Coin shooting and canslaw

I had mentioned to Fiver that I knew of an old house--maybe over 100 years old--that might be good for some MDing. Saturday would have been a good day, but I had Sunday open--so we bundled up and made a trip to Pumpkin Holler.

This is a route I have ran, and unless I was totally enamored with swinging the tector, I planned to tack on a few miles on here, and maybe do a little exploring.

Fiver brought Gavin, his son with a sharp pair of eyes, and a rationed amount of enthusiasm. We parked and walked about a mile mostly down a steep hill to a hidden gem of a house.

Fiver brought a spare machine for me to use, and I scanned the south side (the side that sheltered me from the cccold north wind.) My hopes were high when the beeps and buzzes lit up the air, telling me that a great treasure was merely a few inches below the surface, and a couple of shovel scoops away. I was a treasure hunter--a dirt fisher, a coin shooter in the making. A quick scoop into what turned out to be more rocks than dirt, revealed the inevitable--tin that once was the roof of the house. My detector was doing what it does best--signaling that there was buried metal--but not quite what I had dreamed of.

Meanwhile, Fiver and Gavin found a penny, a couple of pieces of a pistol (toy ones I think), a gate hinge, a gate latch, a few nails (he was well on the way to building a fence), and the face of a pocket watch. Hearing of his success gave me renewed interest, and I decided to go into the depths of this multi-level-by-decay house. Carefully I high-stepped my way around what was the crawl space, watching carefully for overly rotted rafters and pointy-side-up rusty nails. Near what was the clean-out for the fireplace, I hit the mother lode--I thought. Turns out, it was massive chunks of iron, but still, I dug around a little. Then, I SAW IT!! A round shiny silver disk--could it be an old quarter??? No.  It turned out to be a foil seal to some kind of bottle, and it chipped-tore as I picked it up. Damn!

Fiver pondered where a hundred year old house would have an outhouse, and we were looking around when he spotted moving objects  deeper in the woods. He said it was pigs. I thought bears. But since bears normally travel in packs of 15 or so, I agreed they were pigs.

SO, I put the metal detector and my digging tool down, and turned on my camera app. I didn't want to get to close, but still wanted a good pic. I took several, and most were too blurry. I was quiet, but when they noticed me, they ambled quickly away. There were 5-6 piglets, and momma pig(s) might have been protective, so I let them go. (I remember the Hannibal movie!)

Walking back, I noticed a road heading east behind the old house into the deep woods. BONUS!!

My Garmin was running on fumes, and I took off at a jog. Garmin died at .8 miles, and I continued on for about 4-5 more minutes. It seemed like each turn in the road invited me to see what was around the next bend. If this goes where I think it does, it'll hook into the road that goes north from the nature center and make a 6-7 mile loop. WINNING!!

Gavin was ready to go, and the three of us headed back up the hill to the truck. We did make a stop at an old abandoned campsite, and swung the tector for a few mins here. Dug two holes, found a piece of tin foil. Covered the holes back up and spread pie needles over the dirt. Leave no trace.


I decided to take the Pumpkin Holler loop via the NE side back to Eagle Bluff to show off our beautiful race course. Fiver--eagle eye that he is--spotted this natural bridge. I was astounded as I have drove by it maybe 100 times and not noticed it. Could be that there was not water in the stream before.

Cross with dry feet. Neato.

But the journey home was not yet underway. These structures (I thought the big one was a barn--and it probably is now) could have once been used by farmers with holes in their overalls pockets. Since I had found mostly canslaw for the day, I let the master do the detecting, and I stuck to taking pictures.

Would a barn have a level rock foundation and a raised wood floor? It might.

These boards wold not hold up a horse or cow. Yep--there's hay, but not a big door to load stacks of hay through.

And would a barn have a storm cellar nearby?

Just outside the cellar, Fiver was digging away. He had got a solid consist ant hit, and just knew there was something good just 8 inches down. He dug, scanned, dug, scanned. Fin bally, when it seemed he was about to dig another cellar, he struck what was a large metal object. A dig, a tug--and he unearthed an old rusty propane bottle. Not the treasure he was wanting, but he did take a nice haul home.

A few coins, a belt buckle, some unknown thingies, a face to a pocket watch, a key and a ring. He's good.

So, I thought I'd show pictures of my treasures as well.

It was still fun.