Our Old House

For those of you who’ve been following along, you know that we have reason to believe that some pretty strange things may have happened in this house.  I am now focusing my attention on what may have happened outside.  In my eagerness to get things ready for the highly anticipated bonfire series, I took advantage of an opportunity to get things done in the back yard on a recent 60 degree day.

You might recall that the backyard is FULL of plants - flowers, trees, bushes, whatever.  There is also a pond.  Last summer it was so overgrown that only Stella could navigate most of it, and even she grew weary of the thorns.  But now everything is dead and we’re reminded of the potential.  We’re also reminded of how gross the last owners were.  There was trash everywhere.  Some of it’s the type of stuff you’d expect to see anywhere this close to a forest preserve… say, an empty ziplock bag left by a raccoon in the night.

But it’s the other stuff that has left me scratching my head.  Below is an actual (incomplete) list of the shit I found back there last week.

Ever since we moved in, we’d see weird stuff and think “What kind of nasty assholes lived here?”  It recently hit me, that when we purchased their beautifully strange house, we also purchased their trash.  We’ve been here almost ten months, and if we don’t get things cleaned up soon, people are going to think that we are the nasty assholes.  Could we blame ‘em?

So as I filled one hefty bag after another of with random objects, I couldn’t stop myself from wondering what kinds of things must have happened in this yard.  Stella likes a good mystery, too, and she was very intrigued by the evidence.  The empty bag of bull dog food was of special interest.

Apparently, we’ve stumbled upon the site of obvious gardening/butterfly catching/outdoor partying. That’s understandable enough.  But perhaps our backyard was also the site of drunken home surgeries and crafts gone wrong, when car and bicycle repairs just weren’t enough. 

Who knows.  But if you’re here in the coming weeks - enjoying fire and a cocktail - and you notice a piece of rusty trash in the distance, please don’t judge.