12/12/04

     Our first stop was a place I have been eyeballing for over a year. The lady was going out of town and wanted to be around when we dug. But, she didn't mind us probing. I figured we would be there a couple hours because the yard was a monster. Steve made a b-line for a depression and sure enough there was a pit there. I moved over to the sweet spot and also had one located. So, two pits lined up in two minutes and we have to wait to dig them . We laughed and left. Now we are way ahead of schedule and have to wait for people to wake before we knock for permission.

    We explored a couple abandoned farms and found some empty pits but nothing digable. The next step was going to town, wait for people to wake, and reprobe a lot that we have worked to death. Sure enough I found a spot, Steve came over and found two more. By now it was 10 am. A decision was reached to go knock and find something better as these didn't feel so good.

    Steve knocked and landed a permission on a neat 1857 brick home. The yard was half torn up because they were putting in a garage and had the slab down. But, the back lot line and one side was wide open. We probed and probed and nothing was found. Daylight was quickly escaping us by now. So we went back to open the three we had just left.

    The first pit had some blue glazed crockery shards right on top. "Oh no, the curse of the blue shards," I shuddered. I swear every time we find a blue shard first, the pit turns out to be total crap. This one was no exception. We kept thinking we reached bottom, only to probe and see it was a cap. Then when probed, it sure sounded crunchy and clunky. This was gravel and bits of rock. It was a fairly deep hole and sucked up a lot of time for absolutely nothing.

    The next pit up was picked via a coin toss. Heads this one, tails the other. Well, heads won out. We started laying out edges, it was huge! Steve commented that it may be a "Party pooper". We ended up digging a narrow test hole. Good thing cause it was newer and the bottles were crap.