Trimming Grass and Weeds Around Old New England Property (Antique) Granite Landscape Fixtures - Part Ten - "Terrible Too's"

Trimming Grass and Weeds Around

Old New England Property

(Antique) Granite Landscape Fixtures

Part Ten

"Terrible Too's"

            When I go down there (to the old cellar hole)... and am down inside there (the old cellar hole)... what am I doing?

            I “sort-ah nothing”.  One CAN do that.  Then I ‘sort-ah’... fuss around.  With the green growth.  The stone ‘walls’.  The cap stones.  The... “Yeah... that’s pretty NEAT.”  But ah.. the last group is... ‘sort-ah’ me... stuff (en-stuff).   I just get to seeing if THIS cellar hole pit has the... little hand made rock ‘exit’ hole for the ‘water to drain’ (out of the cellar hole) way down at the center bottom of the ‘low wall’ (low point of the cellar hole floor) that... feeds this water into a beneath (‘below frost’) freezing ground (four feet down) rock... canal... made of flat granite ‘field’ rocks (not cut stone)... playfully fitted (for in scale this construction be but ‘little rocks’ within the whole of ‘the rocks’ of a ‘the cellar hole)... to form an underground sluice way off and away (underground) to an... underground... ‘dry well’ that is too, underground; a field stone capped rock lined hole (round or square) of empty buried underground space to be.. available to be... filled with (run off) water... ‘sluiced away’ from the... cellar hole... after, for example ‘a real toad strangler’ flash flood type ‘downpour’.

            “AH WHO CARES” and one can’t even SEE the damn thing unless one ‘knows to look’ “THERE” and get down on one’s all fours in the cellar pit dark and PEEK “THERE” and...

            Anyway... the whole ‘gosh-darn’ apparatus is ‘YOU CAN’T SEE IT’...

            But it’s there.

            We use ours at the house... all the time.  Water comes in (to the cellar) up by the ‘sits on ledge’ (Part Six ) and ‘goes out’ into the sluice and dry well by the ‘bottom’ (low spot) of the ...cellar hole.

It was made to do that.  Someone... ‘made that’ to ‘do that’... in the 1740’s.  ‘Works perfect’.  Too.

            Everything... of this household system... except the little ‘hole’ at the very, very bottom of the low wall...

            Is buried.

            So if ... I may actually... see one (the rock lined sluice and dry well) that means it be, as is called... “exposed”.  I ...study it.

            USUALLY the reason it has been ‘exposed’ is ‘by a bulldozer’ either ‘filling it (the cellar hole) in’ or ... ‘preparing’ the ‘site’ for a ‘NEW FOUNDATION’ (poured cement... basement...)  Usually the ‘they’ just ‘crunch that up” (the sluice) and “push it” into the dry well).

            And that’s the end of that... authentic colonial New England property... (antique) granite landscape fixture; the cellar hole’s drainage sluice and dry well.

            I did. one day, come upon a woman who had gone to ‘digging’ around an “IS THIS AN OLD CELLAR HOLE?” in her back yard ‘off’ of the ‘driveway’.  She, somehow, picked a ‘start here spot’ of the low spot of the cellar hole’s field stone walls.

            (The cap stones were already gone) (Part Nine).

            She was on the OUTSIDE of the low wall digging down it.  She ‘hit” the first cover stone of the sluice way at the base of the wall and

            Exposed it and

            Pulled it off and

            Revealed the sluice way and

            I told her what had happened and all about ‘it’ and...:

            “I’d put that cap rock back if I were you”.

            “Why?”

            “Well it’ll keep dirt out of the sluice and it will still work”.

            “Work?”

            “Yeah it’s probably clear all the way to the dry well so I’d keep it clear”.

            “Oh.”

            She ended up digging up the whole sluice all the way to the dry well.  She exposed that (the sluice AND the dry well) and

            Decided that (the empty dry well... about : “twelve feet” [her reckon] ‘deep’) was “danger-rouse” so

            She filled that (the dry well) in... using a tractor (this household system is ... was originally... all hand dug)... and has left the ‘exposed’ sluice to... just sit there exposed... so... “NOW” it’s been exposed long enough that it is ‘full of”.

            “Yep” to that.

            Back at the current “Yeah... that’s pretty NEAT.” visit to my “this cellar hole” I finish with my ‘the drain’ fuss in

            Thirty seconds so capture the next seconds of moment to fuss over

            The ‘set’ of ‘cut granite’ being used to... as originally intended, designed, accommodated (“built for”), cut, hauled, set and “PLACED”... old colonial granite quarried stone slabs... to be used as steps to ...step down into the cellar hole from outside the house.  It (this step down) is today’s house basement ‘bulkhead door’ entrance

            HERE FOUND

            As colonial era old New England property (antique) granite landscape fixtures.

            “DON’T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT THOSE (partially buried granite slabs) ROTTING

            DO WE”.

