Buried treasure

Aesop tells a fable about a father who, on his deathbed, tells his sons that there's gold buried in his vineyard. Clever dad is speaking in metaphor: the brothers so vigorously turn over the soil that the vines are well cultivated and produce richly, giving the brothers the gold they sought.

This has not yet happened on our property. However, the blackberry bramble removal project has stumbled on riches. The other day, the tractor driver was cruising along, merrily rendering vines into mulch, when the brush hog gave a mighty WHACKCLANG! and stalled. When he stopped to see what it was...well, this happened about 3:00, and let's look at the police report from the Roseburg News-Review:

Although the impact managed to stall the tractor and dented a blade on the brush hog, the jewelry safe was the clear loser in the conflict. It was chopped into three large pieces and a myriad of shrapnel. It was only with the help of a metal detector that anything was recovered. The tractor driver, who was formerly a deputy with the sheriff's, reckons that the safe was stolen, and the thieves tried to get rid of the evidence by dumping it in a bramble when they discovered they couldn't open it.

As yet, our property has not yielded any gold, real or metaphorical--we've been spending lavishly on it, and we can't keep the small amount of recovered jewelry from this incident, either. However, despite of the aches and pains I've gotten from trying to restore the place, it has yielded some good feelings, and hopefully will continue to do so.