Sunday, August 7, 2011

Sunday Snapshot ... Treasure Hunting in the Shade Garden

I was such a good girl yesterday!  I went out early, before it got too hot and miserable, and I planted three boxwoods, four hellebores, and an Exbury azalea in my shade garden.  (Are you surprised to learn that I grow more than roses?)  Whenever I dig in this garden, I always have to keep an eye out for buried treasure.



It's like this at many old houses.  Previous owners of our house have used this spot to bury trash.  It's not concentrated in a single area, like a privy, but spread out over most of one side of my shade bed.  (One day, it took me over an hour to plant one hosta because I had hit a particularly rich spot and I was unearthing nails and broken china.)

This time, most of the 'treasure' was glass, but there were a few odd items mixed in.  In the above photo, which reminds me of a page from one of those "I Spy" books, you will find:

Green glass
Blue Glass
Milk Glass
Beveled Glass
An old purse frame
The handle from an iron skillet
Stoneware shards
Two different patterns of transferware
Most of the pieces of a broken bottle
A nail
and an aluminum Jello mold.

I keep all this stuff, and I store it in two Costo-sized plastic biscotti jars.  It was trash to someone, but it's treasure to me.

Happy Sunday!
Connie 

15 comments:

  1. Oh, bet the bushes look pretty~ geesh, buried treasurers~ so many you find, isn't it funny the things you find in the old dumping places~ love how you jar them up to keep as your treasures, a great idea~
    smiles
    Teresa

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  2. Those ARE treasure! Just to think how old that cast iron skillet handle was and the jello mold from probably the 50's! Just came over from Tales from the CoopKeeper, I'll be back to snoop some more later!

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  3. I was stumped by that Jello mold.... couldn't figure out what it was!!

    Maybe you'll hit the buried silver from the Civil War one day!

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  4. Wow - that's a lot of glass - be careful digging! Yes, I am surprised that you have room enough to grow more than roses! Sounds like you planted quite a bit, and some nice, dependable plants, too (always a plus!).

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  5. My Dad had a place like that in one of his gardens and we always found bottles and other assorted items. How cool to keep them in big jars. I would love to see that photo!
    hugs,
    Linda

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  6. My constant collector GF would kill for this haul.

    next time you need a little help digging in the shade garden, give a holler.

    She yields a mean shovel.

    How hellish is this weather?

    xo jane

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  7. We used to love to take the metal detector out and look for treasures! Haven't had it out in years.

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  8. lovely treasures ... do you create things with them?

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  9. Just curious: are you burying anything yourself? The future owners of your property would love to find something cool too. :-)

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  10. Well, I must say that growing up on a farm we had our own "dump" spots and my Mother burned everything..and then buried the rest in that one spot. I wonder if some future generation will dig that up and wonder about the people that lived on the farm.

    Don't you wonder how a heavy cast iron pan ever got its handle broken off? I wonder if some Mrs. beaned the old boy with it?;>) xo Diana

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  11. The aluminum jello mold stumped me, too. I guess it's safe to say that it didn't come from the earliest days of the house. More of a modern treasure.

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  12. One of the joys of living in an old house...it's not if walls could talk, it's the dirt that does most of the talking...I treasure everything I dig up, my house's history goes back almost 200 years. Treasures!

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  13. Alan, I bury coins and old newspapers in my projects inside the house. Outside, I bury roses. :)

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  14. I do the same thing! I have found such great stuff in my yard. And I my chicken coop, the girls dig up the craziest stuff. Glass, an old lighter, old perfume bottles, and old army guy.......I'm glad to hear somebody else saves the "buried treasures" too!

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