10/29/04    

    We had one more pit left a Lewis' place.  Plus, he has been networking and getting us permissions at other places. Thanks Lewis! So, we decided to check the others out first, since the pit that was left didn't probe out so great.

    The first place we went to was in Pontilville. The bad news is it had fence to fence concrete, save a 10 inch strip along the back fence. We probed anyway and I found a pit in the strip. With no way of getting at it, we had to leave. The next place had a very crude looking foundation. With all the rain we had, the ground was saturated and probing was a bear. The guys found a pit along the alley. It had a puddle of water sitting on top. We will save it for the dry season. Another permission would have to wait, dude went out of town and the only way to the back was through his store.

The guys trying to decide if the pit was already dug.

    The guys then suggested checking out a boarded up place. They found a few pits that were previously dug by another crew. Then, with a little angle probing, we hit a great feeling spot in the neighbors yard. Steve did the knocking and landed  the OK. We opened it up and sure enough it was already dug. We even opened up another to find it was already pilfered.

 Full of burrs and arms dragging from all the probing,  we headed back to Lewis' to finish the one pit. Sure enough, it was a pontiled. We were getting broken pieces with both iron and open. I thought for sure our luck would change when I found a medicine neck poking out. After the obligatory "as found" pic, I pulled it out only to see that it was void of embossing. The only other whole item was a pontil puff Craig discovered.

Pic of the unembossed med that got my hopes up.

Another broken, iron pontil fruit jar from this yard.

Check out the crude top on this broken, iron pontil wax sealer. Later, Steve wondered, " What kind of fruit do you think was canned in this fruit jar?"

    We decided that was it, packed up and split. I rode with Steve back home. Steve, never wanting to give in, mentioned something about checking the bank of the river for bottles. Next thing I know we are heading down the steep bank toward the water, probes in hand. I was very amazed when Steve pointed at all the exposed ash. We started probing and breaking glass. While digging, we even exposed large chunks of lime. Could this be the fabled dumping grounds of the local honey dippers and the final destination of the contents of all those scooped privies we have dug? We can only hope! Anyway we did find a few turn of the century bottles for the little digging we did, and there were a lot more clunks down a  deeper. It was getting late and dark so we went home. Steve also told me of another river dump he found  in Burlington  that we are going to check out. He explained how he was working along the river in a secluded spot and had noticed broken bits of Magic fruit jar threads and cobalt glass laying about on the bank.

    Just a little side note. I have had a quite a few people asking about where's best place to get a probe. I found the best place to be Schlatter's Inc. Ron has inexpensive probes and ships very fast. I can't find his website, but click here or go to the links section to email him for the info. Remember to tell him you heard it from the We Dig Wisconsin Crew.