A Scary Detour, Followed by Frenzied Excavations

Back in January, a few days after I published the last post, my daughter, Maya, called me up from Ann Arbor. She thought she had a stomach virus plus a fever, on and off. She felt bad but not dreadful. I asked her if she had pain in her lower right side, but she said it was more all over pain – the way you feel after a day of throwing up. She didn’t seem too concerned.

After a couple of days with no real improvement and baffling on-and-off symptoms, she went to our longtime family doctor who sent her immediately to the ER where she was admitted to the hospital with a perforated appendix.

I flew up the next day.

Insert frightening, exhausting, all-consuming, TWO-MONTH-LONG (so far) medical adventure here.

Here's Maya stretching and breathing on one
of many "loops" around the 8th floor. Walking
and breathing were critical due to fluid in the lungs.

I started to write up a more detailed description of Maya’s ordeal (and my perspective) thus far but I find I need to get a little more distance. (Also, Dirt Girl Unleashed is my safe place and I need to feel only happy here, not remember my little girl being stuck with many needles and other, more graphic horrors.)

So, the short version: my firstborn, my sweet, smart, beautiful and kind daughter, was in the hospital for a total of 17 days, over one month, then home on IV antibiotics and home nursing care for two weeks. She was a real trooper.  Her boyfriend, Michael, was amazing throughout: upbeat, calm, loving. The support of friends and family was humbling. St. Joe’s was terrific. She is weak, but much better and working part time. She’ll have her appendix out sometime in the next month or two, now that the infection is under control.

Needless to say, it all put a serious dent in my metal detecting and since returning from my THIRD trip to Michigan in two months, I have been MDing like a crazed weasel every weekend and I have the vintage pull tabs and can slaw to prove it.

I do have a few choice morsels to show you.

First: marbles.

At the February MTMDC meeting, Bill Siesser gave an impressive talk on marbles. Here are some pics of his collection. 

These are made of clay.

In the next few days, I found two of my own, just sitting there on the top of the ground. You just have to keep your eyes open. Thanks, Bill!

Cheryl and I have a new digging buddy we’ll call Dr. Karen. We met her at the Club meeting and have been planning an all-girl hunt. A few weekends ago, she invited us over to her side of town to (plunder) her very historic home. We didn’t find much but had a great time. Then we went over to a construction site and chatted up a worker who said we could poke around, so we did.  I found a couple of bullets and the usual junk. Went down into an old stream bed. It was really pretty in there, but Oh, Lord the trash.

Cans, bottles, plastic bags... and crayons.

Then Karen took us to a friend’s huge yard for a late afternoon dig. By the end of the day, I was covered in mud. As in, my hair too. I sort of remembered that I was supposed to go to a very fancy gala party that night, but when you are MDing, your concept of time is altered and so by the time I left the last site, it was almost dark and I had about 20 minutes to drive home, remove my mud via shower, dress in appropriately glittery clothing and drive to the fancy gala. I was very late, but no one seemed to mind. As I often do, I brought one of my finds to the party.

69 bullet thinking, "Ah. Wine, music, pretty
girls, local celebrities."

Here’s my take from two weekends’ worth of digging around there. 

From top: two- and three-ringers, latch plate
hood of toy car, hinge, lipstick, thing, handle
oil lamp wick winder, 1913 penny,  marble.

From top: thimble that almost says "Whit"
but really says "White," awesome, very old
mystery brass thing (any ideas?), watch part,
beautifully folded hose end, lens from tele-
scope (?), same hinge from other pic, thing,
item, same oil lamp thing from above (sorry),
small thingie, pennies, part of something.

I particularly love the old pocket watch part. Here it is up close.

Right outta the ground.

After warm bath.

Also: the mystery item. I mean, it looks like something from a Celtic tomb! Or 1960s sculpture...

Seriously... any ideas?

I was positive that Cheryl had found part of a cannonball, but Doug said no. Here is Doug telling us no.

We admire Doug and seek his approval in all things.

 

 Cheryl did find this, tho.

It calls to me with its siren song.

In the midst of all this MD frenzy, I did play the Bluebird Café in early March with my buddies, Kathy Hussey, Dan Schaefer and W.T. Davidson. We call ourselves the Variety Pack. Because of the variety.  Here is visual proof that Dirt Girl does things besides dig in dirt.

We are the days going byyyyy....

OK, enough of that.

