The Indian Burial Ground

A while back a gentleman stopped at our house and told us he had grown up here! His name is Eugene and his sister, Eleanor, had lived in the house until about a year before we bought it (it was empty until we purchased it). He said he and his father had built the house themselves. They hired a stonemason to lay the exterior stonework and the fireplace. They did all the carpentry and the finish work themselves. He told us that during the Great Depression his father was out of work, so they moved to Springfield, Missouri for a few years and the house stood vacant.

The little barn we have off to the side used to be a chicken coup:

 See that little blue bed frame behind the turned wood piece? I told the Mister we were going to have to salvage it if we ever had a kid. It's so precious!

Even the chicken coup was solidly built! These boys loved their concrete (hey Kim, read your comment to this post, it totally applies this week, no?) and stone.

During the course of the five hours (!) Gene was at our house, he told the Mister there was an Indian buried on our property and waved in the general direction of the hill below the chicken coupe. Well, of course, Mr. took it with a grain of salt and a smile, but when the old man left, he went looking.

Sure enough, he found an old Indian buried on our hill! 

Ha! You totally thought he found a dead body, didn't you?! hehehehe

Once he knew it was there he couldn't just let it be, he had to excavate it.

He finally finished digging it up on Saturday and managed to stand it upright.

The shifter knob was a die and it's still intact. Super cool.

I believe this is the fly wheel housing. Mister has a friend who runs an antique motorcycle shop and says, based on Mr's description, he thinks it's a 1928, 29, or 30. How crazy is that?

For those of you that live in old homes, have you ever found anything ridiculously awesome? Maybe in the basement, the attic, or even outside?

Mortal Combat

I was unloading Costco (I love Costco!!) items from my truck when I heard something thrashing around in the trees in our backyard. I turned around and saw what I thought was a squirrel falling from a tree. I looked closer and realized it was one of our pileated woodpeckers, she looked to have fallen and was hoping around drunken on a branch.

I then realized there was a large black snake in the tree not 5 feet from her. OMG, right?!

 

I was having a terrible time getting a decent photo because of the angle of the setting sun. Poo. Although, these shots are better than they looked on my teeny screen on the camera. You can actually see the yucky, slithery grodieness that is the snake. Blech. I didn't even realize, until Mr. came home (after dark, of course, and too late to do anything about it) and told me he was probably after her eggs.  So sad. He told me I should have gotten the pistol and "scared it off". I am not certain I could have actually shot at a living creature, no matter how devilish and carnivorous, even had I known this. 

What about you? Had you known the snake was after her babies, would you have thought to retrieve a gun to shoot at a living being? Food for thought (for me at least, most of you don't live among the wild, I am sure). 

Ew. Speaking of "wild", I let the dogs out the other night to potty and saw (not until I had stood there for about five minutes) a wolf spider the size of my palm hanging out in the doorway, about 18 inches from my hip. Icky, icky, icky. Lucky for you all, I was too busy shrieking like a girl and freaking out my Mr. and the dogs to take a picture.

Weekend Excitement

This woman drove off the embankment onto our property on Sunday afternoon.

 

The Fire Department showed up, but she sent them away.

 

 

This is the back of my truck in our driveway, to give an idea of how close she was. 

 

 

 A tow truck came and pulled it out Monday afternoon and they drove it off. Literally. One of the guys got into the car and off they went. 

So, if you plan on driving your car off a small cliffside, you may want to think about a Chevy Cavalier.