Around 11 yesterday morning I left home to go see if Jimmy was ready for some rust hunting. Surprisingly he was already on his legs, but we had to drink some coffee before heading out to the woods so that "he could drive legally". Half hour later we turned on the metal detectors and strolled into the Gebirgsjäger forest. We walked straight into a patch that had signals all over, and dug there for a while. Nothing good was found. We had only dug up bits from ovens, food tins, bunker candles and a little cloth from a tunic which still had a few of the buttons present. Jimmy had located two ditches that needed to be checked, so we took directions to the first one and searched our way towards it.
 The ditch was a few meters long and full of metal so we just began in one of the ends. The top of it was full of rocks of course but soon we were pulling metal and glass out of the ground. After an hours work we had a few finds. Some rifle ammo, food tins, a harmonica, an empty M24 head, a porcelain coffee mug, bottles, Esbit burners and some tools, and a "Wifo" fuel barrell top. But also an unusual and surprising find. An intact ping pong ball! A few trees were growing next to the ditch and the thick roots made it difficult to dig. Since the daylight hours are very short now here north we decided to save the rest of the ditch till next season and rather try our luck on another ditch. According to Jimmy it was 70 meter long and overflowing with signals probably from helmets. I didn`t comment on the 70 meter part of his tale, but am always keen on digging lids so I followed along. Once more we stepped right into a patch full of signals and spent a little time cutting through the moss again. First I found a Esbit burner, but then the luck changed and I had to call Jimothy over to share the joy over the best find of the day so far. I had picked up half a German Erkennungsmarke, From a Gebirgsjäger unit. I saw that he was about to knock me out so I hurried back on my feet, pointed to some trees and said "Look there! Rust!", to direct his attention on to something else. He is much like a labrador that way luckily.
 We found the other ditch and although it was far from 70 meters, it was by far the longest ditch full of signals I have ever seen. Very exciting! 

Jimmy started digging in the end of the ditch and I a couple of meters down it. While he began pulling out finds I was still removing the layer of rocks but not long after I also reached the relics. He dug up bakelite light switches, sockets and connectors while I found a rusted MG ammo box. I was fighting with parts of a big coil of copper wire when I suddenly heard a womanly shriek from the other end of the ditch. Jimmy had found a helmet! And it was an unusual helmet. A WW1 variant. The liner was intact and both color and winter camo were visible! What an amazing find!! And while I dug up three gasmask canisters, Jimmy found two belt buckles! Steel Heer buckles. 
Now I had the rim of a motorcycle tyre in the ditch ahead, but the copper wire had to go first. The wire cutter came out of the backpack and I began cutting my way through it. The wire was well over into Jimmys side as well and when the bugger pulled the wire out, two helmets followed!! Now what the heck was going on? What a treasure chest!
We got the coil out of the ditch and could continue digging. Now I had a little luck and pulled out a pipe which I saw was a Panzerfaust 30 Klein, with lots of color intact! Awesome! But the joy soon turned when I noticed that the tail was still stuck inside it, and knew it had to be left behind. While Jimmy finished up his end of the ditch by finding a beautiful k98 bayonet in its scabbard I finally managed to get the motorcycle wheel loose and to the surface, and then another one was behind it, but it was much easier to get out. 
 On the bottom of the ditch we picked up more gasmask canisters, two Tetra fire extinguishers, some tent pegs and a rifle grenade launcher, plus a bucket full of rifle ammo! We still had some time before darkness so Jimmy went a couple of meters ahead and dug towards me. I had a large steering wheel in front of me. I wondered what it could be, from a vehicle, cannon or some tool maybe. A few drops of sweat later the heavy piece of metal was on the side of the ditch. It was a large drill. And not many minutes later we had found two more parts for it, making it into a pillar drilling machine. During this process Jimmy dug out yet another belt buckle! 
 We removed a large tool box and I was trying to find the bottom of the ditch when Jimmy began talking about calling it quits. The same moment he said it I felt the shape of a helmet 20 cm below surface. Rocks and soil got scooped away and pryed loose with the bayonet, uncovering the rims of two helmets! We got one of them up and it looked good. Some color and camo showing. Then the next one, also in good condition. The daylight kept fading but we had still not reached the bottom, and helmets kept coming. When we finally had the bottom of the ditch, we had pulled out five helmets. One of them almost completely without rust, green and white. Also on the bottom was another Heer belt buckle and a PPSh magazine. What a crazy end of the day! And what lay waiting in the ditch ahead? In total we got 8 lids and 4 buckles. :D
 As we were filling back the ditch I heard a sound behind me. I turned my head, screamed and fell over into the ditch as a wolf came running at me. In the same moment I of course realized it was not a wolf but the dog from a team of moose hunters :D 
I was soaked, cold and hungry when I came home, and my car more muddy inside than outside, but what a small cost for such an amazing day. It could easily have been the last Adventure Afteroon this season as the first snow will probably fall this evening according to the weather folks. But lets hope we`ll get one or two more trips there before it is the end.

