Things Discovered While Digging
Spring is here and it's time to get dirty! Personally I love the idea of getting dirt under my fingernails and moving body bits I had long forgotten about. Digging, planting and reaping the garden harvest brings us back to the realities of life and re-fosters connections to the earth that we too often forget.  And sometimes preparing the soil offers us up a little something extra; something to take our minds off the blisters forming on our keyboard-soft hands. I'm always intrigued at the interesting things you find while digging in the dirt.

A biology lesson or history snippet is often just a shovel of dirt away. The 100 year old farmhouse I live in sits on 250 Australian acres and buried in the yard and flowerbeds around the house, stories of the dads, moms and kids that have passed through its doors are reflected in soil smudged remnants of pottery, glass and plastic. Kids are by far the winners on leaving traces behind. Plastic toy soldiers, cowboys and indians pay tribute to their namesakes by surviving several years in the dirt. You've just got to love that plastic...NOT!...it just doesn't break down. I have matchbox cars, doll parts and numerous pieces of plastic toys sold to sell plastic meals while advertising plastic movies.

Childhood memories of road building, racing and hot-wheel wrecks flash into view. How old was the child that owned that car? How many times did his mother tell him to pick up his stuff? Traces of childhood as forgotten as last week's lunch.Pre-1950, glass seems to be the most common material clue to who came before. Bottles, jars and pieces of crockery are the next archaeological treasure that exists to help us imagine who walked this ground before us. One of the prior residents liked to add ash to the soil; unfortunately, the same resident liked to throw glass things into the fire. The clink of glass hitting the shovel and the subsequent recovery of burnt, twisted shards of beverage bottles tell stories of bonfires, bbq's and beer. And finally there are the metal objects. Coins, tins and pieces of iron that oxidation is transforming into powder. Iron and metals containing iron don't take much encouragement to transform into an organic condition-a little dampness quickly blooms into the reds and browns of rust. And if you are lucky you might unearth the green of copper and brass, the flash of a silver medal or the sparkle of gold.  I found a copper and silver St. Christopher medal: Catholics. You don't have to think very hard to imagine what future civilisations will find left from us: plastic, plastic, plastic.  In 100 years even digging up our graveyards will be a plastic affair: plastic cheekbones, boobs and teeth-we even take garbage to the grave.Critters are another thing encountered while digging.

Worms come in all sizes: long pink and wriggly, transparent white and slow. There are fat dark-rosy wiggly worms and the 'two-for-one bisected by the shovel' worms. And waiting for those bisection victims are always the ants. Just when you were patting yourself on the back about what a good person you are by working in the garden, you look down to see an insect that is stronger, more organised and more hard working than you could ever hope to be. There are also fat white grubs which I am beginning to suspect are dung beetles. Their chubby white bodies and stumpy legs curl up in your palm like a cat on a rug.

These grubs, I have noticed, like to hang out around manure, which is another aspect of gardening that brings us down to earth. Sometimes you can gain more than vegetables from gardening. The next time you need to pick up a shovel, don't think about how much your lower back hurts and what a scorcher of day it is; think about the fact that you are participating in an activity that people have used for generations. Use your eyes and ears and participate fully in the moment. Watch for colour, movement, and flashes of reflection; listen for the clink of glass on metal and smell the dung and earth below. Get to know the people that dug there before you and the creatures that are still there. You might never look at digging the same way again.