The Man Cave: Backyard Time Capsule

Usually it is Kathy that does the creative, crafty stuff with our kids. She is much better at that kind of thing than I am. I do have my moments, though, and this was one of my best.

It is not only super-cool and awesome, but it satisfies one item on my list of chores every man should do at least once a year.

I present: the Backyard Time Capsule!

I must preface my story by saying that Kathy and I like to grind our own wheat. As a result we have a never-ending supply of five gallon buckets in our garage.

Several years ago Kathy and I tore up an old concrete patio in front of our house. We decided the easiest and cheapest way to get rid of the debris was to bury it. As I was humping the concrete around the garage to the backyard the idea struck me: I could use the old slabs to build an underground vault. Inside the vault I could place one of our five gallon buckets, filled with anything the kids and I deemed time-capsule worthy.

Pure awesome.

I dug my pit and carefully arranged the best slabs into a square vault with a concrete floor. Around my vault I dumped the remainder of the debris. Then came the truly hard part: deciding what went in the bucket. Before beginning we lined it with a plastic garbage bag to keep out moisture. Each of us got to choose two personal items. These included things like Hot Wheels cars, a computer mouse, some pictures the kids had drawn, and an extra copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone we had laying around. (As a side note, as of this writing I think we still own at least three complete copies of the series in hardback...but that's a whole 'nother post.) Then we put a picture of our family and a hand-written note explaining when and why we created our time-capsule. We finished by sealing the garbage bag and putting the lid in place, which we then sealed with waterproof tape.

After entombing the finished capsule in the vault and setting one final slab as a capstone we shoveled the dirt back into the hole (the extra went to the garden) and planted grass across the entire site to cover our tracks.

And there it remains to this day.