6/26/04

     What a beautiful day. The sun was shining and the temperature was just perfect for digging. We started out on an empty lot in town. It was large, and a garden covered part of the corner. After some serious probing, we found and opened up one. It contained quite a few bottles. Mostly unembossed. We tried to find another pit but just couldn't do it. Probably under the garden, I guess it can wait until fall. 

Slim pickings on the 1st dig.

    We loaded up and moved to a new spot. The yard was also large, but for some reason we found a couple pits right away, cool. There wasn't to much on the way down. Fist sized rocks were scattered about, fooling us into thinking they were bottles when we probed. I was getting a little bummed out, we were down five feet and the layer wasn't loaded. Steve had found a few bunk whiskey flasks. He was wiping the next one off and smiling. Finally a local advertising flask. He promised we would get one someday. We only had to dig a thousand bunk ones first. Anyway, it is a pint Hemmings Ales Wines and Liquors! 

Steve moments after uncovering the advertising flask

The flask

    Like I mentioned, glass was pretty skinny in this pit. I got to a corner and hit the mother load of local  drugstore bottles. Well, it was only three but we have never seen them before. They were: ,John E Wilson, monogrammed E B Heimstreet, and my favorite-Prentice and Evenson Opposite Post Office. 

    I got a little excited when Steve was up. He had a cobalt medicine on the run. He took a picture as found, and pulled it out only to find it had some kind of blue stuff inside, false alarm. It was still cool. It was a Sherer and Co. Another we haven't dug before.

Sure looks cobalt from here!

    Steve had a couple more pits lined up while I was digging. We jumped on those next. They only probed about 3 feet and were right next to trees. Digging was tough dodging all those roots. Just below the surface, Steve finds a broken iron pontil cathedral pickle. Could this be a long over due pontil pit?  Again glass was skinny, a couple open pontil bases started to show. We got her cleaned out with only two op puffs for the effort.

    The next pit was adjacent to this one. I know I sound like a broken record, but the glass wasn't any better in this one. We had our fingers crossed maybe something would be whole, we were finding open pontil stuff in this one too. Steve got to the best corner in this pit. He found an Arnica Liniment and a Minnehaha/Hiawatha Hair Restorative/ Mudjekee Wis. Where in the heck is Mudjekee in Wisconsin? We got a good laugh from this one. It was the buzz word for the rest of the day and I am sure many more digs to come. Just a little footnote, Mudjekee was Hiawatha's father, as told in Longfellow's 1855 poem " The Song of Hiawatha". Just in case one of you may end up on Jeopardy one day. 

    Of course there were a couple criers to report. A yellowish olive double eagle open pontil, and a very cool purple Mrs Allans Worlds Hair Restorer. 

    Steve always probes the sides when we are done. Just in case something is right next to the pit and we missed it from above. Sure enough, the crunchy sound of a privy resonates from the probe. It was right under a big mulberry tree. We did our best to tunnel over since a top to bottom approach was not feasible due to the mulberry.  Very crude cathedral pickle pieces came out. We wanted to finish the day out with a bang. It just didn't happen, the pit was void of any whole stuff.

    With six pits under our belts, we were exhausted and decided to call it a day.