May Day Flower Pot Rescue Story

This adventure begins one Friday morning before I left for work, the year 2005, when DH came back from Home Depot and said "There are two flower pots I think you are going to want in a trash pile. But ... they are huge. Let's go look at them". So off we went.

We had passed these pots for years and years. They were on either side of a driveway and evidently new owners of property didn't want them. These pots are about 40-50 years old, maybe older.

When I saw them I wanted to cry because they were just too heavy for us to deal with. We came back home, and I got ready for work. DH went up the street and asked a road crew if they could help and he would pay them. He talked to three different people, and the boss said lets look at them and after looking at them, he said he'd be back at such and such a time. Well, he never showed and that was very disappointing. We thought maybe the guy would show up on Sat. but he didn't.

It happened to be trash pick up day too on Friday, so we had no idea if they'd be around after the trucks came along picking up. DH and I both said if these are meant to be ours then they will be, if not, then that's just the way it goes. We didn't really NEED these, but we did hate the thought of them going out to the land fill to just get broken and buried. He went by Sat. morning and saw that everything had been picked up but the pots. When I went by on the way home from work, I saw them there still with another pile of brush and trash growing also.

Saturday night as we were sipping a glass of pre-dinner wine, DH thought of using our a.c. jack. I went out to where it was to check what weight it would hold and it said 500 lbs. We got in the car and went to where these monster pots were and took measurements of the things so that DH could figure out how much concrete was in them and how much they would weigh. He figured around 370 lbs. each So we got all excited about doing this project and since it was going to be Sunday morning when we'd be doing this we knew the traffic would be light and it would be quiet, so decided to get up early. Early wasn't the word for it. DH woke up around 4 and couldn't go back to sleep for thinking about how to do this thing so we got up. Got things loaded into the truck, had one cup of coffee and took off.

It happened to be May Day, the first day of May and the morning air was breezy. We could hear roosters crowing in the neighborhood and we hoped for a smooth move of these pots.

I made sure I grabbed the camera and here are the pictures from our adventure.

Click on pictures for larger image.

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In this first picture
you can see the roots of ancient jasmine growing out the bottom
and also the thick stems out the top.

DH had to cut the roots off the bottom in order to load them into the van.

Here it is getting lighter and you can see how the a.c. jack was used.
What a wonderful tool!

We backed the van up to the raised pot,
lowered it into the van,
tied the jack in place and headed for home,
which thankfully was just a few blocks away.
You can see how close to the ground the jack was,
barely off the road.

One flower pot at a time.
I hoped someone didn't come and take the other one
while we were at home unloading the first one. They didn't.

Here I am, the happy 'curbside shopper',
excited to have these wonderful flower pots .

Here they both were, waiting to be stood upright.
I've got to find the 'right' plants to put in them.
I've tried a couple of things and haven't been happy with the look.

The next two pictures are close-up shots of the shells on them.
There was quite a bit of this kind of work done many, many years ago.
We have two other pieces with shells in the concrete work,
a birdbath and a column.

We are so glad these did not end up in the landfill.
The property where these had stood all those years
looks like something is missing now,
as these two pots made the place interesting.
Now that little artistic spark is gone,
which is their loss and our gain.
They have added to our whimsical, cottage gardens.

It is amazing what people will just throw away.
For people like us, some of these things are treasures,
ready to by reused, recycled or repurposed.

Keep your eyes open,
you never know what treasure you might find
on the side of the road.

Zone 10 ~ s.e. FL