10/26/03

I finally got a day off! I was on the road to Steve's at 5:30am. Actually it was 4:30 because I didn't set my clocks back. Luckily Steve was up. He had  3 yards lined up to probe. We loaded up and were off.

Man was the ground hard. We spent a 1/2 hour at the first place before noticing the fence was 5' from the property line. We jumped the fence and located an ash pit. The neighbor, actually a business, has been mowing part of this guys lawn. We didn't want to open anything up and have property line disputes, so we moved on.

We found a pit that had already been dug at the next place. It was along the back lot line. Steve likes to probe up closer to the house. The guys who have dug around here always found the ones on the backs and sides. We do find them closer to the house sometimes. Steve told me to come over. Right at the corner of the house he stuck his probe in to the handle and twirled it in circles. It was a well that had been covered by a piece of rotted, spongy  plywood. Yikes, if someone steps on that who knows how far they will fall. We are going to get a hold of the guy before someone gets hurt.

The next place was actually two buildings downtown that are slatted to be demolished. They look like they were some pretty nice houses in the day. Lately the have been serving as businesses. When we got into the back we were bummed to see it had all been paved over. Which isn't all bad, we just have to keep an eye on it and hit it when they pull up paving. Steve noticed a small patch of dirt right up next to the building. Sure enough there was a pit there. We got out the digging gear and started in. 2' down a piece of blue glazed crock came up. A good sign of something old. As we headed down, we noticed we were right on the edge of it. Also the hole was small, 4' down it was a chore to get the dirt out. Not a lot of glass was coming out. Steve did fish out a J Walkers bottle. I had never seen one, he said it was fairly common and not that old. We decide to fill it in and head over to the place he was at last week. The house was old and they didn't find the old pit.

Look, Craig showed up to see how we were doing.

Steve unearthing the best bottle from this pit. The J Walkers.

The next yard was at one of  Baltazar's places. It  was real gravelly and I found two spots that felt good and ash came up on the tip of the probe. The pit was right in the corner of the yard. The back fence ended up running over the middle of it. Also it was brick liner. The first I have dug. Anyway, all this added up to some cramped digging. Why can't we get an easy one! We thought we hit bottom 3' down. It ended up a very hard fill all the way down. Some unembossed, deep aqua medicines popped out. 1870's stuff, cool.

Tight quarters My first brick liner

Steve, what the hell are you doing? To tired to climb out

The take ended up being a pottery Mineral Water jar labeled "Nassau", a doll's head, a headless figure of a kid on a chamber pot, a small Hamburger Trofen, a marble, and a button.  Not the most productive day, but it sure felt good to sink a spade in the ground after a month of not digging!

 Monday morning I took a couple shards in from the last pit. Ted the fruit jar collector was still at work. Two weeks ago I took it some bunk jars for him to look at. I knew they were common, I am sure he thought they were pretty crappy. Anyway, these shard caught his attention. One was a Magic Fruit Jar and the other I wasn't sure. He took one look and said "Those are some old ass jars, where did you get them?" I felt a little redeemed. But, the good stuff is always broke.

 Steve and I called it a day. We might end up digging by me next time. Steve ran in the house and got me a Sagwa bottle from  a couple weeks ago. He knew I was needing a good bottle, and it will look good in my collection. It sure is nice to have a couple good guys to dig with! Thanks.