What Have you unexpectedly found when Digging?

[BTDT]

Pic 1,2,3,4 are pics of a "sword" we found on the back of our property. It is about 24 inches long, looks like just a sharpened piece of flat iron except for the groove running the length of the blade. Handle is missing.

 

[GaryE]

Several years ago when I first started clearing the back field I came across this hook. Best I can figure there used to be some big trout around here

Since then we are always always finding old dump sites. We have found all sorts of old bottles and strange homemade tools. The second picture is a horse shoe that was cut or broken then was hand welded back together to make what looks like some sort of digging tool.

I am now clearing a new area near the barn, behind what I am told was an old chicken coop for at least 75 years. I have found a new dump site. Finding lots of rusted metal pieces, here are a couple of barrel stays and what I think is the wheel of an old horse drawn bottom plow.

 

[stayalert]

dining room ceiling

 

[irwin]

dining room ceiling

Information vacuum. Care to elaborate?

 

[irwin]

Finally got around to taking pics of the things from a dig at a stone wall the wife and I opened for a horse lane. notice the scissors?


found this radiator cap/hood ornament and an old license plate. Someday i'll try and find out what it came off of.

.......

The house was built in 1850 so I'm sure there are a more dump sites.

 

[6sunset6]

When I was about 8 years old my dad used to bury cans and bottles in a fill area off the driveway. He would dig a hole and when it was full he would dig another one next to it and use the spoil to cover the old hole. About 20 years later I was living in the house , need to build a garage. Remembered the cans and bottles when they came out of the trench. What I did not remember, and I was digging the trench with a shovel was the washing machine. The trench got a little wider. It was 8 years more before I got my hands on a backhoe.

 

[irwin]

When I was about 8 years old my dad used to bury cans and bottles in a fill area off the driveway. He would dig a hole and when it was full he would dig another one next to it and use the spoil to cover the old hole. About 20 years later I was living in the house , need to build a garage. Remembered the cans and bottles when they came out of the trench. What I did not remember, and I was digging the trench with a shovel was the washing machine. The trench got a little wider. It was 8 years more before I got my hands on a backhoe.

South East N.Y. ! I wouldn't want to dig around all those glacier rocks with a shovel, musta been in good shape.

 

[6sunset6]

We did not have rocks. It was topsoil and then some clay and then bankrun.

 

[BTDT]

found this radiator cap/hood ornament and an old license plate. Someday i'll try and find out what it came off of.


Keep digging, the rest of it may turn up.

 

[irwin]

found this radiator cap/hood ornament and an old license plate. Someday i'll try and find out what it came off of.


Keep digging, the rest of it may turn up.

Hi Micheal: I posted those pics on "rural living" forum and asked if anyone knew what it came off of. Wouldn't ya know our Mr Bird posted a perfect match to the hood ornament, see this thread...http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1194991#post1194991

 

[D7E]

Since my last post i have a new find . A pail of nails ?.I just rented a piece of land off of a "drunk"who has lost his farm and while cultivating i discovered all kinds of treasures ,Old vehicles piles of broken glass , even an old basement about 5 inches deep but the best was about 500 nails .You know how many tyres a 50 ft cultivator has ? 7 punctures in tractor and cultivator , 3 tubes needed changing ,"GOOD OLD RENTED LAND" ?

 

[Nasty135]

I was moving around some topsoil at my neighbors house when I flipped this out of the ground, I eventually scrounged around and found the rest of it although the 4" square tin post for supporting the balance and weights is about half gone...But it could be re-made fairly easily...a couple other pieces a little bent but fixable...

Another one of those "One of these days projects"

 

[Tom_Veatch]

...some snuff bottles (from the bottom), don't know the purpose of the dots?

Nor do I know their purpose, but always assumed it had something to do with the tooling used to mold the bottles. However, my mother (an inveterate dipper of Garrett Snuff) was convinced it was some secret code attesting to the quality/taste of the contents. That was a common belief in the back woods of rural Louisiana in the '40s and '50s. Some swore by the 2 dot bottles, others by the 3 dot bottles, but Mother would buy none but the 4 dot bottles.

One day, circa 55 years ago, I overheard her say she wanted to quit dipping and I, in the naivety of my youth, took her at her word. After dumping a goodly portion out of a nearly full bottle, I mixed in an equal amount of red pepper; cayenne, I think.

She made it abundantly clear to me that wasn't what she had in mind. I never tried to help her quit dipping snuff again.

 

[irwin]

Since my last post i have a new find . A pail of nails ?.I just rented a piece of land off of a "drunk"who has lost his farm and while cultivating i discovered all kinds of treasures ,Old vehicles piles of broken glass , even an old basement about 5 inches deep but the best was about 500 nails .You know how many tyres a 50 ft cultivator has ? 7 punctures in tractor and cultivator , 3 tubes needed changing ,"GOOD OLD RENTED LAND" ?

ouch!! Now that can be costly, time and money. What ya gonna do about it? got a big magnet?

