4-10-05    

    Very hard digs today. All three of them. Packed full of roots and full of murky ash water. This limited our bottle take. I know we left bottles behind, but it was impossible to get at them.

      Anyhow, the first pit was behind an abandoned house. It had a bunch of ABM beers and medicines showing. Then we hit the water. Steve was chopping roots and tossing them up. I heard a lot of muck flying and Craig was cringing, he had been hit!

The black spots aren't moles, I hope his mouth was closed

I was hoping the guys would give in, but then Steve had to find a blob top Miller. He slopped away for quite awhile before finally admitting defeat and opted to close it up. 

        The next stop was at Wally's, one of Craig's contacts. He grew up there and it was cool listening to him and Craig talk about the neighborhood and how it changed.

       The boys getting started on #2

        Steve found a pit right next to a big tree. More roots. Wally said he remembered they planted it when his grandmother passed away. We were getting a few ABM bottles on the way down. Steve found a couple cool amber poisons, one being a Sharp and Dohme. Craig was trying to free a jar from a root mass on one of his turns. He was hacking away for a while and jumped out and told me to finish it. I too hacked away  before freeing it. I about fell over when the junk jar turned out to be a quart Kohlman soda. He loves the local stuff, bummer.

        Steve started to tunnel over to another pit kitty corner to this one. To make a long story short, it sucked and we gave up on it with only a few bottles to show.

Slim pickings considering the effort expended.

    Pit #3 was a left over from two weeks ago. Bob was inside today finishing up some carpentry work. He stopped out and told me he had read the update but was disappointed I had not mentioned his ideas on privy sniffing dogs to locate the pits rather than all the arm breaking probing. I explained to him I was kind of keeping it under my hat until I knew for sure it would work. As a matter of fact, click here for a video of the first step in the training process. 

    I forgot to mention it was Steve's birthday. I went ahead and purchased him a couple probing accessories. The box at the store claimed they would increase probing sensitivity dramatically.

  Steve trying out the present(bicycle streamers)

    You already know the pit had roots and water. To make matters worse we couldn't get the tarp in place. So, it was a pain flinging the dirt and back filling.

    Craig had left to get us some grub. Steve was in the hole and holds up what looks like a paneled cobalt blob soda. My jaw dropped. We wipes it off and dejectedly informs me it is a catsup. "At least it is blue," I said. Not really it just was stained with blue ink. What a bummer!

    Glaser, Kohn & Co./Pure Relishes/ Chicago ILL U.S.A

    Steve was slopping around in the hole, and I was talking to Craig about what I  would really like to find this summer. I mentioned a colored hutch, and a pottery beer. I have seen a couple broken beers, never a whole one. I kid you not, a couple minutes later Steve is holding up a clay beer and says, "Here is your R Schwalbach clay beer!" What are the odds? Craig made a wish too, I will have to check with him and find out if his came true.

Steve showing off the pottery beer

Debossing of the Schwalbach beer

    Steve was also lucky to find a pottery coin bank. It had been pilfered and cracked, but it is still intact. It is from the 1893 Chicago World's Exposition.

Dime Savings Bank coin bank

It was a pretty lack luster day with some terrible digging. At least we had a lot of fun. Next week we will make up for it, we are over due!