Shocking find! (Pun intended!)

The mulch man came again bringing me two more truckloads of the ground up wood chips. About twice a month, he drives his huge dump-truck to the back of the house and piles the chips in high mountains. So far he has brought us probably ten or fifteen loads. After he leaves, it is up to Son and me to head back with our pitchforks to spread the stuff around to a depth of about one foot. It is a tiring job to say the least! This is necessary as the chips are green and generate a lot of heat being in a huge mound. This heat could eventually cause the chips to catch on fire and then we would be in a huge predicament!

The first thing this morning, Son and I headed to the mulch pile. It was already hot and would be getting much hotter as the day progressed. Where the piles are situated there is no breeze from the Bay making it seem even hotter and more humid. This, added to the heat generated by the mulch, was almost unbearable but we worked..and worked..and worked. These loads had the added benefit of many pieces of firewood mixed in with the chips. Son would lift these huge logs out and toss them to the side. Later he will split them to be used in the woodburning stoves this winter. After tossing what seemed to be an extreme amount of chips...chink! Chink?? That was a strange sound for wood chips to make. He dropped to his knees and started digging with his hands and soon held up his prize. Beneath all of the mulch, he had found a part of the insulators from power lines. There was an iron bar with two huge bolts on each end. Attached to these bolts was two old glass insulators. Wow! What a find! And in the mulch pile! We oohed and ahhed for a few minutes. After discussing the possibility of finding that intact, we went back to work. Occasionally, we would turn, look at the insulators and shake our heads as if to say, "Why in the world was that in here?" Then...chink! Again? Sure enough, he pulled out another set of insulators! He looked at me and grinned.."I wonder if I will find the pole in here next!"

I suppose the electric company changed out the old insulators for some new type and these were inadvertently left behind. The mulch comes from the crew that is clearing brush from under the power lines so I imagine the insulators were just tossed in to get rid of them. After finding these, a bit of research proved that they are collectible. There are actually folks that have entire collections of the many different styles and colors. Although I have not come across any that are still mounted on the cross bars, there were several of the glasses that were identical to the ones Son found. Just our luck..these are on the low end of the value scale, though! I have no idea how old these insulators are but I think they are treasures! I am not sure just what I will ever do with them, but somehow, somewhere, they will become an added piece to my "museum" of strange and wonderful oddities!