Antique stores and flea markets have always been magical places for me. I used to frequent them diligently most every weekend, back before I started running out of places at home to display my finds. It’s always a fine mess inside, and a kind of happy one, filled with endless delights and meaningless trifles.

Over the years I’ve been bitten by a various bugs, collecting everything from model horses to teapots to salt and pepper shakers to quilts. I’ve amassed quite a collection of my own and try hard to be more of a window-shopper these days.

But even now, when I’ve mostly put a halt to my treasure-picking habit, it’s hard for me to resist popping into a store when I come across one. I still love to see all the old things mixed with new, getting that brief glimpse into what some people once trashed and what others (including me) might now treasure.

Here at The Country Peddler in Towanda PA, stuffed animal heads line up alongside oil paintings and costume jewelry, fine china and rusty farm tools sit side by side on endless shelves, and an oversized Easter bunny looks out (rather grimly, I think) over them all. My eye found it hard to land on just one spot, moving happily from crowded top to busy bottom, chasing down one interesting trinket after another.

It’s was kind of like visiting an adventure-land, with rides through a visual and creative wonderland of once-useful things and formerly fashionable art, a strange gathering of bedfellows, indeed. I wanted to preserve a bit of the chaos to remember, so that my own house doesn’t start to bear a resemblance.