Late last evening Jimmy called me to hear if I maybe had brought two of his belt buckles, coz he suspected he had left them by a tree near the ditch. I had to look through my backpack and finds, but no luck. I couldn`t stand the thought of the buckles being alone out there in the big forest, cold and covered in rust, so I drove back this morning to fetch them. 
They were by the tree and I could finally relax when I had stuck them into my pocket. I turned on the detector and walked back to the car. I checked a good signal and it was an interesting find. A flag pole that probably stood on top of a building as it is just a little longer than a meter. The next one I dug was a real nice surprise.A medal! An Allgemeine Sturmabzeichen (General Assault Badge). The needle was missing, and it need some carefull cleaning but I think it will look good. Before I reached the car I dug up a food tin and a nice Tetra Fire extinguisher. I would have loved to spend the day there digging , but I had to put on the cars winter tyres and make this write-up, so no time for more fun and games today :D

​Thanks for reading, and have a great day :)

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With King Winter on the doorstep it has been less tempting with any outdoor activities. Since my last write-up it rained like crazy, and if it didn`t rain it was frosty and way to cold to play around in the dirt with nitril- and rubber clad fingers. Just when I began to think the season had ended, Monday arrived with exellent weather. The Girlfriend and I decided it was time for another roadtrip to get some nice views and to do a little recce for next season to a site where it supposedly had been a POW camp and a nearby soldier camp.
It was a beautiful drive in the morning. It was only +5 Celsius, but the sun would warm things up a little as the day progressed. We found the place easily and after a short walk into a wonderfull forest we saw earthen walls from several buildings, stoves made from fuel barrells and other metal sticking out from the ground. The metal detector gave off signals all over the place, but a lot were poor signals like from rusted food tins, nails and wires etc. I opened a few better signals and found several bits of scraps from trench-art production. I dug up a rifle cleaning kit, and in what seemed to be a long dumping ditch I picked up "Forest Lego" as Girlfriend called it, a broken coffee cup with Heer eagle. I tried to find all the pieces so that I could glue it back together later.
 Then we moved a kilometer or so to see if we could find the soldier camp, but after some searching and berry picking we came up short on both. The winter usually linger longer in this area but late June next season I hope to be back and see what this place hides.
The next few rainy days I glued together the coffee mug, and a Luftwaffe plate I had found somewhere earlier, and they both looks presentable enough to be put into the collection.

Yesterday also had nice and relatively soft weather, and before nine I was ready in the forest on my latest permission to do some strolling around. I found a small dumping pit right away and soon my fingers were in pain from the cold soil. For a change this pit didn`t have any rocks filled on top so I saved my fingers a bit by just scooping fine sand and rust out with the shovel. As often it was mostly trash in it but a very few items made it into my backpack: A simple multi-tool, a civillian porcelain cup, a enamelled fieldkitchen plate, a few buttons, toothcream and a small hammer. Several pairs of rotted combat boots and a handfull of bottles went back into the pit. 
A few hours later all I had grabbed with me was a small 200 gram weight, and a piece of metal from an Esbit stove. The temperature was much better as the sun had worked for some hours but the ground maintained its coldness. After eating and searching some more I was on my way back to the car when I pushed through a shrubbery and in the midst of it was the remains of a building. It was large and full of signals. I opened up a few of them across the building and it made me believe the entire thing might be like a big burn pit, or more likely the building was full of stuff and then burnt down. In one end of it I dug till I found the top of what I think is a large steel stove. The metal looks perfectly preserved and it is standing upright, so it will be a big job getting it to the surface. I found a German Reichspfennig coin from 1926, a soup container which I hope have the inner kettle and ladle present, a soup bowl and some bottles, a rifle cleaning kit and several bits of broken porcelain. The last signal I checked was a Kraftstoff barrell top. The second one this season. 
After ca 6 hours I was tired, all wet and my fingers had fell off so I retreated back home and got the oven going, before making dinner.
This morning it was wintery again with -4 Celsius, and worse weather is coming.. 
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During the last week I have been checking up on some leads, legends and rumours about Wehrmacht camps and installations in the region. Before the weekend I walked several kilometers over two days on sites where it supposedly should have been a Heer camp and a kitchen. All I found were a few Norwegian 6.5 mm rifle casings and a few bits of shrapnel that probably had been thrown out from a nearby ammo storage where things had become a little bit "explody" shortly after the liberation in 1945. So that was two days gone with no finds, but at least the places can be crossed off my list. 
Weekend came with frost and temps down to -5 Celsius, so the Girlfriend and I set up the tent, made a fire and enjoyed the evening grilling some food on the flames and watching the northern lights before we spent the night in the tent. Very cozy.

