4-24-04

    Today's dig started out at 6:30 am on an empty lot  we have worked in the past. Gravel fill on top made this yard very hard to get a probe in. We found two pits to open up here. We ended up getting a green Piso's cure, Dr. Kilmer's Swap root regular and sample size, Liquozone, Sperm Sewing Machine Oil. This being "Whiskey Row", we found piles of coffin flasks in all the pits again.

First pit           Second pit

    The next stop was three doors down at Ray's. He has a few rentals we have been digging. We got a very crude, dark aqua blob top beer out of the fill in the first pit. Cool, we couldn't wait to get down to the layer to see what was there. Unfortunately this pit never produced any good stuff. We moved on to the next one. This one had pink ash right at the top. Not good, these usually produce screw top bottles. We weren't even that lucky here. No bottles in this one. All the clunks we felt on the probe were chunks of slag.

    We needed a little change of luck at this point. I went over to the neighbor's house. We had been eyeing this one for the last month. Luckily I caught the guy home, and he agreed to let us dig. The yard was narrow and we started a systematic probing of the back yard. We found six pits and decided to do the one closest to the house. This one contained crown tops and milk bottles, including a H. Raymond/Home Dairy, WI, Miller and Pabst  Beer from Milwaukee, amber Smich beer from Freeport IL Steve notice a small vial looking thing. After cleaning it up he noticed a tiny figurine inside it! I wonder what that was for? A nice bisque doll head was also excavated.

    It was getting late, Steve  has been toiling very hard on his job and looked beat, and it started to sprinkle. I told Steve it was a good day of digging, but no stellar bottles were recovered. "OK, which one are we opening up next?", he asks. Cool, one more shot at a good one.

    We moved to the back lot line and opened another. This one was only four feet deep. Mostly bunk medicines were coming out. Steve got to the bottom and pulled out a crude, but broken, Dr. Edwards in amber. Wow, that looks old, what is it doing in there? Then, he hands up a very crude amber top. What is going on, is this thing going to produce something good? Steve then found a panel that went with the before mentioned top. It was a Green Mountain Renovator. I hoped out loud another would be in there.

Green Mountain panel

    Then, he shows off a freshly uncovered pepper sauce. Sweet! Even better, it is open pontil! Must have been a couple late throws in there.

Steve with the op pepper sauce

The last one for the day

    A couple more bunk bottles and another doll head and this day was done. If it wasn't raining, we would have open up another. Oh well, it can wait until next week!