Small forgotten curios collection
As I was cleaning out under the main shrine up in my Tower of Woo yesterday, I happened to find an old round cardboard box way in the back that I had all but forgotten I had. When I opened it a smell of cloves jumped forth and attacked my nose in a friendly but insistent way. Woooh! It came from a cloved orange I had made three or four years ago - could be five, too - as part of my Norwegian jul celebrations. Now it was all dark and dried out, but that smell! I had no idea it could last so long! The box was - and still is - filled with all kinds of curios, along with that lovely orange. Here it is, all labelled for you:
Two hollowed-out pieces of wood with interesting insect scribblings on them.
Young rhinoceros beetle on top of a gall from the same oak as no.3
Different types of galls from the one and same oak - there are regular oak apples and some "bushy" kind I don't know the name of
Rowan berries, I think - they've gone all brownish and shrivelled up
Famed cloved orange still emitting its magic smell after maybe half a decade
Head of a pretty big stag beetle
Smallish vertebrae of don't-know-what
Pewter ashtray used to hold some of the stuff (we don't smoke)
Three or four hazel nuts in ashtray, under the other stuff
I didn't take out a thing, so there could be stuff at the bottom that can't be seen.
I also found two identical lucky elephants (in the shrine, not in this box), that I believed had been lost in our last move ten years ago, and that have a curious story to tell that I will save for another day.