6/18/05

   A deep tunnel job was the first pit on the agenda. One of the privies in this yard had to be old, why not this one? On the way down we were finding bits of prehistoric blue glazed crockery. This fueled the excitement  even more. With the six foot shaft competed, a simple angle probing revealed the good stuff about two feet over. I hacked a bit at the packed earth until winded. Steve jumped in with only a few inches till the break through. "Woe hoe," he cried as the shovel dove into the loose ash fill. His pace quickened as he scoured the mounting debris, searching for the first bit of evidence to prove that this would be a pontil hole of untold glory.... and that is when he hands up a frigging bunk  coffin flask. To add insult to injury the pit was huge and we had to pick through the layer holding on to the very end of the long shovel. Of course there were the teaser aqua and amber blobs to keep us going. You know the ones with empty slug plated obverse, and "This Bottle Not To Be Sold"  reverse. 

Under the shed and next to a tree

Steve tunneling over

Teal colored umbrella

Super heavy, clear ink with an improved pontil on the bottom

Action shot

The take

`    This pit sucked up most of our day. By the time it was closed up, it was 1pm. There still are 4 more tunnel jobs left at this yard, we just couldn't stomach another and moved on. The next place had a monster sized yard. I started down one side and was instantly greeted by the neighbor. He was slurring quite a bit, undoubtedly from the can of ice beer in his right hand. He asked the same "What are you doing?" questions about three times. I made my way along the back fence line away from him. He kept jawing and I didn't answer, pretending not to be able to hear him. I peeked over my shoulder about 3/4 of the way down the fence line. He was still watching. By this time, Steve somehow found a pit mid side yard. A few pokes confirmed it was loaded. He was laying out the edges and apparently this more than drinker dude could handle. He hopped the weeded lot line and now was our buddy.

    The tarp was laid, and the dirt dug to the crunch layer. When the bottles started to show it looked like this would be one of the newest pits we have ever gotten into. Lots of bunk Ball jars, bogus wines, screw tops, etc. Nothing of worth to us. Drinker dude was in his glory though. As fast as you could throw something in the spoilage pile, he would be dipping it out proclaiming it to be very valuable. He kept a lot of stuff and decided it wouldn't be fair for us to part with all this treasure and not get anything in return. This is when he transferred ownership of one of his prized possessions, a two foot long catfish he had caught earlier and had temporarily stored in a wading pool in his back yard. As gracious as an exchange this was, my conscious would not allow taking advantage of somebody like that, the offer was respectfully declined.

No, that is not the drunk guy helping Steve. He was actually a FDA(Future Diggers of America) member living in the house we were digging. Apparently Steve was taking to long on his turn and the kid was giving him a subtle hint.

    We then headed back to another tunnel job. Steve reprobed it and it sure felt like the other bunky , super crunchy, clunky, turn of the century pits we have dug. It was 4:30. With two hours of drive time and three hours of dig time, it was decide to let this one go for a rainy day.