October 30th 2005

Howdy folks !!!

Bet you all thought I had taken a slow boat ta Chiner. I wont bore you with the details of my hiatus, suffice it to say, I been kinda busy. My probe and shovel were embarrassingly rusty.

On the weekend of October 22nd I walked across the street to the 1830's place I had dug back when I first got started. Me, Rod, and my Brother Mike dug a shallow stony and retrieved a cobalt B. Bick soda, and an acorn cathedral peppersauce (that I called a fancy ketchup, What a rookie.) Anyways, I probed up another pit in the corner and started flinging dirt. I weaseled down one corner of the pit, finding open pontil base shards and pieces of scroll flasks and peppersauces. There were seeds thinly distributed throughout the fill. There was also pieces of plastic bag. The final clue was a half gallon Gatorade bottle near the bottom at 4 feet. The Gatorade was dated 1998, two years before I had dug here the first time. I'm betting them Hamiltucky boys got this one when they passed through about then. I fillederin and detected some and found a brass padlock and an Indian head cent / 1865.

This last Sunday, who should come-a knocking but Mike the Outhouse Pirate and Steve Green from Dayton. I told them about my attempt on the pre-dug pit, and we decided to walk back over and do some more probing. All of the pits seemed to be in one corner of the yard. I walked over to the other back corner and jabbed up a pit. We spread out tarps and started flinging.

This pit was also a stone liner and was only 2 feet wide and about 5 feet long. It was also shallow, with the bottom showing on the long probe at about 4 and a half feet. At 3 feet we hit seeds and the side of a corset waisted scroll flask appeared. Upon extraction it fell to pieces, and we found that some of the pieces were not there. About 6 inches under it, another regular aqua scroll flask appeared. This one was intact, but with a tiny pinhole in  it.

Almost everything else in this pit was broken, including a union clasped hands / eagle flask, and some embossed op meds. I handed up a corroded disk, and Steve got it clean enough to notice a heraldic eagle on one side, above which was E. Pluribus Unum, meaning it was pretty early. This is one for the powerbath. Cant wait to see the date. It must be a tarnished silver half dollar.

My wife Lisa kept us supported very well with a big thermos of hot coffee, drinks, smokes, etc. There are benefits of digging right across the street ! Thanks Honey bunny !!!

We finished up and fillderin around 2 pm, and more probing became the order once again. We stabbed and we jabbed till our arms were like noodles. Steve said, "hey what about over there between those two pits". There was only a few feet between them, so while I was blowing off the possibility, Mike went over and stuck in his long probe and snap, crackle, pop !!! Way to go Steve !

We opened it up, half expecting it to be dug. The layers seemed intact, and at 4 feet we were into an undisturbed seed layer. Again, more broken flasks came to light. Two shields, an old rye, and a hunter/hound came out in pieces. We opened it up to the four walls and started down through the seed layer. Mike handed up an intact Wards liniment, then an iron pontiled extract of hops and boneset. Tons of feather edge and spatter ware was coming out. I think we got enough of a few items to warrant some gluing. Mike then handed up a J. Cristadoro hair dye number 1. A few minutes later, a smaller J Cristadoro hair dye number 2. Cool. Collect the whole set ! Last intact bottle up was an op rrr radways. Last thing up was a broken ten sided cobalt iron pontil soda. It was another Rutherford's premium mineral water. This makes the 3rd one of these I have found in the pits of my small town. Why did everyone want to break them ??? We filled in the pit as the cool October dark set in.

MAN that felt good !!! Lots of criers but we put a few good ones in the bucket too, and just to be back at it was awesome. Thanks to all who enjoy reading this stuff and for hanging with me while I was preoccupied these last few months. Now that work is slowing down, I plan on getting out more.

Thats all folks. Seeya next time !!!