11/22/03
I was gone deer hunting for the week. I knew the guys would be out digging and I couldn't wait to get home and check my email. Steve sent me this:
Hey Dave,
Welcome back! Craig and I
went out Sat. to find a spot to dig. We went back to Al's house because I had
to tell him I wasn't going to do the tree job until next week. We went around
behind the fence by the apts. to probe the pits again. Nothing seemed very
promising so we decided to try somewhere else. We were going to head for
Kenosha for Mathews house. We were driving through Racine and we came
upon a house owned by a landlord I know. There was a for sale sign in
front. I had dug a pit here with Jeff a few years ago. We decided to probe it
again. We found a couple suspicious spots. I called my friend Ellsworth and
asked if we could dig.Being the super guy he is he said go ahead (also gave
permission on a couple other properties) as he was going to close on the sale
the first of December.
We spread
the tarp and started digging. A couple feet down we hit a concrete block wall.
The probe had broke glass at four feet,so we decided to test hole it down.
Well the glass that broke was actually petrified linoleum that shattered when
you hit it. We filled it in. When we probed the second spot the probe broke
through a cap at three feet. It didn't feel very promising but we dug it
anyway. At the three foot level the soil caved in to what looked like a
deteriorated barrel lining,like a small cistern? Well there was nothing in
this pit either except an unembossed amber crown top beer,and a broken
ball jar ( right Craig!) we were packing things up and I decided to hit the
neighbor up for permission.
After a short
conversation with John,he said go ahead "knock your self out" Craig
being the privy finder he has become,probed out two spots in the yard. The
corner spot seemed kinda crunchy so we decided to do that one first. We
uncovered a few unembossed meds and then I saw something cobalt. At first I
thought it was Sanfords Radical Cure,but it turned out to be an unembossed
cobalt blob beer. We hit a cap at two feet with a lot of crunch under it. It
was pretty much the crunch of broken glass and lots of it. We ended up with a
couple Bixbys,the cobalt,an ez stove polish and a couple more common ones.
While Craig was
taking his turn in the pit I probed another spot in the yard. After filling
the first pit we opened the second. At about three feet we started hitting a
lot of metal,cans, junk, bicycle spokes. Usually these type of junk pits
produce some decent bottles, I found a rare hutch in one of these pits. Not
this time though,all we found was a giant conch shell. By this time the
drizzle was getting heavier so we called it a day. I forgot to take a picture
of the days finds,but here's a close up of the beer and the shell.
Better than a clam shell 
Breaking through
Craig in
descent
Cobalt? Wow!
