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Why? Because it's FUN

It was January 13th. When I got up at 7:45 the temp was 15 degrees. By the time I got ready, loaded the car and pulled out of the driveway it had warmed up to 18 (burrrr). Since I had never done a pit in January this was my chance to set a new record. The week before it was near 50 so I called Bob and we set up a day to go digging. The first chance that we were both available was the following week on Saturday. All week long the weather was changing. On monday, Saturday was suppose to be in the upper 40s. By Wednesday, Saturdays forecast was changed. Now it was to be in the low 30s. By friday they were saying 30. So it was a bit of a surprise to see low to mid teens!

When I called Bob to confirm that we were still on for the day he didn't seem to have a problem with the temperature. He just said, "Dress warm". So I put on several layers and packed up the car and off I went. After getting to Bobs house we decided to go back to the site of a dig we did back in early November and try to find the other pit. We had already done the 90's pit in that yard and were trying to find the 70-80's pit. After double checking the Sanborn map we found that the reason we couldn't find the pit was because it was under the addition to the house. But the good news was that we did find a shallow trash pit along the back lot line. So, we opened it up.

This is the first time I have ever used an axe to open up the hole! Bob chopped the outline in the grass with the axe and I used the shovel to pry up the frozen blocks of sod.

The pit was only about 2 feet deep but it did have some handmade bottles in it.

In a very short time this pit was done and we filled it in. It was a balmy 23 degrees by this time and we still weren't ready to call it a day.

We wanted to do another pit but we knew that the grass in most yards wouldn't be as easy to put back as the grass was in the yard we just did. So, we went back to another yard we had done late last year. This yard had produced 3 very rare cobalt pharmacies in the past and we knew the house should have at least one more "older" pit. Shortly after we got there I found the other pit. It was in the opposite corner from were we dug last time. This time we needed to use a pick axe to break the ground. Fortunately there was no grass in that spot and the owner had no problem with our methods.

This pit turned out to be late 70's to early 80's. We found a nice Kidney and Liver cure and a few other items relatively quickly.

But shortly after that we hit a snag.
The pit turned out to be very WET. We bailed water and shoveled slop. Yuck! Neither of us was prepared to deal with water at this time of year but with a little help from the owner (she supplied a bailing bucket) we continue on.

It turned out to be worth it! At the bottom of the pit Bob pulled up a Arnold Bros pre hutch and a nearly mint early 80's Arnold hutchinson

There were about a dozen other nice finds but none as nice as the the Arnolds. We finally finished the pit and closed it up. By this time the cold was starting to be a bother. The batteries in my camera ran out of energy due to the cold and Bobs traditional camera even froze and had a piece brake off. Also, my toes were just starting to get a bit cold. Well, we packed up and went to a local KFC while we warmed up and talked about, what else, treasure and digging. Then, all to soon it was time to head on home. While on the way home it began to snow.

Yes it was a bit cool but it was a very fun day! The company was good, we got a few treasures, we made plans for the future as we looked forward to spring and, I finally dug a pit in January! Yea! By the time I started to drive home the temp was a very warm 24. What a day!
Why did we do it?.
Because its fun!

Here is my prize for the day