We have been doing a lot of work in our back yard, in hopes that the girls can get out there next year.  (When we moved in, we mistakenly told them they could play outside before we realized how much trash and glass and creepiness was back there).  About a month ago we replaced the chain link fence with a cedar one, had an overgrown (15 ft!) shrub cut down and ripped out the strange metal carport that someone installed as an awning.  Chris has devised and built an amazing soil-sifting contraption that fits over the wheelbarrow and he has been slowly working through the rich, but trash-filled soil that was the former back yard.  He has come across so many marbles in his sifting!  We found a few marbles poking out of the ground when we first started looking back there, but digging has unearthed so many more.  We are up to 37 now, which we keep in a glass in Ada’s room.  Marble hunting has become a sport at our house.  We wonder where they all came from.  Were they put there to decorate a garden?  Left by kids playing?  I love the mystery of an old house…