Earth Day
Over the weekend I got back to work on my house. I have been bothered for years by an illogically placed concrete patio on the side of the house. Normally a patio is a good thing, but this one is just a slab of non-professionally poured concrete. Its one charm was that someone had taken the time to half-sink a collection of children’s marbles into the wet goo one at a time. The patio is not at all useful so I decided to get a sledge hammer and break it up. I could plant a tree and the world would be a better place.
Since the pour was an amateur one to begin with, destroying the useless object took no time at all. I called a hauling guy to carry off the chunks. In the meantime I started trying to break the compacted clay that had been under the concrete slab for god knows how long. It was dead soil. It was harder to dig than the concrete was to break. Then about six inches below the surface I hit metal. After digging for another hour I had uncovered two edges of a single sheet of steel that was the size of the concrete pad. Of course I wanted to get it out, I couldn’t plant a tree in six inches of soil even if I was able to break through the hard clay.
The hauling guy showed up. He was a young guy with lots of tattoos and a genuine throw-back mullet. He rolled his own cigarettes. We didn’t have much in common so to encourage a friendly tone I showed him the metal edges I had uncovered.
He got big eyed and stepped back. He said no one would bury a sheet of metal in the ground, cover it with clay and then pour concrete over it unless they really didn’t want anyone to know what was under there. Then I showed him a piece with the half sunken marbles. He had a visible shiver. I looked at him and said, “You are thinking there is a dead body under there aren’t you?”
He turned around and started loading the concrete. The metal plate didn’t get mentioned again.
Today I had a dump truck come and re bury the whole thing again with a fresh pile of topsoil. I didn’t do more digging. I planted some petunias instead of a tree, and jabbed a small cross into the ground at the end just in case it was a Christian.
Since the pour was an amateur one to begin with, destroying the useless object took no time at all. I called a hauling guy to carry off the chunks. In the meantime I started trying to break the compacted clay that had been under the concrete slab for god knows how long. It was dead soil. It was harder to dig than the concrete was to break. Then about six inches below the surface I hit metal. After digging for another hour I had uncovered two edges of a single sheet of steel that was the size of the concrete pad. Of course I wanted to get it out, I couldn’t plant a tree in six inches of soil even if I was able to break through the hard clay.
The hauling guy showed up. He was a young guy with lots of tattoos and a genuine throw-back mullet. He rolled his own cigarettes. We didn’t have much in common so to encourage a friendly tone I showed him the metal edges I had uncovered.
He got big eyed and stepped back. He said no one would bury a sheet of metal in the ground, cover it with clay and then pour concrete over it unless they really didn’t want anyone to know what was under there. Then I showed him a piece with the half sunken marbles. He had a visible shiver. I looked at him and said, “You are thinking there is a dead body under there aren’t you?”
He turned around and started loading the concrete. The metal plate didn’t get mentioned again.
Today I had a dump truck come and re bury the whole thing again with a fresh pile of topsoil. I didn’t do more digging. I planted some petunias instead of a tree, and jabbed a small cross into the ground at the end just in case it was a Christian.