Rusty Lantern and Bittersweet Simple Fall Table Centerpiece

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Have you ever driven around your village early in the morning on trash day?  I do it. In fact, I did it one day this spring when it was raining. On that day, I found two perfectly good rusty metal lanterns that someone had carefully placed next to their trash bin.  It was like they had left a gift especially for me.


Who knows, maybe they've seen me stop my car to rescue a chair...or a pile of shutters. Maybe they watched as I loaded a five drawer dresser into the back of my Toyota by myself....maybe they know that I just can't pass up useful junk....


 ...like rusty metal lanterns that still have all of their glass panels and the little clip that holds the door closed...

                                                                                ...and practically none of their original shiny finish.


Of course, I stopped my car and grabbed them.  I almost wrote down the address of the house. 
I kept thinking that I should write them a thank you note....on cute stationary with a drawing of a rusty metal wheelbarrow....or an old door. A note that would read something like this: 

"Dear Kind Residents of the house just down the street from mine, thanks SO much for lovely lanterns that you left beside your trash can for me.  It was so very thoughtful of you to break them in for me. Thanks for hanging onto them until they developed perfect French farmhouse patina and for not simply throwing them into your trash can where I probably wouldn't have seen them."


"Thanks for knowing that I love old rusty junk (especially FREE junk) and I will happily cart them home, wash the glass and give these lanterns a new home.....on my table....with some bittersweet and a ring of grapevine on an old piece of ivory matelasse fabric that was gifted to me by a friend who worked at a school where they were throwing it away."


I never wrote that letter. I never got the address because I was too busy getting back into my car in the pouring rain because someone was honking at me to get out of the way and at that moment, I was just thankful that I had gotten there before the scrap metal guy who I am quite certain may have accidentally assumed that the pair of rusty metal lanterns placed carefully at the curb were for him.


Which I suppose they could have been but if that had been the case, they would have been crushed into a block and recycled by now.  As fate would have it early on that  Tuesday morning in the rain however,  I got there first and one of the lanterns is now taking center stage on my kitchen table. 


Don't worry, you'll see both of them together again sometime soon. It'll probably be around Christmas time because I've got plans for these wonderful rusty metal lanterns...
         
                                                                                                                   lots of plans....big plans...

                                                           and not a single one of them involves metal crushing machines. Just some evergreen boughs 
                                                                        and pinecones
                                                                                                                                         and ribbon.


Tomorrow's another trash day. Another day filled with potential treasures like rusty metal lanterns that become fall table centerpieces left next to trash cans. Who knows, maybe someone will leave me a Christmas tree...or a rusty metal wreath form.