Spring in November
- Inka
- Nov 6, 2021
- 3 min read
After nearly two weeks with sub zero temperatures, snow and ice, the weather suddenly changed. When I went to bed one evening it was -8 degree Celsius and the next morning a jolly +9 degree.
A few such warm days with loads of rain later had thawed the ground enough for me to spend the daylight hours out in the forest. I had been hoping for this to happen so I hadn`t put away the digging gear yet. As soon as breakfast was done and the Girlfriend had gone to work I went to search more in the last dumping ditch I had found.
It was only patches of snow left in the forest and even if the ground wasn`t completely thawed it was easy enough to dig. Of course it didn`t take long before the fingers were numb from the cold ground.
The ditch I dug up was full of broken glass and thanks to the numbness I didn`t notice before I was back home that I had sliced one of my fingers.
I saved a few items which I liked that had survived time relatively intact. A bakelite drinking cup for the canteen had a small hole in the side but I figured it could still be displayed so I put it in the backpack.
Bottles came to the surface, and even though I am soon drowning in small bottles I couldn`t leave them behind, I piled them all into the backpack too.
A small and thin brass lighter and some bakelite bits were pretty much the rest of the items worth saving from the ditch. My favorite find was a small red bakelite box for some ibuprofen like pills, "Spalt tabletten".
I still had a few hours left before dusk so I began searching the area to one of the sides of the ditch. Here I picked up a few Finnish coins before I dug a signal that proved to be a small dumping pit. I dug out parts of a backpack, a padlock and key, some buttons and small bottles and also another bakelite drinking cup. This one complete with no holes.
But now it began to be difficult to see what I was digging out from the dark soil. The horizon had become pink and purple so I found my way back to the car.
Yesterday I made another trip back there. I started early and went on till dusk again. Except for a few uniform buttons and coins, an ether bottle, a stripper clip and a ammo pouch full of K98 rounds I only dug up rubbish. I had so few finds because I wandered out of the "hot-spot" to see if I could find other such spots of which there almost guaranteed is more of in these woods.
On top of a small hill there were many dug outs that could be dumping pits. I checked, and there were some great signals here and there but they were all junk from modern army excersises.
From the top of the hill I did get a nice overview of parts of the old German camp. Now I could see the outlines of several barracks and some pathways where snow was laying a few centimeters deeper and hadn`t melted away yet. Something for next season.
I found my way back to where I had begun and just as daylight started to wane and like a perfect end to the day the batteries in both the detector and the pinpointer drew their last breaths.
When I was home and cleaned the finds something happened to the damaged bakelite cup. It began twisting and bulging itself like it was alive, although very slowly, but after a few hours it had completely changed shape, I ll leave some pics of it below.
Later in the evening the temps dropped to below zero and now as I am writing this everything outside is again covered with fresh snow, so maybe this is the end of the season, or maybe we ll be so lucky and get an "autumn-december". Anyway it was awesome to get these bonus days of digging, and I hope the winter will be short :)
Have a nice day :)
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