May 15th 2005.

Hello, I am Sir Rodney, Duke of Lawnchairshire.

I am a Bottle Jedi.

I set my lawnchair up so my back is to the wind, and I pull my hood up to cloak myself. When I wave my hand, you will give me permission to dig big holes in your back yard.

Today's dig is at a nice 1865 place, on Park Avenue, in Harrison. I secured permission from the owner of the property just the day before. I had been eyeballing this place for awhile. I actually got turned down, more or less, from the reluctant prior owner, before the house and property was donated to the church from which my current permission was secured.

We probed up a pit in short order, between the garage and the parking area for the church. It was a small slice of grass only 2 feet wide, and the pit ran off under the garage a foot or so.

This pit was a stone liner, but the stone walls had been torn down to the depth of 3 feet. For the first few feet, the sign was encouraging, with lots of salt glaze, red ware, and yellow ware and Rockingham pieces. The glass shards were nice and aqua and sic. At about 5 feet we started tossing out hinge mold utility slicks, and some unembossed druggist bottles. I was in the pit and getting close to the layer at about 6 feet and found a cluster of stoneware inks. There were four de-bossed Arnolds from London, and a plain Jane.

Mike was fluffing the layer and kept handing up ironstone and china miniature chickens. We had quite a few going, of different shapes. He also announced he had a square amber bottle. He tossed up a light amber L&W base Hostetters Stomach Bitters. He also said he had a big aqua jar, and handed up a big hemingray threaded quart. Cool. We kept our eyes peeled for any threaded lids but found nary a one.

I was back down in the pit to finish off the layer and found the gravel bottom in one corner and started tossing dirt behind me. A BIG onion skin marble popped out and rolled down under my knee. A flash of cobalt caught my eye and I grabbed it up to find a broken handled mug base shot glass. Right after I found the missing piece, and announced we had a "Gluer" coming up. I saved Mike the last 3rd of the layer and he handed up a tapered cylinder J.J. Butler Ink. Right after that he handed up a nice offset dome, or turtle style J.J. Butler ink.

A few more slick druggists and some open pontil base frags rounded off the dig, and it was fillerin time.

We all had a blast and it sure felt good to rake through some glass again. We filled in the 8 foot hole and replaced the sod.

A big thanks to the Harrison First Christian Church for allowing us to dig.

Seeya soon bottle geeks !!!