10-2-05

 Steve and I decided to get an earlier than normal start and do some metal detecting before digging. The sun had barely risen and we were already detecting in the dewy grass. Steve's detector is state of the art. I got mine in the mid 70s. I was enviously watching him on his knees digging coins as I walked along finding nothing. Anyway, he found stuff but nothing to old.

Enough of that crap, let's dig bottles! This part of the country has had a warmer and dryer than usual summer. I have worn out two sets of arms this season trying to get a probe through sod that is harder than concrete. We had been on these empty lots without any success. Now it has cooled off and we have had some rain.  This time, the ground was like warm butter. It didn't take long to find a couple pits, and Steve had the same luck. I told him I thought I had a stone liner on the run, and he said he had one too.

We decided to do mine first as it felt a little better. We fought a small tree, a bunch of roots, and a pile of cobble stones the first three feet. Steve was finding bits of old jugs and dishware. Then he found a panel of a crude aqua med. It was looking like this pit would be pontiled. A little later, he smiled as he showed me the gaping base of an open pontil A Trask's Magnetic Ointment. I was pretty stoked and jumped in only to find bottom in one of the corners. Usually the stone liners are six foot plus, this one was only four feet deep. I skimmed along bottom until the pit was half finished, not finding a dang thing but some broken pottery. Steve got back in and instantly had a colored cylinder's base exposed. He made the call and was right to assume it was an op wine. He finished up the bottom of this chincy pit and we moved on.

Crude shard of a long forgotten medicine

Steve with the A Trask

Crude pontil scar to get a guy going

The neighbor was sitting on his porch and we decide to freshen up a permission we had from a couple weeks ago. We had a pit sitting there, but not enough time to dig it. The long probe confirmed this would be a deep one. This one was full of 90s era bottles and pottery. Mostly broken. The best stuff was a teal Rumford's, an amber miny Independent Electric Co Chicago.

Pit #2 take

Steve kept joking that this Independent Electric Co. was electricity in a bottle. He got it home and popped the cork and found a little wire coming out of the cork and claims it is the conductor. LOL

Steve found what appeared to be another stone liner next to this pit. It had a goofy slab poured through it. We decided to move over to an easier pit to finish the day.