Last Sunday, I met a new friend over on the other side of town to check out her lawn. She was immediately hooked and we found this wonderful old dog tag. 

Oh, Skipper. Where are you now?

Here she is, helpless in the thrall of MD.

K.L.! We must do it again soon!

 After a couple of hours there, on the way to meet Cheryl, I drove past a very busy corner (right smack dab in the center of prime Battle of Nashville real estate) where a bulldozer had just torn down an old house. It was a pretty sweet looking lot so I grabbed Cheryl and we headed back there, praying for access.

(Sometimes, I read back over what I’ve just written – like the previous paragraph –  and think, “Hmm. What has happened to me? What has happened to the Whitley I used to be?”)

Dirt Girl, vaguely concerned.

Anyway, we pulled into the driveway. We needed permission. (See Po-Po post from last year).

There was a man with a pickup truck, choosing huge pieces of fieldstone that he was going to make into a wall. Yes, he worked for the builder and it was totally fine for us to look around. SCORE.

We got busy. This was a huge double lot, pretty decimated by the bulldozer that now sat idle near the road. In the middle of the rubble-filled yard, was what was left of the basement: a big, stony hole. The owner of the torn down house had been a woman who died recently, at the age of 102. Two huge houses were going to be built on the site. I need to find out her name.

We dug there all day and it couldn’t have been more fun. 

Here are some high points:

1903 Barber quarter. Signal jumped all over
and I almost gave up on it. 

At left is a regular three-ringer. At right is
a three-ringer someone (bored soldier?) has
hammered flat. There is also some speculation
that soldiers actually chewed the bullets for fun.
Anyway, this is one of my favorite finds of
all time. 

Here’s more of my take. I was very happy about it.

'50s ish kitchen cabinet handles on ends.
Top row: yankee minie balls.
Middle row: musket ball, Enfield (Confederate)
bullet (my first!) and wheat penny. (Smashed
Enfield under penny).
Bottom row: Barber quarter, pistol bullet and
awesome fossil I just happened to find, there to
remind us that life is a huge sea of time we
are all swimming around in.

Taylor Swift with old items.

Which brings us to today, which was beautiful and toasty warm. Cheryl and I met over on the other side of town at a particular middle school, and started driving around looking for a place to go, but struck out. So we went back to last week’s (102-year-old lady) site and were just getting started when a guy pulled into the driveway.

Now, I, personally, never really like it when someone pulls in, even when you sort of have permission, which we sort of did. But this guy was not gesticulating angrily; in fact, he was smiling.

“Do you really… do this?” he asked?

“Metal detecting? Yes!” I said.

We exchanged pleasantries.

His name was Jay. He lived a couple of miles away in a hilly neighborhood that was in the thick of a whole bunch CW action. He’d always wanted to have his yard checked out. Would we like to come by? Why yes. Yes, we would. 

Ten minutes later, we pulled into his property, which was undergoing a huge renovation. Stayed about an hour and covered it pretty well but surprisingly didn’t find anything of interest which was really unexpected. Then, just as we were thinking about packing it in for the day…

In situ...

Leonardo da Vinci

Apparently, this exhibition took place at the
Museum of Science and Industry in NYC's
Rockefeller Center in 1940. My dentist's
office was in Rockefeller Center, as are the
studios of Saturday Night Live today. So:
cool find, on several levels.

I like to bring these posts full circle somehow but I can't figure a way to tie Leonardo da Vinci to my daughter’s illness, (though da Vinci was one of the first to accurately sketch the appendix, and other organs).

Sigh. It doesn't matter.

I’m just so grateful she’s OK. 

Oh... one other thing: when I got home last night, I ran across the street and took a swing on an empty lot I've explored dozens of times. (Some bushes had been removed and I had to see what was under there.)

And there we go: fork you, appendix.

Winter's Bounty

After all the national meanderings of the fall, your Dirt Girl decided to stay put throughout the holiday season and build herself a fluffy, little nest of vintage pull tabs. But in the process, she got lost in the woods, covered with mud, impaled on thorny branches, froze her fingers and toes and found a veritable boatload of interesting items. She did not encounter one mosquito and had a very merry Christmas.

Dirt Girl will now stop referring to herself in the third person.

