I’m thinking of launching a new weekly blog feature. (Well, I guess when this hits my blog site, I will have actually launched it.) The premise is, I go for a walk around the neighborhood with my cell phone camera handy, and notice three things and take a picture of them. These three things need a theme (sorry, I am a curator what can I say?). So, my theme today is “things made of metal.” 
Observation #1 is a tiny metal car (probably a Matchbox) on the curb between sidewalk and road. What wayward child left it there? It is obviously well used, perhaps a favorite toy of this child. Yet, he or she left it outside on the curb to the fates. Or someone else found it in the street and placed it there in hopes its owner would find it? Who knows. But it is fun to speculate.
Observation #2 is the gate to the “mini-park” that our kid
s (as in, the neighborhood kids since we only have one) used to play in when they were younger. I never noticed, but this metal gate has the name of our neighborhood fashioned into it. Who was the metal artist who constructed this sign and added it to the gate? The same craftsperson who made the rest of the gate? Nice job, regardless.
Observation #3 is a (partially) metal bird house. (Or is this a bat house? It doesn’t look like other b
at houses if so!) There are actually three of them, that I saw at least, in the Thrifton Hills Park at the end of the streets I was walking down. There is no explanation of why these are here; no markings indicating their intended inhabitants. No clues whatsoever. If anyone has any ideas, I would be happy to learn what sort of bird or other creature these are intended to house, and what benefits they might have for the neighborhood.
One walk, three observations. Try it in your neighborhood, and watch this space for my next foray into the unknown and mysterious thematic material culture of Maywood, Arlington, Virginia and maybe some other places I might walk around in the future!