I officially kicked off this year’s grass cutting season this weekend. The first time of the season is always special as I get to see what’s accumulated in the back yard over the winter months.
Most of the time, it’s boring stuff like footballs, frisbees, and the occasional toy car. If I can determine the likely yard that they originated from, I will gladly drop them back over the correct fence. This year’s haul was considerably more interesting.
First was a pocket carpenter’s level found about 6 feet from any of my fences. I don’t own a level like this and it’s unlikely that someone dropped it so far over the fence. I propped it up near the closest fence. Since it’s neon green, maybe its owner will see it.
Next was half of a set of wind chimes. They’re pretty torn up and pretty heavy. The top is a large bell and the bottom was made up of smaller bells. I only received the large bell and one smaller bell. It must have been one of our recent wind storms that delivered this to me.
The final item was a rake handle. Just a handle and it was quite a long ways from any of my fences so I have no idea from whence it came. Of course, I do remember being a kid and any long stick or wooden handle is potentially a bo staff. Or perhaps if you’re a young Sith lord in training, maybe a double-bladed light saber. In any case, it’s perfect for practicing your kung fu fighting techniques in the backyard.
And, as we all know, sometimes in order to win a fight, one must show off their finely honed skills with a weapon by twirling it and trying not to smack yourself in the chin. The really advanced warriors will throw it into the air and then run like hell after it or to get out of the way depending on what kind of a throw it was. It can be hard to get those things to go where you want them to go.
That’s my theory anyway. Some young ninja turtle lost tossed their staff and it took a flight over the fence and then took a Pithy Moniker bounce deep into enemy territory. Retrieving it was likely deemed far too dangerous.
So, the moral to all you ninjas in training out there: put your name or address on your things.
Sat^Gal and I bought a house over the winter, and the previous owners had two dogs…
so you know what kind of Back Yard Treasures we’ll be finding once the snow melts (which it started doing recently.)
I wish I was able to mow right now – Well, I could, if I shoveled off the 3 feet of snowpack on the lawn, and then made lawnmower marks on the frozen ground. Generally, I won’t have grass to mow until, say… Middle of June.
That being said, we’re in the sticks, so the only things I will find will be the odd toy, etc from my son or something that popped up through the ground – odd broken pottery, bottles, etc. (yes, and there’s plenty ‘o’ poo to find with five dogs living here). Much more fun is checking out the stream behind my house and seeing what the spring floods unearthed. I always find something interesting (sorry, no dead human bodies–so far).
our snow pack is melting to reveal very sad looking brown grass. But I did find a Budweiser bottle with a knife stuck in it amongst the melt off yesterday while on a walk. I suspect it was a castoff from an ice fisherslob.
A friend of mine (and of Ogre’s) was recently digging a pit in her back yard and unearthed- no exaggeration- pounds and pounds and pounds of pottery sherds, arrowheads (quartz, flint, and other) and other Indian relics. Her house is in a 1930s/1940s neighborhood that’s not particularly close to a river or a known Indian habitation. The only theory that seems reasonable as to why there was so much there is that she uncovered a midden pile. Incredible find; I’ve never seen anything like it in terms of quantity especially.
Yeah, that was insane. When she told me about them, I just thought she was talking about a handful of flakes or something. But the ochre-decorated potsherds? The hand axes? The 20 pounds of quartz points? Incredible. I’ve never seen anything like it. Has she had an archaeologist take a look yet?
Our back yard snow/ice pack is slowly receding, and we are daily discovering more reminders of Daisy, whom we had put down a couple of weeks ago. The yard had been frozen over for at least a couple of weeks before she passed, so there is plenty for our new pup to get excited about.
My favorite backyard find occurred when we mover into our current home about 12 years ago. At the time, my kids were between 5-8. It was fall, and the previous owners and their neighbors (who also moved out at the time) had not been terribly into yard maintenance. As I was raking a strip between our house and the neighbor’s, I found a little metal treasure chest, maybe 1’ wide, and 8" tall and deep, filled with a variety of plastic jewel-like beads each maybe 1’ in diameter.
Later, when I was raking our backyard I cleaned up the grass but raked a pile of leaves to the foot of the slide, and stuck the chest in there overnight. The next day I happened to look out the window and innocently observed something along the lines of “Look at that pile of leaves! I wonder how it got there? I remember hearing about how leprechauns (or fairies, or somesuch BS) make such piles and hide their treasure in them. I wonder if THAT’S what happened in our yard.” Of course, the kids were skeptical. But what a joy when they finally decided to proved their old dad wrong, and found an actual treasure chest.
That’s probably pretty near the top of my top-10 of opportunistic parenting successes!
When we moved here the elderly woman who lived here had let the yardwork go to hell, I can hardly blame her. Everything was terribly overgrown, including a 30 yr old grapevine climbing up several trees.
The house presented a lot of initial challenges and there wasn’t much time to work in the yard in the beginning. I commented to my neighbour one summer day that I could smell his rose bushes. He assured me he didn’t have any, even had me come over and check his garden, (not a gardener and had only recently moved in himself), and he was right there were no roses!
The scent was so strong I’d smell it every day. Finally I set about to wrangle the grapevine and wade into the overgrowth. Low and behold, a lovely, and probably very old, climbing tea rose bush on the fence, entirely obscured by the grapevine! Pink and lovely and in bloom, how enchanting!
I also found two metal garbage cans which had also been so overgrown as to be unseen, in the overgrowth.
I’ve since pruned the rosebush, it’s doing wonderfully, and tamed the grapevine by building it it’s own arbor to grow on. But I still have to keep it from taking over the yard every year!