Winter is prime time for MDers here in middle Tennessee. It’s cold, but the ground rarely freezes. The snakes are snoozing and the bugs are, I don’t know… larval or something. The only downside is the sunlight, which in Nashville gets shut off at about 4:15 p.m. Due to my dayjob-for-which-I-am-thankful, that leaves only weekends for serious digging but I had the entire week between Christmas and New Year’s off and made good use of it. Here are the highlights. I’ll never remember it all.

First, an update: Some time in November, in the back of a house on Fatherland Street, I dug a really old button, but didn’t know what it was. It reads “WG” plus some words on the back that are pretty hard to read.

The vaseline makes it look much prettier than it is.

 Showed it to The Aptly Named Doug, and he got out his button book.

Here he is looking it up in his amazing basement lair of antiquity.

Turns out it’s a Civil War button from a Philadelphia company called the Washington Grays. The script on the back says “Horstmann/Phila & New York”.

Nice.

There’s nothing quite as silent as our house on Christmas morning, now that our kids are all grown to functional, friendly adults with their own lives. It’s sad, a little, but not too bad. Al and I had a lovely gift exchange. I got a GARRETT PINPOINTER!!!

I made a frittata, then got that too-cheery tone to my voice and said I’d be going out for a little bit. Headed over to a friend’s house that backs up to some woods that kind of feed into Shelby Park.

Spent several hours in very thick woods/brush on a steep hill. Some trash, but not too bad and I’m really learning to trust the Fisher F75 and not dig the junky sounds.

Had this little overly dramatic moment.

(See, 'cause maybe it wasn't a soldier. Could have been anyone. But I'm thinking soldier. Playin' a sad song.)

Just a few minutes later, I got a solid signal that read 95 over and over, every time I swung – no trashy sounds, no erratic numbers. Thought for sure I’d hit my first CW-era buckle but dug this instead.

Tick tock? Really?

Doug sez it’s part of a grandfather clock.  I’m not convinced. Whatever it is, I like its grace.

Here’s the day’s take. 

From top left: harmonica reed, some kind of clasp,
a lead sinker, two pennies, round thingie,
other thing (Doug thinks also part of clock
face), part of clock face.

I was surprised to not find any definitive CW stuff. I’m also really glad no one was there to see me get completely immobilized by a large thorn bush. I’m not even sure my feet were on the ground at one point. I had my IPhone, but there’s no app for that. 

By the middle of the holiday break, I’d pretty much exhausted my meager stash of permissions and was grumping around the house on a bright and pretty morning wondering WHERE I was going to dig when I remembered that my friend Woody lives in an old house in Franklin and he’s super nice and ALWAYS on facebook. So, zip-zap… msged him and had permission to dig within minutes. It was Meant To Be!

Oh it was fun. Just … so fun. Woody lives in an adorable 1930s-era bungalow pretty much in the thick of where the Battle of Franklin took place. He showed me around and told me to have at it. I started in the very back of the back yard, up against a fence and immediately dug a pristine, dropped (as opposed to fired) 69 bullet.

Then came the nicest General Service button I’ve ever found. Can’t believe how much gold is left on it.

 

As I moved into the center of the yard, the digging got harder; it was full of bottle caps and what I think were the soft, silvery metal tops of milk bottles. After a while, I got familiar enough with those signals to just stop digging them.

Here’s  what I pulled out over two days (Believe me: I went back the following weekend).

From top left: part of a razor, possible tip of
scabbard cover, tent thing, two fleur-de-lis
mystery items (any ideas?), round piece of rusted
junk that has no business being in this photo,
hinge, uniform button, silver pinkie ring
with green stone, 69 bullet, piece of watch.

Thanks, Woody!

Biggest coup of the winter thus far has been permission to explore a very special yard on Brush Hill Road, near my home. There’s a reason for my excitement: this property is probably very close to the lost town of Haysborough, which was a thriving little village in the late 1700s into the mid-1800s (?). It had a meeting house, a school, a store, etc. and was considered a rival to Nashville (then called Nashboro). But the town died away and – seriously – no one knows exactly where it stood. Doug has been obsessed with it for years – and others too; I’m definitely late to the party. And who am I to poking about in this past, anyway? I’ve only lived here five years, and I’m a Yankee to boot (sort of; this is arguable, at some other time).

But getting permission to hunt this 2.5 acre lot high above the Cumberland was a thrill. I packed my high hopes and set out one weekend afternoon. As I always do, I brought along my extra machines and spades and it was a good thing as there were some adorable, intelligent and very well-mannered children there who wanted to play. I got them started and together we immediately found a musket ball and some old pennies. (What a great way this is to teach history to children.)

