One man's trash?

[urbpan]

Last weekend Alexis and I removed this barberry bush. It was quite a task--I cut the thorny branches off with a lopper, the thicker central stalks required a saw. Alexis dug around the rootball with a shovel and I levered them out as best as I could with a five foot iron bar. It took a couple hours on Saturday evening and a couple more on Sunday morning.

As we dug we kept finding man-made objects--sardine cans and bits of rusty sheet metal. The ones arranged on the picnic table in the picture above were our favorite treasures. The figurine of the man and lamb made in Occupied Japan was found in two pieces--there are probably more. The other things are a perfume bottle, a cigarette case, a toy pistol, and a church key.

Comments

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

if you find a mason jar full of gold and/or silver coins, that's the one i lost about 50-60 years ago :>

there's a metal detecting forum i read, where some guy "found something" along those lines, started telling people about his great find, and was told "to hush the heck up right now"... apparently all kinds of people come foreward when you find the hoard of the ancients.

in your case, i wonder if you found the top of an old outhouse pit? treasure fiends love those, all kinds of stuff falls out of pockets, and there's old bottles and things to be found. a long stiff wire is a good tool.

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[donnad.livejournal.com]

That's really cool, maybe that's where the Privy used to be. You know besides being an outhouse, the privy often served as the trash heap for broken toys, pottery and whatnot.

The only stuff I have found on my property was some broken pottery sherds. Nothing significant.

[anais2.livejournal.com]

The privy idea was my first response, keep digging and see what interesting goodies you come up with!

[bosoxmom.livejournal.com]

How neat!! Our old house in Medford had many neat treasures in the eaves of the attic and under it's undeveloped floor boards...In the yard I found a medicine bottle, intact, imprinted Boston, MA...I love backyard and attic archaeology!!!!

Hope you find more cool things.

[urb-banal.livejournal.com]

Wow, some Eygptian King buried there or something?

[wandererrob.livejournal.com]

You've got to love backyard archeology :)

I haven't found anything that cool but have turned up a railroad spike, an antenna wire running to the shed and our carpenter found what appeared to be a chrome car bumper 2 feet down when digging for the porch posts.

I often wonder what else is under my yard waiting to be unearthed.

[iheartoothecae.livejournal.com]

Neat!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Do you think it's some kid's treasure stash from long ago? It seems like the sorts of things kids would bury as treasure.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

The oral history of the property doesn't include children (although this is the third toy gun I've found) so I'm afraid the privy hole theory sounds the most likely to me.

[ndozo.livejournal.com]

Hardly anyone I know now knows what I mean when I call it a church key. Maybe it's where the picnic table was. Kids playing, grownups smoking and drinking
beer at a cookout.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Picnic table is a much more pleasant idea than the leading theory (see above).