The Earth Gives Back

I listened to my own advice yesterday and took myself for a short walk to see how high the river is behind us. I wanted to see if the earth had given forth any treasures. I found many things on my wander. There is a meadow (now tilled) between the house and the river and any manner of things will appear on the surface of the ground. 

Items can be brought up by the heaving of the earth due to water melting and freezing in the ground; or by the tilling of the dirt in the field. Even just digging in the right spot can find treasures. A man in Britain using a metal detector in a field found an Anglo-Saxon hoard, many people (myself included) have found arrowheads.

People in past centuries used to bury their refuse in the ground or pile it up in an unused area of their property designated for that purpose. Besides food refuse, papers, magazines, bottles, tin cans, canning jars, plates, silverware, games, bric-a-brac, nails, tools; even wood and metal might be buried. Some people recycled the bottles they had for canning, and would buy a top. The canning jar lids used to be made of zinc with an inner glass liner. The metal from the lids will deteriorate, but the glass does not. I have found these glass liners.

Whatever needed to be gotten rid of was disposed of in this way. People had no notion of what their actions might cause in the future. They just wanted to get rid of junk they didn't want any more and they didn't have recycling or garbage dumps. 

I have even seen several old cars in a field near where I used to live. They had outlived their usefulness and had been towed or dragged there to rust. Cars were even used to strengthen up a part of the road to the south of us and prevent the river from eroding it during flood season.

On my walk I found the skull of a rather large rodent (most likely a rat), a pile of owl pellets and several piles of rabbit and deer scat. The bones, pellets and scat were left where they were. They will add to the soil quality and enrich it as they decompose. I found a ceramic chip from a dish, a candle holder, a glass acorn, an small oil can with a bent spout, an insulator, two pieces of rusting roof tin and several pieces of iron.

The earth gives back in most seasons if you are patient enough to take the time to look. You can even find things in your own suburban back yard. After the installation of a curtain drain at the house where I grew up I found an arrowhead. On other forays I have found square-headed nails, tools without handles, bottles, tin cans, and many pieces of glass and ceramic. 

Many of the glass and ceramic items I have found have been broken. I collect them to dispose of them properly so nothing gets hurt stepping on a broken piece. Some of the other pieces have been kept for their uniqueness and to reuse or re-purpose. 

Even items that may have outlived their usefulness many years ago can be useful when the earth gives back.