 

[Grrrr]

Nor do I know their purpose, but always assumed it had something to do with the tooling used to mold the bottles. However, my mother (an inveterate dipper of Garrett Snuff) was convinced it was some secret code attesting to the quality/taste of the contents. That was a common belief in the back woods of rural Louisiana in the '40s and '50s. Some swore by the 2 dot bottles, others by the 3 dot bottles, but Mother would buy none but the 4 dot bottles.

One day, circa 55 years ago, I overheard her say she wanted to quit dipping and I, in the naivety of my youth, took her at her word. After dumping a goodly portion out of a nearly full bottle, I mixed in an equal amount of red pepper; cayenne, I think.

She made it abundantly clear to me that wasn't what she had in mind. I never tried to help her quit dipping snuff again.

I think that some bottles had markings on them to tell people who were unable to read what the botle conatined. I think poison bottles often had horizontal and vertical ribs embossed on them.

 

[D7E]

ouch!! Now that can be costly, time and money. What ya gonna do about it? got a big magnet?

I found the guy in a bar and told him that i'm willing to pay my rent but he's gonna have to change my tyres "whaddya-know" his words were "f@#k that "and dropped my rent "obvious"

 

[ponytug]

First, these look like old button cores to me. Often covered in leather or fabric.

My favorite was the time one of our guys came up yelling "!Granade Vivo!, Granade!" It's one of those words that kinda gets your attention. We called 911. They sent out
The sherrifs
The fire department
The hazardous materials team
The SWAT team
The bomb squad, with sniffer dog.

The bomb squad was amongst the last to arrive, and we had organized chaos until that point. They confirmed that it was a grenade, and the dog indicated it had explosives in it, so they were thrilled that they would get to blow it up.

We asked for a short delay of game, while we moved the horses far enough away not to be hit by shrapenel, nor to be spooked.

It emerged later that the cops knew a former renter on the place was currently doing federal time for bomb offences. The local sheriffs were thrilled when we moved on to the place, as it had been sufficiently wild that it had always been a two car response location...

Let's just say that after that, nobody was all that keen to do any digging around the cabin.

The coffin sized sinkholes are another story.

All the best,

Peter

Hi All,
All of us who own tractors naturally love to dig, turn up ground and make holes (sometimes for no good reason). I proudly admit when my tractor was new i love to make holes with my backhoe out of boredom and for practice.
I have dug up some weird looking stuff here on the old farm and no clue what it may be. I will post pic here and I think it would be fun to hear other folks digging stories of unexpected finds, hopefully not in the 220 volt range. So lets hear them guys. These seem to me made of hard clay with somthing brittle in the middle

Chris

 

[mahlers]

I've found some interesting old things around my place - I live on a very old (by California standards) property that's been inhabited forever. The indians were here before the settlers started building things in the 1800's. Since a creek runs through the middle of the property, and every time the creek floods it adds a few inches of sediment, there are all kinds of old buried artifacts that I keep finding. Mostly old bottles, plates, pottery, tools, etc. I did find an old brick foundation to a very old building while digging a trench for electrical service. Also found a big 'cache' of really nice red and green Jasper boulders - someone had apparently collected it from a deposit and was storing it for future use.

Oh yeah, I found a 100+ year old hand-dug well (6' x 6' x 50' deep) by accident one day. I was tractoring around, and the tractor just dropped when it went throught the old rotten wood lid to the well. Aside from the scary factor, that was a really cool find. The well is still in perfect shape, and I can't imagine what it would cost to build something like that today. I reinforced the top of it, poured a slab with an access door, and then built a shed on top of it. That well produces huge amounts of water even in drought years.

 

[Grrrr]

I've found some interesting old things around my place - I live on a very old (by California standards) property that's been inhabited forever. The indians were here before the settlers started building things in the 1800's. Since a creek runs through the middle of the property, and every time the creek floods it adds a few inches of sediment, there are all kinds of old buried artifacts that I keep finding. Mostly old bottles, plates, pottery, tools, etc. I did find an old brick foundation to a very old building while digging a trench for electrical service. Also found a big 'cache' of really nice red and green Jasper boulders - someone had apparently collected it from a deposit and was storing it for future use.

Oh yeah, I found a 100+ year old hand-dug well (6' x 6' x 50' deep) by accident one day. I was tractoring around, and the tractor just dropped when it went throught the old rotten wood lid to the well. Aside from the scary factor, that was a really cool find. The well is still in perfect shape, and I can't imagine what it would cost to build something like that today. I reinforced the top of it, poured a slab with an access door, and then built a shed on top of it. That well produces huge amounts of water even in drought years.

Yikes

Lucky the tractor didn't end up 50' down the well...

I can just imagine the thread...

'Help, my tractors stuck. It's down the well!'

Nice useful find though