            “Nice”, old, been there ‘forever’.

            “Leave ‘em alone”... except for walking in and out... on.  I’m always walking in and out, up and down... on the ones at the house.  I am very well aware of them and I... as I and them... step our cross paths... all the time... do ‘nod to them’ in honor.

            Most people would like to say “TAKEN FOR GRANITE” (ha, ha) but

            Most people ‘don’t know of them or have ever seen’

            “THAT”.

            Every now and then I show ‘em off; a ‘see-what-we-got’ of an (antique) granite landscape fixture.  I, having a colonial New England ‘bulkhead’ do...

            Have something to show off.

            Most ‘bulkhead’ ‘steps’ I tread on... and... I do in the course of the antiques business tread-on-by-me many so... I do have the ‘note that’ and the ‘eyeball that’ and the...

            MOST ‘bulkhead steps’... are crummy, rotting, two by twelve ‘wood’ OR a ‘package’ “STEEL” bulkhead door “UNIT” from... a big box store that some contractor... or builder ‘shoved in there’.

            “QUALITY” in bulkhead steps... IS defined in old New England homes by... HAND quarried granite slabs being used as steps ‘there’ (the exterior entryway into ‘the cellar’ (hole).

“Yeah... that’s pretty NEAT.” but that is all I give; a ‘terrible two too’s’ of cellar hole pit ...thirty second discovery ruminations for

            I have to not bore the reader with (antique) granite iota of MY personal intrigue and do need to return to the now-should-be-pretty-obvious that my original ‘dug cellar’ admonition of policy... of...

            “Hidden” and “Undisturbed” (Part Seven) is traveling rapidly toward the “GUY’S MAKING SENSE”... code enforcement...?

            NOW one easily notes that an ‘on property’ colonial era ‘dug cellar’ ‘hole’ WITH... the... ‘old New England property’... (antique) GRANITE ... ‘still there’... IS

            “Quite the landscape fixture AIN’T IT!”

            To have.

            That it is ‘the big one’; the ‘hard to get – hard to manage’ (property management) classic of ‘old New England’ property including its ‘saga’ and, well....  “HELL”:  Its... genealogy.  TOO.

“YEAH” the right then when I STAND UP in the cellar pit... my HEAD would bump the ‘once there’ floor boards above; the FLOOR of the HOME where... folks (the family) were... conceived, born, grew-up, lived, aged, seniled, deteriorated, died and “laid out” to “stay up” with the body... TOO.  Then ‘cemetaried’ out back. (I’m not treating those in this vignette.  They are often ‘on the [old New England] property’ but usually not truly OF the property.  That is... they are “already protected” (?).  IN addition too... most people are a ‘already being there on that’ [old cemeteries]).  One may though... research a cellar hole... and find a lot... of a lots of... “THAT FAMILY THAT LIVED THERE”.  A privilege to do that with one’s OWN ‘on property’ but may be a do... too... on anyone’s... anyone... ‘happen’ to... a “THAT” “old” cellar hole... too.

            “FAMILY (head) WAS A CAPTAIN IN THE REVOLUTION”, etc.

            So...

            A... cellar hole... personal encounter fact:

            I ‘pick a number’... of... saying ‘of fifteen’ for sure but most probably ‘of twenty’ cellar ... holes... I... “LOOK AT” (and I do stop and take notice)... only

            ONE of them is

            UNDISTURBED.

            And that ‘pick a number’ is ‘going fast’.

            “Precious” is a current word to title a cellar hole that is ‘hidden’ and ‘undisturbed’

            Precious.

            And ‘going fast’

            The rest are, well... ‘filled in’ on off to a how about “JESUS:  LOOK AT THAT”... to be... ‘my sunken garden we MADE IT from a CELLAR HOLE’.  Don’t worry if you got ‘stuck’ with ‘hole’ on your property:  The fine young man who drives the landscape service truck “had a really good idea of what to DO ABOUT THAT.  HE MADE A GARDEN OUT OF IT” including... lowering a... cast cement Italianate... bench... down into the bottom of it for... do you really think your gonna SIT on that

            Piece of cast cement

            Junk?

            “BIRD FEEDER you say?”

            “Oh... bird BATH... ok.”

            “A sundial”.

            “Oh.”

            “PICTURES JUST LIKE IN A MAGIZINE; he took them, the LAWN CARE GUY so he could SHOW PEOPLE WHAT

            We

            DID.”

            “IT’S SO NICE when we”.  (Do you EVER go down “THOSE STEPS WERE THERE”  and... what do YOU do down there... ever?  Not only is the [are the cap stones still there?] “foundation” weed whacked weekly but “THEY” [the landscape guys] use a [spray bottle] of WEED KILLER... too).

            “It’s just BEAUTIFUL; What you’ve DONE

            “With it”

            (The old New England property [antique] granite landscape fixtures

            “you own”).