A Well That Is Not A Well

Today we discovered that our well, is not a well, and that it is actually the old outhouse collection area. Can everyone just say yuck with me now? My poor husband has spent the last two days digging out the outhouse. It's not all bad news, though. In addition to some highly fertilized soil....

...we found bottles, bottles and more bottles. And some of them may actually be worth some money, which would be nice. We also found some old wood stove components, like the top, the covers, and some of the doors. (Pictured in the background behind the bottles.)

And that is not all...apparently the hole in the ground was filled with more garbage. We actually filled a barrel with old rusted tin cans. Some of them were coffee cans; others were sardine. A majority of them, though, were unidentifiable. There was also a lot of broken glass, old wood and just junk in general.

We were also blessed to find some odds and ends type of things. These were old vacuum tubes, light bulbs, bricks, rusted brackets and more. The interesting items that we thought were cool we placed temporarily on the garage window sill for further analysis. (The coffee mug was not a find; it was my husband's morning sustenance!)

Anyone any good at identifying china patterns? We found a lot of broken pieces, many of which featured gold edging, trim or designs. Our thought is that after we clean up all the pieces, we will mortar them to some wood and make a variety of hot plates for our dining room table. It will make a really interesting conversation piece or two!

Based on the amount of dirt removed and the quantity of trash and treasures discovered, can you guess how big the outhouse was? It was huge! We could probably bury all eight membes of our family in it! It measures approximately 6' x 5' and 8' deep. And my poor, wonderful husband shoveled it all out by hand (I was not allowed to climb in and help too much!). Say hi to Dave!