearly a language. He wants to keep them all.

Wall 'plates' from England and Greece;we have found 5 now.

I'm curious about several flat boxes containing a rock and mineral collections.  Turns out Hubby's dad took up mineralogy as a hobby after retirement. There are books, several instruments and glass vials containing tiny rock specimens and I decide I would like to keep all these.

 A small and interesting piece of furniture turns out to be a wooden sewing box; I can't believe I haven't spied this before.

 There is a pile of wooden crates containing vintage coca cola bottles.
Our rooting around reveals several old motorcycle helmets.  We examine the one that was his very first and can't believe how small and inadequate it looks compared to the one he wears today.

 We find his first cross country skis and poles. Wooden and clearly vintage.
  I have to start reminding myself to stop saying that word, vintage...a reminder to Hubby just how old he is. :)

The Complete Set of Denby Dishes Arabesque design so popular in the '60's and 70's .A  testimony to its durability that only the teapot and one cup has been lost.

Sentimental things too....memories of his pets. Old dog coats, collars and identification tags
. Three boxes of photos and slides and the empty photo albums to go with them...no one got around to filling them in.

There are still other places on the property to explore...the barn loft and garages.