kebo
Elite Member
- Joined
- May 16, 2006
- Messages
- 2,910
- Location
- Lexington, SC
- Tractor
- 2001 John Deere 790 4x4, bar tires
Some of you all read the thread I started recently about the tree that has grown up through the middle of a tractor tire. Well, today I think I bettered that one today!
Occasionally I bush hog some at the neighbors house (next to my parents), who have a very sizable piece of property. I will mention the house is a very old, two story, southern colonial style mansion probably built in the late 1800's. (I need to ask one day and see if the current family knows more precisely when it was built). This particular area of their huge yard (about a 1/4 acre) used to have lots of cane growing wild until a few years ago when the husband (now deceased) had a trackhoe and dozer come in, dig up three big pits, and the dozer pushed all the cane into the pits and then covered the pits back up.
Of course, some of the cane keeps coming back and that's mostly what I was cutting. So today I came across something pretty unusual. A rotten hardwood tree had fallen over at the edge of this area, leaving a stump that was about a foot high. After several passes around this stump I noticed it had an unusual shape in it, so after I finished cutting I walked over to look at it. To my surprise, there was a rather large piece of metal that was embedded down into the stump, which the tree had obviously grown around for many, many years!!
The first picture was close to original as I could replicate. When I first noticed it, the piece was firmly embedded in the rotten stump, meaning that there were no voids between the metal and the wood. I think that at some point during my work, when I pushed the rest of the tree into a pit (that are now somewhat sunken in) with the FEL, it disturbed the metal and loosened it up some, or maybe I just hit the stump with the bush hog.
The second picture shows a piece of wood that I pulled off with my hand that was behind (and on top of) of the metal and clearly shows the smooth surface of the wood meaning it was totally flush with the metal for a very long time as it grew around the metal object.
The third picture was taken standing directly over the top of the stump looking down at it. And the 4th picture is the actual piece of metal, after I pulled it out of the stump. It looks like a rotating part of some piece of machinery, but probably not a wheel for a cart or wagon. There is part of a 3" wide spoke that is broken off on the inside radius (look at the bottom of the first pic). Also, both ends appear to have been broken off, and one end was twisted some just before it broke off. I didn't think to get any measurements, and there were some casting numbers one side, but I didn't take time to clean it up to see if they made any sense or were perhaps a date.
Since there is cane in this part of their yard, it makes me wonder if a previous owner processed it there many years ago, and maybe this piece of metal was part of that operation? I know when my parents moved there 10 years ago, this little area was FULL of huge cane growing 20 ft tall or more and it was so thick you could hardly walk through it. We do have cane growing naturally in this area, but I don't think it's "sugar" cane. Or maybe it is?
It looks like after this piece broke, someone buried it halfway into the ground, and then the oak tree came along and grew up almost completely around it. No telling how many years that took!!! This kind of stuff just fascinates me. I was in a bit of hurry (to get finished and go hunting) so I didn't mention it to anyone in the family. I left it in their yard and it will be a week or two before I get back up there to show it to them.
PS- I will post one more pic in a followup post, since the attachment manager will only allow 4 pic's per post.
Occasionally I bush hog some at the neighbors house (next to my parents), who have a very sizable piece of property. I will mention the house is a very old, two story, southern colonial style mansion probably built in the late 1800's. (I need to ask one day and see if the current family knows more precisely when it was built). This particular area of their huge yard (about a 1/4 acre) used to have lots of cane growing wild until a few years ago when the husband (now deceased) had a trackhoe and dozer come in, dig up three big pits, and the dozer pushed all the cane into the pits and then covered the pits back up.
Of course, some of the cane keeps coming back and that's mostly what I was cutting. So today I came across something pretty unusual. A rotten hardwood tree had fallen over at the edge of this area, leaving a stump that was about a foot high. After several passes around this stump I noticed it had an unusual shape in it, so after I finished cutting I walked over to look at it. To my surprise, there was a rather large piece of metal that was embedded down into the stump, which the tree had obviously grown around for many, many years!!
The first picture was close to original as I could replicate. When I first noticed it, the piece was firmly embedded in the rotten stump, meaning that there were no voids between the metal and the wood. I think that at some point during my work, when I pushed the rest of the tree into a pit (that are now somewhat sunken in) with the FEL, it disturbed the metal and loosened it up some, or maybe I just hit the stump with the bush hog.
The second picture shows a piece of wood that I pulled off with my hand that was behind (and on top of) of the metal and clearly shows the smooth surface of the wood meaning it was totally flush with the metal for a very long time as it grew around the metal object.
The third picture was taken standing directly over the top of the stump looking down at it. And the 4th picture is the actual piece of metal, after I pulled it out of the stump. It looks like a rotating part of some piece of machinery, but probably not a wheel for a cart or wagon. There is part of a 3" wide spoke that is broken off on the inside radius (look at the bottom of the first pic). Also, both ends appear to have been broken off, and one end was twisted some just before it broke off. I didn't think to get any measurements, and there were some casting numbers one side, but I didn't take time to clean it up to see if they made any sense or were perhaps a date.
Since there is cane in this part of their yard, it makes me wonder if a previous owner processed it there many years ago, and maybe this piece of metal was part of that operation? I know when my parents moved there 10 years ago, this little area was FULL of huge cane growing 20 ft tall or more and it was so thick you could hardly walk through it. We do have cane growing naturally in this area, but I don't think it's "sugar" cane. Or maybe it is?
It looks like after this piece broke, someone buried it halfway into the ground, and then the oak tree came along and grew up almost completely around it. No telling how many years that took!!! This kind of stuff just fascinates me. I was in a bit of hurry (to get finished and go hunting) so I didn't mention it to anyone in the family. I left it in their yard and it will be a week or two before I get back up there to show it to them.
PS- I will post one more pic in a followup post, since the attachment manager will only allow 4 pic's per post.
