Slow-Melting Snow Reveals Past Treasures
This week, many of us in the Inland Northwest have been doing a little activity I call “snow archaeology.”
It consists of venturing into your backyard and discovering all of the artifacts that have been buried there since November. Most of these ancient relics predate the ice storm, as well as predating the 14 subsequent snowstorms which buried our yards as thoroughly as volcanic ash buried Pompeii.
Most of the snow finally melted off this week, and in my preliminary explorations I have already discovered evidence of “implements of human manufacture,” or in layman’s terms, garden tools. I can’t begin to describe the excitement of finding a long-buried implement dating back to the pre-November 15 era. I felt exactly the way Richard Leakey must have felt at Olduvai Gorge, although I doubt if Leakey ever discovered a Garden Weasel.
Obviously, as my newly excavated evidence bears out, I had failed to complete my winter put-away chores when the snows arrived so suddenly last November. In fact, I am embarrassed to say that my most spectacular find so far has been an entire barbecue kettle.
In talking to other homeowners in the snow archaeology field, I have learned athletic equipment is another common find. In general, it appears that soccer balls and footballs have survived in good shape, although baseball gloves and running shoes show serious signs of decomposition.
These items all fit into the category of: Things that were sitting out in the yard before the snows came. I’ve also found another major category of artifacts: Things that were accidentally dropped or lost into the snow. Gloves, scarves and hats are the most common items. I would urge all snow archaeologists to pay particular attention to the areas alongside former snowmen, where carrots and coal can often be found.
Snow archaeologists with small children have a built-in advantage. For instance, a friend of mine told me this week that he had retrieved something that I could never hope to discover: an ice-cream scoop. Apparently, his 8-year-old son had either been using it to scoop mud (pre-ice-storm) or to scoop snow (post-ice-storm) and had simply abandoned it for other generations to find.
This friend also found one pasta roller, two dinner knives, one Nerf-like toy, and three dirty frozen towels. As the snow recedes further, this snow archaeologist can expect to uncover numerous action figures, Legos and kitchen utensils, and possibly - dare we dream? - a Fisher-Price tape player.
Meanwhile at my particular “dig,” I am reduced to searching for non-human artifacts, including the 887 apples that fell from our tree during the ice storm. These apples have gone through cycles of freezing, thawing and fermenting underneath that snowpack all winter. Now, the snow has disappeared to reveal 887 brownish piles of mush sitting on our lawn.
I’m also staring at the depressing sight of last fall’s leaves, lying in a sodden layer on the grass. In a normal world, these leaves would have been raked long ago and forgotten. But now I have to spend 1997 raking 1996’s leaves, which is especially distasteful since they’re all mixed up with brownish piles of mush.
Through all of these hardships, we snow archaeologists still dream of that one big discovery that will make us famous and wealthy. As I approached my long-buried bus stop on Wednesday, little did I know that I was about to fulfill that dream.
As I stared down into the matted-down grass, I saw something that made my heart pound. No, not the vast array of cigarette butts (although those were quite a find in themselves), but two gleaming silver coins!
My excitement was only partly diminished by the fact that these two coins were the exact coins I had fumbled and dropped into six inches of powder in December. Nor was it diminished by the fact that it totaled only 35 cents, being an American quarter, circa 1990, and an American dime, circa 1995.
The point is, it was treasure, and I had found it. National Geographic has been alerted.
, DataTimes