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Finding Hidden Treasures

© T. C. Conner

Now what can I use this glass door for? I asked myself that question as I was ripping out our old shower stall the other day. I immediately thought of the cold frame I had been telling my wife I was going to build "one of these days." And now that I have a new miter saw (a favorite toy I got for Christmas) I know the job of finally getting around to making the cold frame will be a lot easier.

I'm always looking for discarded things around the house and surrounding neighborhoods that I can somehow find a way to use in the garden or landscape. Just the other day I found a small chrome hubcap alongside the road that I guess decided to jump off the wheel it was covering. In this case it may not have been something someone had thrown out as trash. I wonder what the owner of the car or truck thought when they got home and pulled into their driveway discovering that one hubcap was missing? I see lots of hubcaps along the berms and in the grassy midsections of interstates too. I'm turning that hubcap into a whimsical piece of garden art. Sometimes I come across real "treasures" folks have thrown out for trash that I can even use in the house.

Driving back from classes at Slippery Rock University one warm spring afternoon last year, I noticed a piece of furniture someone had set out at the end of their driveway. Most communities have one day set aside out of the year for homeowners to rid their basements and garages of accumulated "treasures" that the sanitation department cannot pick up. I see old air conditioners, water heaters, chest freezers, and other appliances and articles that seem to be saying "Gee, I'm sorry I don't work anymore, but can't you find something for me to do around the house?"

I stopped to take a closer look at that piece of furniture, it looked like a small table. It was actually a sewing machine table, without the sewing machine. Made out of wood and in perfect condition, I knew I could use it as a small computer desk that I had needed for some time. I asked the homeowner if I could have it and she politely told me that I could take anything I wanted that was piled up at the end of her driveway. She then proceeded to show me all her other "treasures" in a small barn next to her house. I'll have to remember to stop back in at her place this year.

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