Buried Treasures?!

I left something out when I talked about my retaining wall garden.  Specifically, I didn't mention the excitement that occurs when you dig through and loosen soil, only to discover that there's more than just dirt inside.

No, I'm not talking about rocks.  Sure, there were plenty, but that's pretty much business as usual when you dig into a garden plot.

I'm not talking about the variety of bugs and worms, either.  Again, this can hold my attention for an unusually long amount of time, but that's business as usual, as well.

Rather, I'm talking about the extra little treasures that were buried, the ones that were never supposed to be there in the first place.  I found all sorts of items that I puzzled over, wondering why they were there.  I found a smashed up vent cover, a washer (for nuts and bolts - not the kind you put clothing into! Although, the magic tricks in doing that would be pretty cool.), a marble, a plastic bag from Macy's, two nickels, and several more mundane items.

There was one item, however, that overshadowed the rest.

What you're looking at is a 1.5" elbow.  The kind you use to connect large pipes in your house.  This thing was huge.  Examining the two edges that were furthest from each other, I'd say that it measured about three inches across at the longest point.  When you consider that the open spaces of a cinder block are 4x4, that's pretty big!

Why in the world, I wondered, would somebody shove that into a dirt filled cinder block?

I know what you're going to say... You're going to tell me that this was just something that was left over from when the house was built, and that it was simply left behind as an oversight.  That may be correct.  The reasoning is logical, after all.

But the house was built in the 1890s.  That's a long time for something like this to be left behind without discovery, especially considering that I found a planting marker inside.

Yep.  I wasn't the first to have the cinder block gardening idea at this house.  Talk about a buzz-kill, right? The planting marker I found showed that begonias had been placed there some time in the recent past.

So why, I ask, was the elbow not moved from its place in the cinder block?  That seems like something a person would do when transplanting a flower into an area.

I suppose I'll never know.  This is one of those buried treasures whose secret will remain hidden.  I'll have to make up my own story.

The mischievous little imp in me is considering re-burying it somewhere else for the next people that rent this house.... perhaps the base of one of the walnut trees.  Movie pirates like burying treasures in locations like that, right?