Arianna and I have been having fun playing in the dirt.  She has her own set of garden tools, and while it’s a little early to start digging holes and planting my garden, it’s not too early for a little archaeology around the spring house where we keep finding good things – and not so good things.

First rule is that we have to wear our gloves because there is a LOT of broken glass.  Chips of glass, shards of glass, green glass, brown glass, big pieces and little pieces.  Sometimes, just every once in a while – there is whole glass.  We cheer and run inside and wash it in the sink to get years of caked mud off, scrub it with a brush until it gleams and add it to our growing collection of “neat things we’ve found on the farm” shelf.

Second rule is that we have to wear our gloves because there is a LOT of rusty metal.  Usually it’s just rusty corrugated metal that’s falling apart, but it can have some sharp edges to it.  Sometimes it’s an old car part; once in a while it’s an old door hinge, an old chain or an old tiller blade.  We’re not quite so excited about washing them off as when we find a blue bottle or a cute pitcher.

Third rule is that we have to wear our gloves because there is a LOT of bones.  Okay, I guess there is no real reason to wear gloves except that it’s kind of gross.  Some of the bones are cut as if they were soup bones – so maybe they were tossed to the dog that was tied to the chain.  Other bones look like a cow femur (do cows have femurs?), or hip bones or who knows what bones.  Those, we say “gross” and toss them aside.  Someday I’ll find out they were dinosaur bones and we just threw away the biggest archaeological dig this side of the Mississippi, but I don’t think so.  It’s just gross.