New House Blog: Episode XXXX - The Sand Pit

In The House at Pooh Corner, in chapter 7,  Winnie the Pooh, Rabbit, and Piglet get lost in the mist and keep wandering back to the same sand pit when they try to find their way home.  We recently found that very sand pit buried in our back yard.

The Sand Pit

Yes folks, the very sand pit that stymied the brave trio of Winnie the Pooh, Rabbit, and Piglet was buried right under our noses in our back yard.  Preposterous, you say?  Not at all.  Consider that, if I recall correctly, A. A. Milne never actually said in which country Pooh lived, or where the 100-acre Wood was.  Consider also that back in Milne's day the area where our house now stands was wild and untamed wilderness, possibly even containing a 100-Acre Wood.  Why else would there be a sand pit buried in our back yard?  And what do we mean when we say it was buried?  In our back yard there is a mysterious mound of dirt that we suspected was hiding things - unknown things.  We were correct.  As part of my ongoing Back Yard Archaeology I have been excavating the mound and it has been giving up its secrets.  While excavating one day I struck sand - pure sand.  I had discovered a sand pit in amid the hard clay dirt of our back yard.  The sand is good, and I may have a use for it in a future landscaping project.  I kept digging up the sand and removing it from the pit.  It was not a big pit, but it could seem like a big pit to a small bear with stuffing for brains.  The bottom of the pit was unnaturally flat and smooth, as though it had been mechanically excavated at some time in the distant past.  Here you can see the sand pit post-excavation.

Who would bury this famous sand pit?  Who made the bottom of the pit so unnaturally flat?

More Fun With Post Foundations

Also buried under the mound were three concrete post foundations.  These three were all excavated and broken up on the same day.  That's a new record for me.  I expect that continued excavation of the mound will reveal the existence, and positions, of more concrete post foundations.  Foundation number two still had some actual ancient wood in the post hole.  Pictures.

Yes folks, this is really it for Episode XXXX.  More things are afoot, but we cannot yet speak of them.  One thing I can mention is that I am planning to devote an entire upcoming Episode to the various archaeological artifacts that I have found.  You have only seen a small fraction, and some of them are quite interesting.  Also, don't forget that there are still more battles with stumps to come (we just don't know when).

Keep looking up.
      bIsh