Then, off by myself, on a little path that ran along the bluff, I dug something that looked like the shiny, flat part of a pulltab – or maybe a piece of play money. I tucked it in the pouch and didn’t think much of it. Later, in another part of the field, I dug something entirely unexpected. That was pretty much it, except for the usual junk. Here’s the day’s haul:

That's right; a Swiss music box (probably
1950s) and a Spanish real (probably late 1700s!)

 My first Spanish Real!

Reales were a fascinating form of currency that were minted and traded all over the world for many centuries. Here's a good article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_real

Is the coin a sign of Old Haysborough? Who knows. I’ll explore this property again. I suspect it’s been graded with a bulldozer at some point but I’m not giving up yet.

One random find: on a frigid weekday afternoon after a very full day of writing for my job, I HAD to get outside and ambled down the street my neighbor’s house where I dug the dog tag for “Babe” last year. Pulled this out within a few minutes and went home, frozen but happy.

I am a watch fob.

I am the other side of a watch fob, inconveniently oriented.

And then there was the day 18^th-century China, a Civil War soldier and a 1960s cowboy all collided on a gentle, wooded hillside in Nashville. I won’t tell you where. But within 20 feet of each other I found these.

Curious about the coin, I posted on CoinTalk – an excellent resource.

Here’s what I learned.

http://www.cointalk.com/t220160/

I love those guys!

The long thing? I posted it on FB and someone who collects toys recognized it as half of a barrel from a 1964 Hubley cap gun.

The bullet is sliced perfectly in half. Why? I have no idea. Doug says they did that sometimes. Just because they could.

Again, the scrambling of history. I don’t know why it’s so moving to me. They’re things. Things don’t care. (I tell myself this, but I’m not ever totally sure about it. Maybe “care” is the wrong word. I do think that things can hold energy – heck, things ARE energy.) But more than that, I guess, it’s the awareness of the people, and their hands, the hands that held these things, then dropped them. Or buried them. And I love how I can dig them out of the ground with my hands. I love how these sweet items arrive in my life, like random people walking into a café, unaware of how beautiful they are and how one informs the other, just by proximity.

Oceans and Enthusiasm

Metal detectorists, me included, have been taking full advantage of global warming this fall/winter. Late November and early December of 2012 have been glorious and I’m doing my part to remove all metal – Civil War relics, condom containers, dog tags, pull tabs, deadly triangles of aluminum siding (my current most-hated junk find), TUPOM (twisted, unidentifiable, pieces of metal), toy cars and old license plates – from the ground before the seas rush in and cover the landscape and they’re lost for good.

You’re welcome.

Al, Jakson and I headed up to Ann Arbor for Thanksgiving. We weren’t sure how the J-Man would fare on a road trip w/o his sister, but he did fine. He sat up in the back seat of the van all the way there.

Turn left here... no, I mean right.

Here’s Chloe, (left at home with Pru) reveling in the peace and quiet. I always wanted a dog that slept on her back and she delivers.

I know.

 We all settled in at Helen’s house – me, Al and Jak + my dad, Kate (step-peer) and my little bro, Ilya, the insta-teen. The house is big and warm and comfy and many lovely, turkey-scented times were experienced.

Of course, throughout the visit, I found the need to shout, casually, “Um, I’m heading out for a bit!” – a little too cheerfully. They all know what I’m doing.

I’ve dug Helen’s yard clean, so I returned to Burns Park around noon on Thanksgiving morning, after having put the cranberry apple crisp in the oven and having made sure everything else was humming along (read: women in kitchen, men watching football and not helping in kitchen).

I had high hopes for Burns Park, now that I was returning with my new Fisher F75. This wide, verdant and well-tended playground was once the trolley turnaround (think: people dropping change) and also the site of many a town fair (think: people dropping more change, and also valuable jewels). I’d met some other detectorists here back in August and they’d found tons of delicious items. Surely they hadn’t gotten it all. I smiled at the families running around building an appetite and got busy.

Dug a penny or two, then bingo: best find of the day. I swear – it happens like that so often.

Sigh of pleasure goes here.

LOVE this ring! Sadly, it only fits on my pinkie. But I pretty much wear it all the time. Definitely silver, but the center part has a distinct yellow tint that I can’t polish away. Yum. Thanks, Burns Park.

