Posted by Usable Past under public history
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We finally got a sunny day on Saturday, so I spent the afternoon working on the lawn. A friend lent me his electric tiller, so I was able to dig up 1/3 of the yard in a few hours.
Our pile of rusty nails and screws that have been unearthed continues to grow. I found 8 nails in one spot alone.
Some of the debris was kind of pretty. I’m not sure what this was originally, but it looks like it was perhaps a bowl or a garden pot.
Other earthy chunks were not as attractive. There were huge rocks…
…and huge brick-like things with L-edges.
Next step is to continue raking the tilled soil to make sure we have most of the glass, nails, and large rocks out, then to mix in fresh soil. After that – the seeding!
Posted by Usable Past under public history
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I have embarked upon a project that once seemed so simple, and has since then turned into a 3-trips-to-Home-Depot/purchasing-multiple-bags-of-soil/ruining-kitchen-strainers ordeal. I’m renovating the yard.
Parker helps.
It started simple enough. I wanted to plant something pretty along the fence near the stairs.
So I started digging.
And guess what I found a ton of. GLASS.
And not just glass. But rusty old nails and screws, too.
Once I discovered this array of scary sharps lying in wait to stab poor dogs’ feet, I began seeing glass and nails everywhere. A lot of it wasn’t even fully buried – tips of glass poking out of the grass, outlines of nails mere millimeters below the surface… Now I’m obsessed with locating and removing all forms of inorganic/dangerous material from the yard, and replacing it with fresh new soil and grass seed for high traffic areas.
Meanwhile, as I continue to dig, I keep discovering the most random collection of crap buried deep in the dirt.
Yeah, that’s a WHOLE GLASS BOTTLE that I dug up. I’ve got to admit, I was more than a little disappointed that it was not, as I hoped, a time capsule. Perhaps I’ll bury one when it’s time to fill in the holes. At least for now, the bottle has a toy frog and a plastic key to keep it company until I get back to the yard and unearth more treasure.
