In A Vase On Monday - After the Storm

As children, many of us enjoyed going on nature walks.  For me, little has changed in that regard.  A walk on the beach or in the woods always yields a pocket full of treasures. Rocks, shells, a few autumn leaves, an interesting fallen branch (well, those are carried) are all be new found treasure. Horse chestnut's prickly pods that resemble jousting equipment and their shiny brown contents fascinate me  every fall. Yesterday, we had a rather strong windstorm, the likes of which we usually don't see here until November.  Lots of tree limbs came down, trees fell, fruit was blown from trees, and  there were power outages.  Luckily we had no damage other than a heavy pot being blown off the top of a column. The plant was fine but the pot's a goner.  That being said, it's no surprise that our evening walk through the neighborhood presented lots of interesting items for a magpie like myself to drag home.  I decided to put a few of them in a vase.  Is it cheating to use things that didn't come from my garden? 

Fallen cones from a neighbor's monkey puzzle tree. 

An interesting lichen/moss covered branch or two.

The thing that I was really pleased about was finding branches from the monkey puzzle tree of a neighbor who is pleased to have them taken away so they don't have to clean them up. 

My arranging skills aren't that great but here's some stuff shoved into a vase that's a bit too big to come inside. 

It certainly cannot live  here.

So it gets to stay in the room formerly used to store plants for the winter until I decide what to do with those cool monkey puzzle branches.  Spray painted gold and used with greens at Christmas? Giant antennae for jack o lanterns?  What would you do with them?

Thanks to Cathy at Rambling in the Garden for hosting In a Vase on Monday!  Check out her blog to find links to lots of great arrangements.