Two hours and 38 pulltabs later, I returned to the bosom of my family and had a wonderful meal. As always, no one was adequately excited about my find. No one is ever as excited as they need to be. Only Cheryl. She understands. But she was home in Tennessee. There was a flurry of furious texting that somewhat satisfied.

Friday, Al and I performed at METAL – an amazing Ann Arbor gallery that features repurposed industrial metal stuff, antiques, etc.  What better venue for me? I’d brought up all my finds and displayed them on a huge table and during intermission people came and investigated. Again, no one was as excited as they should have been about the finds, but they were polite.

We videoed the whole show. Here’s a song for ya.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHd7dONmZl0

Jakson came to the show too and was a very good boy, only barking during our most tender and romantic ballad.

All in all, a great holiday! 

The following Friday, back in Nash, was the monthly meeting of the Middle Tennessee Metal Detecting Club. 

(With Al off touring Europe for three weeks, and our relationship reduced to this...

Honey, you're pixilated again. Honey? Oh crap.

I have to do something fun! Don't judge me.)

Thought I’d include some pics of the nice folks there. Best part of every meeting is looking at everyone’s STUFF. So much fun. Here’s a sampling.

What is it about this lock that I so love?

I entered my Burns Park ring in the Find of the Month contest but, as usual, didn't even place. What's the matter with these people? The evening’s festivities featured a talk by Butch Holcombe, publisher of American Digger Magazine. He’s a good and funny speaker and something of a celebrity. He regaled us with MD stories.

Butch and his lovely wife, Anita!

The next day, Cheryl and I met up at the Civil War Expo in Franklin.  I wrote about this last year – it’s where I got the OHIO authenticated. I was actually there in an official capacity this time, as a buyer for METAL – the Ann Arbor gallery! I had a great time spending someone else’s money, buying up heavy objects that might resell well. Here’s what I found:

These tongs were found on an old farm in S. Carolina.
They were used to pick up Civil War cannonballs.
The man who owned them was named Bubba.
Wouldn't this look amazing in your loft?

Buckles were from a giant Tupperware bin full of Central
American metal stuff from the 1500s to the 1900s. Art
project anyone?  Scissors were too cool to leave behind.
Wouldn't these look fabulous in your loft?

Horse banks. (Necessary for loft?)

Last weekend, I headed over to the home of my good friends Holly and Steve to decimate their back yard. Holly was my assistant and very interested in every aspect of the process. In fact, I will go so far as to say that she is adequately enthusiastic about metal detecting, and adorable too. After an hour or so of pulling out a whole bunch of clad (modern coins), we found this!

Back says "EASTERN DISTR. N.Y."

We immediately hit the puter to try and figure it out. Holly’s house is right in the middle of some serious long-ago CW action, so that was our first thought, but no, turns out it’s a WWII pin. Still very cool! 


The next day, I drove back over there to check out Sevier Park, where they're doing some construction -- big, alluring piles of dark, promising dirt -- but it was all roped off.  WHAT TO DO???

Undeterred, I drove around until I came upon an enticing overgrown lot about a block away and was standing around, wringing my hands, weeping quietly, wondering how to contact the property owner when Holly and Steve walked up with their dogs. Turns out they know the property owner and will contact him for me. Thanks, guys!

Then, the owners of the house NEXT to the enticing, overgrown lot drove up and said SURE!!!!!  WE HAVE A HUGE BACKYARD AND YOU CAN DO WHATEVER YOU WANT TO IT!

Readers: the above text? In all-caps? That part just there? That’s what I want you to say to me. These are the words I live for.

The mom, Irma, and her two adorable boys joined in the fun (I always have an extra machine for just such an eventuality). 

Nice fam with a freshly dug William's Cleaner
bullet.  Couple of new converts, I'd say.

Pretty quick, I dug a Willliam’s Cleaner – a common CW bullet – so it’s definitely a good yard and I have PERMISSION to return whenever I want. That’s better than rice pudding eaten while wearing a vintage dress on a spring day.

Finally, let me say that it has come to my attention that a lot of people are reading Dirt Girl Unleashed in a lurky sort of way.  Lurk not, but render ye thy comments!

OK, Christmas is coming so I’m talking like a carol, but really folks; sign up for the blog and leave a comment or two! Engage in dialogue! Criticize me! I can take it.

Better yet, invite me over. Before the oceans rise.