What the ground takes and returns

The glint of metal caught my eye. The metal was lying among the brown grass and mud in the sheep pasture.

Rubbing it with my boot, I unearthed a ring and then a chain. I grabbed the ring and pulled out a dog choke collar, muddy, but showing very little rust.

Must have put in a pocket with a hole, I think as I place it in a jeans pocket without a hole.

I find all kinds of treasures as I walk the pastures, hay fields and crop fields. There have been metal blades from machinery, nuts and bolts, cow and sheep ear tags, plastic cow collars, bits of Jolly balls and plastic toy soldiers, glass insulators from an electric pole, rocks and bricks, shotgun cartridges.

The earth seems to gobble them up, and then, after a plow or disc passes, or a series of freeze/thaw cycles, it gives them back.

A few years ago, the melting snow revealed a field of rocks and bricks.

The farmer and I gazed at the field, wondering what happened to cause all the rocks and bricks to come to the surface. We speculate it was a series of freeze/thaw cycles, but we don't know for sure.

The earth never says.

So I am left to discover the treasures, to study them, and to make up my own stories.