jan milliman

Some things I found by the side of the road.

I had a nice chat with my neighbor Ward the other day. He’s lived on this road since at least the 50s, so he’s up on the history of our neighborhood, as well as the current comings and goings.

“Did you see that rock?” he asked. I was maybe just a little too happy to hear this question about the rock I had very much seen. The hunk of stone in question appeared in the field next door to our house the day after the soybean harvest.

How did it get there? It’s a rocky field, but so flat. And this rock is practically a boulder! Not too much smaller than a breadbox and much, much heavier. I’d hate to hit that with my (imaginary) tractor, I thought upon seeing it.

The Mister wasn’t particularly moved by my ravings about the rock, but I did manage to drag The Kiddo over to take a look at this, the latest amazing thing I’ve spotted on my walks. He agreed that it was something to see. We should probably call a fossil guy to take a look, my budding paleontologist advised.

Mysterious Orb

Just a few days prior to the discovery of the rock and a little further down the road, I spotted a freaky squash. In a field dotted with the discarded remnants of a crop of traditionally and awkwardly shaped butternut squash sat a perfectly round mutant. Not as vibrant as a pumpkin and about the size of a soccer ball, I was pretty excited about that find as well.

Looking back still a few more days, I jumped to the wrong conclusion about another unusual find — a road crew doing work across the street. I quickly assumed they were installing a driveway culvert, which surely meant a new house — hopefully not one whose inhabitants like loud music or other noisy pursuits!

“Your poor husband,” said Ward as I confessed this Chicken Little moment. He, like The Mister, knew the crew was just doing the annual brush clean-up, and the new residents of that field were slated to be nice, quiet soybeans.

One discovery Ward couldn’t explain away is the creepy underground structure just on the other side of our tree line. We had lived here for a few years when I first noticed the deep, framed rectangular hole in the earth. Covered by a discarded concrete slab and some brush, I edged slightly closer to get a better look. Was it an abandoned mineshaft? A long forgotten root cellar? The site of some long-ago unpleasantness? Would The Kiddo know what to do if I managed to fall down it? These mysteries still remain unsolved, although The Mister has a new theory about a well.

Still More Oddities

Other as yet unexplained phenomena from out here: Where did the uneaten chicken wings found lying at the foot of our driveway come from? What’s the deal with the spooky rusted metal barrel with chains attached sitting in the field down the road? Where did the neighbor whose mailbox sat full of yellowing Penny Savers all summer go? Who tossed an out-of-season gnawed upon cob of corn out on the side of the road last spring? And where did the nest of over 20 writhing, creepy snakes in our neighbor’s front yard disappear to?

There are surely answers to all of these questions, but somehow I find it more pleasurable to gnaw on the mystery a little longer as I look for new discoveries down the road.