November 5th 2006

Today Mike and I headed down to the North side of Cincinnati where Mike had a stone liner probed. He discovered this pit while in the bottom of a woodliner on the adjacent lot, and stuck his probe sideways, over (or under actually) the property line.

The deal was, Mike agreed to remove the weeds and saplings from the back of the lot in exchange for permission to dig. We hacked and drug and piled and in short order had the place looking much better.

Now a few weeks ago, Mike and John Denver's twin brother Rob Denver dug the afore mentioned woody and got some pretty good stuff, like a miss-spelled Cincy Soda, a Boss Ale, and an open pontil slick ink. Try as we did, we could not locate any other pit on this adjacent lot, which was very small, so we were hoping this stone liner was the one and only pit.

We cracked it open and started flinging dirt. A square of brick, only two courses thick showed itself, and under it was a round stone wall. The bricks were placed for a foundation for the outhouse. At three feet deep, we found someone had built a laid brick floor. We dug under it and probed and still had pit going down past 10 feet, so we continued digging.

At 8 feet we probed again and Mike felt bottom with 6 feet of probe, meaning the pit was 14 feet deep. We hit some ash layers after that and at about 10 feet started getting into solid glass and seeds. The glass was only mid 1880's or so, and whole bottles were no where in the tinkling layer. Mike passed up a 2 inch tall red ware ovoid jug. Then he found some girls tea set china. A broken trade pipe popped out along with a couple of bone toothbrush handles.

At 12 feet the glass was gone and the contents was again just dirt and ash. Then at 13 feet there was another glassy layer of seeds and we crossed our fingers this was an older layer. Well, it was not. Still firmly in the 80's Mike pulled out an intact smooth base blob top soda from the Cincinnati Soda Water and Ginger ale Co.

We found a few other odds and ends but nothing worth mentioning. We re-probed and had a couple of areas on the next lot over that warranted a test hole inspection, but dark was closing in on us at 6:00 pm. so we fillederin and flipped for first pick. I won 2nd pick. I am consistent anyway.

We paid some dues today. 14 verticle feet for a heapin helpin of Jack Squat Stew. And the whole time, my back muscles were screaming out in protest. I can remember when said back muscles were tuned for digging. I got a little time on my hands with my work season coming to an end so maybe I'll be getting out more. Gotta collect on these dues sometime. Oh Yeah !