There are perks, like the cisterns that came with, the extra wells, one drilled for the barn, plus the underground pipes from the back well to the house, over to the little barn, there are perks in the above average soil quality in many of our pasture area’s from many years of barn compost etc.. Drainage has been done and big old shade tree’s etc.
But this! this was not a joy.. this was a lesson of things that won’t rot, that won’t go away and for heaven sakes, while I know it was popular, burying things does not remove them, they will come back to haunt the owners (which is now us!) I bet a few things ran though you mind on what this item could be.. Did you come up with Binder Twine..
This is what it looks like after many years of the rest of the pile out in the field having composted till its flat.. its like its mushrooming out of the ground itself, only one issue, this is bad for the livestock, it has to go!
We pulled and hanked, and shoveled and finally in the end we took out a full wheelbarrol of tangled up binder twine, it turned out what you could see what the tip of the iceburg so to speak.. we also can’t figure out why its all in one spot.. did they pile it up and then cover it? otherwise, it should have been scattered though.. very odd, but its all cleaned up and thrown away now.. will reseed the area late fall or early spring with pasture seed.
For those that bought older homes, what is some of the strange finds you have come across? And remember folks, if you can, use twine that will rot…
Just another Day on the Farm 
We bought an old farm and, unfortunately, the previous owner just burnt down a lot of sheds and left them….nails and snakes . Oh my. It was awful. A zillion hornet nests around, too.
One of the fun things found when finishing off the upstairs was newspapers used for wallpaper…one had ads for Cypret’s Chevy Dealership…the wife was in her 90’s and a resident at the nursing home where I took a job! She really enjoyed looking at the old adds…I’d like to see those food prices at the store nowadays!
Hi Dee
I can just imagine what would be left in the ground on the burn area’s, I think I would have to get a very strong magnet and try and pick alot of it up. That is very interesting about the newspapers, I had not seen them for wallpaper but I have lived in places where they were put up to help thicken the walls for keeping out drafts etc. Amazing that you would go to work at the same place as there was somone that had been around for those ad’s, I can just imagine the memory’s it must bring back for her.
I can’t say we’ve found anything truely bizarre, but we find stuff all the time. Bottles, knives, forks, plates, belt buckles, hinges, Star Wars action figures (that would be my brother), the ends of pitch forks, stuff like that. Once we found what looked to be some kind of award, but it was too tarnished to tell what for. Every time we turn soil it seems something comes up. I don’t know if my relatives’ junk pile is where I garden now, or if they were just really messy people. As for other things, there are intials carved in all sorts of things around here. Some of the beams in the basement and the old barn still have bark on them, so there’s been a lot of years for kids to get creative. Oh and people tend to write on the walls under the wallpaper and date it. That’s how I knew the last time the kitchen got papered was 1990…I had left a note along with the others. 😉
Hi Daisy,
It must be a little more interesting to know that is all related to the family, but I swear that just burying things seemed to be a favorite thing to do.. I really like the idea of all the carved intials, and that is special about the wallpapering 🙂
My garden is on top of what used to be a gravel parking spot and at some point must have been laid with patio stones- the big squares ones. I discovered a bunch of them when I first dug the garden but every once in a while I’ll hit something solid with a shovel and another piece of one will surface,
Hi Callie
Went out today and found lots of big cucumbers out in the three sisters, they were hiding in the weeds (ok, so I am behind on weeding, as in big time, the heat has just kept me from spending the amount of time outside that I should be)
Interesting about those patio stones working their way done and or up depending, I see that you are going to be heading off to england soon, hope you have a wonderful time, I still have lots of relatives over there, and a number of folks in my family have gone over and spent time.
Hi FarmGal, What did we find? Wow, what we didn’t find would be easier… Well, between the barnyard with fallen driveshed (and top-level of barn soon to follow in a monster thunderstorm), middenheap in the old well and just scattered around the yard; there were lots of china, glassware, war medals and uniform buttons, really BIG old batteries, fancy garden fencing with maple leaves on top, hand farm/garden/barn tools; some intact and others not. Oh, and LOTS of handmade square nails and various sizes of horseshoes. And, even though this was back in the seventies, my parents were ‘way ahead of the curve and reused every scrap (ha! too punny!; ) possible.