Getting Sedimental

It's hard to dig anywhere in the North Country without engaging in archeology. In my war against the yard, I have uncovered all the dairy barn foundation and several generations of midden heaps. Below the plastic and aluminum is tin and glass. Further down is cast iron--factory made hardware, plowshares and bolts, a flatiron and a lamp bracket. Just at the bottom, the ironmongery is hand-forged--a doorlatch and hinges, homemade spikes from floor joists and rafters. As a boy, my favorite playgrounds were industrial ruins. The wreckage of the Pyrites Paper Mill was particularly splendid--enormous stone rollers for texturing the finished paper lay scattered about. Buildings that were walls with no roof or floor, and a sun-dappled glade of birches inside each room. It's hard to imagine what we will leave for posterity, and what will cover the PCB layer and the styrofoam layer and the action-figure layer and the thin layer composed entirely of dead hard drives.