Archeology

Every home I've owned, the yard has provided a rich archeological adventure. I've discovered Barbies, ancient pull tabs from beer cans, keys, toy cars, and a disco frog.

The Little Blue Murder House is no exception, but nearly all our archeological finds have been bricks and rocks. We have found numerous buried brickwork in the front and the back yards.

The largest excavation so far has been the corner of the front yard by the street. This is where I discovered and uncovered a strange area of brick and pavers, about 6 ft x 6 ft, built by some former resident and apparently progressively buried under unraked leaves-turned-to-compost, or purposely covered with a couple inches of soil.

The year after I uncovered it, I decided to dig up all the pavers and bricks and turn the area into a bed. And now we have this:

The left side is the former buried paved area. The right side was originally bordered
in the front with those rocks, and we built the bed and added the border in the lawn.

Last year after planting: catmint, Francis the liatris, and daisies.

This spring before stuff started coming up and I added a bunch of sedums.

The back yard has its share of buried brickwork under the lawn, and we expect to be uncovering it for years to come. It seems that a good deal of the back yard was paved and graveled back in the day. Not what we would choose, but at least it makes some kind of sense if you just love patios.

Unlike the rocks. As we've undertaken this year's yard projects, we've doing a lot of digging, as always. As I've been reconfiguring my beds, I've dug up the rocks that formed the old borders and repurposed them in walls and as additions to the beds. But as I levered out the border stones, I often found... another layer of stones directly beneath. I do love rocks, so the more the better. But it was surprising.

Then today, Mulch Boy was nosing around the bed by the driveway, where we suspected another brick-paved area was buried under dirt. But instead he found... more rocks.

This little area of turned earth...

...gave up all this.

Delighted though I am to have my rock fetish so generously indulged, I can't figure out what the idea was behind this strange little pile of river stone. So in the absence of a logical explanation, I have decided that our house is located on the site of the long-lost city of Rocklantis.

It's truly the best explanation I can think of, mostly because I am easily entertained and it makes me laugh, and now I can make up stories about the lost Rocklanteans and how they lived.

With my new theory, the buried rocks and pavers under the giant pine tree are
the ruins of an ancient Rocklantis palace.

But after the fall of the city, the ruins were slowly buried as nature took its toll.

This particular stone had two gigantic hostas growing right on top of it.

Also, the Rocklanteans hoarded rocks.

Oh my gosh, I think that makes Muriel the Naked Lady the last Rocklantean!

All hail Muriel!