Unearthed treasures

Years ago I volunteered in Turkey to help build and landscape a bus shelter on a roundabout. Loads of sand were brought in by dump trucks, and the junk in the loads fascinated me. There were ancient bits of tiles, glass gone iridescent with age, and chips of colorful marble. It happened that the volunteer organizer was an archeology student. I would bring her some little treasure for diagnosis. She would say ‘Hmm. Byzantine’ and chuck it over her shoulder.

When I am digging in Houston, I think about the Turkish archeologist when the shovel gritches against something buried. ‘Hmm. Rebar…from last year’. As my house was built in 1923, there actually are several decades of possible treasures to find. I use the term treasure very loosely here. I am easily pleased.

A buckle (with staghorn fern / Platycereum bifurcatum mugging in the background)

Aluminum fence post finials

A fossilized gas heater decoration

Pot stand from a rangetop. It can still be a pot stand, for terra cotta pots on the patio.

Pokeweed Story

Pokeweed in Robeline, Louisiana

[I’m still thinking about hurricanes, naturally. Have you seen the photos of Galveston? Oh, what a disaster.] The spring after Hurricane Katrina went by New Orleans, I visited the city with some folks from my congregation. The People’s Institute had invited us and they graciously hosted us. We were taken on tours of the devastated city from their point of view.

We drove through the wards with Dr. Richards. At one point, she suddenly broke off midsentence, saying, Stop a minute! She sprang out of the car and over to where she had seen a large, hearty-looking pokeweed plant growing in front of an empty house. She snapped off a stalk and came back with it, full of enthusiastic energy. As we drove on, Dr. Richards told us the traditional way of preparing pokeweed by boiling it till the toxins were cooked out, and then it was safe to eat. Ruefully she shook the stalk. I don’t think this one would ever be safe to eat, growing out of that toxic soil, she said.

All the time we drove through the wards she held the pokeweed. Watching the leaves wilt over the vivid red stem seemed like an analogy to the city that I couldn’t quite articulate. When we said our goodbyes, the pokeweed was left on the seat of the car, a strange souvenir of New Orleans.

Blue Jay Story

Once when the Mr and I were in the garden at our old house, we heard blue jays raise the alarm. When one jay starts yelling “Steve! Steve!”, every other jay around will show up yelling “Steve!” also. Sometimes what is interesting to all the jays named Steve is interesting to us too, like the time they found a 4’ Texas rat snake along the drainage channel. (Not too dangerous we found out, but very impressive.) This time the yelling was coming from just behind the garage. We went to the corner and looked around.

In the middle of six or so jays was one jay thrashing on the chainlink fence. He’s being mobbed by the others, I thought. Gorgeous blue, turquoise and white feathers were flashing around in a frenzy. Then I saw that its leg was trapped by the fence.

The other birds vanished silently when I went up to the unfortunate one. I thought it would snap his leg in the panic before I grabbed it and closed its wings in my hands. How did it get its leg caught in that little loop? “Go get the bolt cutters, quick!” I told my husband. The moment before he returned with them, I got the loop open by hand and freed the bird. “Go get the kid, quick!” He is not a man who takes orders but he went.


As I held the jay in my hands, the bird seemed at ease. It even sang a little. It sang a soft chortling song, fluid and lovely.


The kid and husband arrived. I knelt to show my son, who was about three then. I opened my hands and the bird flew up like a magic trick.




Photo from birdpictures.org