Mystery 1
I arrived home from work the other day and discovered a cat food bag in the kitchen, where cat food bags don't normally hang out. Upon closer inspection of this bag I discovered a rather large hole in the side, as if someone, or some thing, in our new house had chewed through the bag to get to the sweet sweet cat food inside. What or who could it have been? We don't have mice or rats, do we? And Becky has shown no interest in eating cat food. She was off running errands at the time, so I couldn't ask her what she knew of the situation. Upon even closer inspection I noticed several smaller holes, almost like someone, or some thing, had been biting the bag. Just as mysterious was the fact that all of the cat food had been drained from the bag and was not anywhere nearby. The best explanation I came up with was that a cat had bitten and chewed through the bag, but that didn't explain the missing cat food. Surely one cat couldn't eat an entire 7# bag of cat food in one sitting, could he? All three cats working together couldn't even do that. When Becky got home all was cleared up. A cat, probably Daisy, had indeed bitten and chewed through the bag, and Becky had put the food into another, almost empty bag of cat food. Mystery solved. Here are pictures of the ransacked cat food bag.
The poor bag never had a chance. On the plus side, at least one cat really seems to like this food.
Mystery 2
A day or two later we found another bag of cat food that had been chewed through, but this time the food was still in the bag. It was less of a mystery this time, however, as Daisy was confirmed to be the culprit. What remains unconfirmed is how she knew to chew through a supposedly sealed bag of cat food. Did she somehow smell the food through the bag? Did she simply recognize the shape and size of the bag as being a food container? Why did she not simply eat from the ample supply of cat food already in the food bowl? Can we ever trust her with a bag of cat food again? Here are pictures of the second victim.
Yummy yummy |
More Mysteries
The next series of mysteries are from our continuing series - Back Yard Archaeology. Several excavations are currently in-progress (in this case several = at least 3), and they have turned up some mysteries that we have yet to solve. You will recall from this Episode that we were excavating a PVC conduit that contains romex. Our continuing excavation has uncovered and traced the conduit as far as we can uncover and trace it directly. As suspected, it runs all the way along the edge of the back porch, turns ninety degrees toward the house, and runs into and under the concrete of the walkway by the house and porch. You will also recall that so far I am the only one doing any archaeological investigation in our back yard. Since the conduit goes under a concrete walkway I was unable to excavate it further. Neither of us (Becky or Bish) wants our walkway broken up at this time. However, I believe I know where the conduit and romex run, and what they connect to, but I will not reveal that until I have investigated and confirmed my theory. I also discovered that there was more water in the conduit near where it runs under the concrete walkway. Who put this water into the conduit? Why was it put there? Is it safe to drink? What did the other end of the romex connect to? Here are some pictures. I remind you that some (all) of the cracking and breaking of the conduit is possibly (definitely) the result of my excavating.
After two days worth of excavating |
Still going |
Turning the corner |
Running into and under the walkway |
The end of the line? |
New Team Member
Before we continue I must introduce a new member of our Archaeology/Gardening/General Digging team. Meet Pick. Pick is a one-hand pickaxe thing. The handle is some kind of plastic, about 18" in length. As you can see from the picture below, the head is showing some signs of use. This is because pick has been assisting me with my excavating.
Continuing With The Mysteries
In another part of the yard I discovered and dug up what I am calling the Leaning Post Foundation. I call it this because it was jutting out of the ground at about a 75-degree angle, and it is a foundation for a wood post. It is the largest post foundation dug up to date. We don't know its age precisely, or the precise age of any of our excavated artifacts so far, but it is believed to be between 10 and 40 years old. How did it get where it is? Why was it leaning so? Why was it sticking up out of the ground? Was it the result of a seismic upheaval? Social unrest? Subterranean sinkholes? These are just some of the mysteries surrounding the Leaning Post Founation, or LPF. Here are pictures.
Here you see it post-excavation. Note its immense size and weight.
Here is a view from its other side.
Despite being potentially decades-old, you can still see the wood grain inside the post hole.
Nearby the LPF I discovered, and started excavating, two PVC pipes coming out of the ground. They are adjacent to another post foundation that is lying flat in the ground. Where do these pipes go? What were they originally connected to? Are the part of some mysterious refueling operation? Why was PVC chosen as the pipe material? Why are the two pipes not the same diameter? Pictures of the excavaion-to-date.
This is as far as the excavation has gone to-date. The digging at this site was interrupted by an unexpected and unanticipated find.
And I will tell you about that unexpected and unanticipated find right now. As I was digging out these pipes, and trying to keep them intact and undamaged, I discovered a third pipe crossing these two. This third pipe is made of what appears to be rusty corroded metal (why they would choose to use a rusty, corroded metal pipe is a mystery), about 1" in diameter. I decided to dig up this pipe, and it led me to an even bigger, even more unexpected and unanticipated discovery. But first, pictures of the pipe.
Here's another view that shows the relative positions of the PVC and the rusted metal pipes. So far this is the only metal pipe we have found buried in the back yard. Its rusty, corroded condition may explain why PVC was the material of choice for all of the other buried pipes found so far.
The even bigger, even more unexpected and unanticipated discovery is a monolith, which I am calling The Monolith. The Monolith is one large, contiguous piece of concrete that is in the ground. The rusty, corroded pipe appears to go right into The Monolith. The Monolith appears to have been used as some kind of foundation for something. It has two square post holes, and a mysterious piece of metal sticks up from it about an inch. This metal is not at all rusty or corroded, it appears to be silver-white, and it is slightly flexible. I haven't had this metal professionally analyzed, but I can tell you that it is like no other metal found so far in our back yard. Take a look at The Monolith.
Here is another angle showing the pipe connecting to the concrete. If you look closely you may be able to spot the mysterious metal embedded in the concrete.
On the one hand, such exact north-south alignment shows that this concrete was poured by members an advanced civilization. On the other hand, the crudeness of the pouring and the roughness of the concrete seem to indicate that this concrete was poured by members of an ordinary civilization. A contradiction, and a mystery. Who really poured this concrete? Was it poured here, or poured elsewhere and transported here and buried? Why was it buried? Why is it aligned so precisely? Is the compass app on my phone to be trusted?
Next up is a photo of some miscellaneous artifacts that we have uncovered or found lying on the surface in our back yard.
What you see here is a rusty metal bolt of some kind, some pieces of what seem to be ceramic tile, and a mysterious circular object made of white plastic. The rusty bolt would seem to indicate that the pre-Bishopians had some knowledge of either metal forging or metal buying/trading. The tiles are another mystery. Most normal, human-formed tiles are squares or rectangles. These tile pieces have complex curves and angles. And they're really small. What kind of technology could produce such tiles? And what is that mysterious circular object?
Concrete, rusty metal, and PVC are not the only things I have dug up in our back yard: I have also dug up real wood, ancient support timbers I believe. Note that they are in remarkably good condition for being buried in the ground for years or decades. Just as remarkable is the fact that the termites who live in the area didn't completely eat these timbers. See for yourself.
Note also the small pipe segment. |
What were these timbers used to support? What was their former length? Were they hand-formed or machine-formed? Were they at one time part of a buried wooden ship?
With that I'm going to wrap up this Episode of our New House Blog. As you can see, there are a lot of unanswered questions about the mysterious artifacts that are being unearthed in our back yard. We'll keep you all posted as the excavations continue. Please note that we still have not found any verifiable evidence of either aliens or tin hats.
It is a puzzlement.
bIsh