Treasure Hunting with Rodney In Central New York (Story 7)
I started metal detecting right next to foundation's slabs. I scanned the spot where the step-stone used to be - right in front of the entrance to the former house - a great spot for finding one or two coins overlooked by everybody, especially if the stone would have been broken in two or three pieces, coins might be in crevices!
The step-stone is usually taken away by a farmer because it is a great piece for the walkways around the house or the backyard of the modern homestead. Of course, the step-stone was already gone, but I started getting lots of large iron signals. Among them there was a key chain with three modern keys buried.
"I Got the Keys to the House!" - "Which House?"
For next a long while, I did not dig up anything nonferrous. First Chad and then Rodney were experiencing the same: digging up only iron. The ground contained a huge amount of iron junk that produced fairly good signals: pieces of tools, axe heads, horse shoes, machinery parts, farm gear, large nails and "God only knew" what else. I did not even bother to take pictures, especially knowing that we had no much daylight left for metal detecting.
A Horse Bit Was the Only Acceptable Piece Found So Far
For Chad it was the first time metal detecting and he was doing great in understanding the basics of the process. And even such a "difficult" site like this one did not discourage him.
Chad Was Getting Into Treasure Hunting
When Rodney took a detector from Chad, he discovered that the batteries were about to die. He ran to the SUV to grab another set but discovered that he left it on the table in his house. Not wasting a second, he jumped in his vehicle and rushed to the nearest store. Chad and I continued searching, now Chad was watching my technique of metal detecting. But it was already getting dark, and the iron signals were coming in numbers, or at least it felt that way.
I could not figure out why we were not receiving many signals of usual nonferrous junk such as pieces of horse harness, fragments of oil or kerosene lamp, suspender clasps, fragments of copper tableware, boot tacks, bottle stoppers, etc.? We still had not found a single plain coat button! It seemed a mystery to me.
Only the Sunset Was As Clear As Day
