The things you find

[fitzw]

This fall, I decided that the leaves that have blown into the old "double" sugarhouse for several years needed to be cleaned out.

The double sugarhouse is two buildings, with the south building (for wood storage) open at the north and south ends, and the north building open at the south end. We use both buildings for storage of sap tanks and some old wood wheels, axles, and farming equipment, plus some old wooden pallets and an old evaporator pan.

Some of the siding has been taken over the years for repairs/additions to the current sugarhouse, so leaves get in more easily. As noted above, this has been going on for several years, and occasionally the leaves need to be cleaned out. This is easier these days because we have a leaf blower that we can use.

Note that I said easier, not easy. The backpack for the leaf blower isn't all that big, but it makes it more awkward to move amongst the stored equipment, and the wand of the blower is big and solid. Makes getting to some parts of the building interesting.

So, I start blowing out leaves from the southern building. Almost immediately, I catch a flash of white: a golf ball. Well, our property does border on a golf course (used to be another farm next to ours, preserved as open space by turning it into a golf course), but to get a golf ball into the double sugarhouse would take a helluva slice, through trees.

Still, I have found golf balls in there before, so I didn't think too much about it.

More leaf blowing. Another golf ball.

And another.

And another.

OK, this is starting to look suspicious.

About 8 golf balls in the southern building. Time for the northern building, which, as noted above, is only open at southern end, facing away from the golf course.

Another golf ball. And another. And one that I could see but couldn't reach, because it was behind a wheel and under an axle.

All told, I believe that I found two dozen golf balls in the double sugarhouse. A couple of them were kind of rough, and one had a slight cut in it (which you find from time to time from the ball being hit edge-on by some of the irons).

My theory of this: Some squirrel somewhere has been hoarding golf balls in the double sugarhouse, thinking that they were some kind of exotic nut.

I expect that I'll continue to find golf balls in the double sugarhouse...

Comments

[fitzw.livejournal.com]

Well, see, I've picked white walnuts (also called butternuts), and we have black walnut trees along the edge of the yard, so calling a golf ball a white walnut would never occur to me.

I like someone else's note about golf eggs, but that still wouldn't cover squirrels hoarding them.

Let's see: white chestnuts? ;-)