 Around lunchtime on Sunday I had a call from Jimmy. Our weekly Adventure Afternoon was on, and another digger was joining in as well. I drove to the Gebirgsjäger forest, parked my car and strolled along the tractor road until I heard a shovel blade hit rocks. I found Jimmy digging while laying in the recovery position. Apparently he had been at a concert the night before and he claimed that unbeknownst to him someone must have poured alcohol in his glass. None the less, Im impressed. I mean the guy is pushing fifty and is out digging a dumping ditch a few hours after a party and with a hangover that could down a gorilla. And as if that wasn`t enough, five minutes after I begin digging up food tins he called me over. He had removed some trash and rocks and could feel the shape of a German helmet ca 40 cm under the surface. A moment later the helmet surfaced and it was awesome! Really nice condition. Green with wither camo still showing, and very little rust! All Hail Jimothy!
 I continued digging my signal and piled up food tin after food tin. A broken winker from a car was in the hole and also a dust pan. I had soon depleted the small trash pit and the next signal I got gave a bit better result. It was a small silver ring. Probably from a necklace or maybe an earring. Then I found another ditch that had some good strong signals and spent the next hours digging that. The result was sad though. Two large corrugated plates, a few bottles, a pickaxe and a few creamtubes. As I closed up the ditch Jimmy returned from a wandering-around and he brought me a nice rear Notek light. Highly appreciated. Then the other digger, Tom, returned from his walkabout. He had pockets full of freshly dug coins, a compass and a small piece of metal that was the "Gott mit uns" part from a German beltbuckle that had been denazified. 

Yesterday me and the Girlfriend went to check out another site where it had been a German camp or storage. We found the place easily, and could see remains of earthen cellars spread out in the woods. A round with the detector showed that it was very little metal in the ground. The few signals I had, and dug, was bits from an iron cast oven and a few food tins, but nothing interesting and the place felt kind of empty, but come spring and we`ll do some better checking.

This morning I was on my legs early, pouring coffee into my head and preparing for a cold day in the woods. The weather guys had promised us plus degrees but everything outside had a white frosting, and the car windows had to be scraped. I drove to the Luftwaffe camp to do another attempt on locating the area where the living quarters had been. Here it was even colder than at home, and the sound of frozen vegatation getting crushed under my shoes felt deafening. Soon the detector picked up something. Lots of signals were spread out in front of me. I opened up a square of the frozen ground and cut away the network of roots protecting the relics. Food tins and some bottles. Proof of Germaqn activity. I scraped soil away with the bayonet and spotted a shotglass made from a 2 cm flak casing! That was the find I wanted! What a great surprise! I found several buttons from civillian clothes. All made of glass and with flowers as decorations. Some rusted cutlery and bottles was next to be dug up, and then I found another shotglass! Also from a 2 cm casing. I spent two-three hours sifting through the 80 year old fireplace and got another little handfull of finds out of it. In the end I stuck into the backpack a Luftwaffe porcelain plate, a bit broken but I grabbed all the litte bits from it I could find, a small ashtray, a toothbrush and a few cream tubes.
My toes and knees were cold by now so I needed to get up and move around. And I had a lot more area to check. Only a few steps away and the Fisher gave off a strong clear signal. Just below a thick layer of moss was a compass. In amazing condition. The first really well preserved compass I have dug up so I was all smiles. I made a big loop through the forest. I found a slope with a lot of signals, where barrells and other bits of metals were poking out of the ground. One of the signals I dug was yet another food tin, but next to it was a small red plastic thing, with a cat on it. Almost like the end of a childs toothbrush maybe. A strange but fun find.
Another place was the foundation of a building. I checked signals now and again and it was a mix of things that could be from the war and some more modern garbage. 
I was almost back to the car when a good signal made me stop. The signal was quite long,, ca 1 meter or more, and narrow. Could it be a weapon? An MG prehaps. Oh how I wished as I removed vegetation and soil. I didn`t pull up a weapon from the ground this time either. But it was still a good find. A  vehicle license plate attached to some kind of rod. The plate is not nearly as good as the one I found last time, but it will be fun cleaning it up trying to figure out what branch it might have belonged to.

It looks like the next few days might become a bit wet and stormy, so I might finally get some housework done, but very soon we`ll head out for some more rust hunting :D

​Thanks for reading. Stay happy and live life the best way you can :)

Here in Northern Norway the moose hunting season started on Sunday, so my chimera camo smock has been swapped out for a bright red hoodie to prevent any mis-shootings from happening. Some of the areas I am usually searching are now full of hunters so I found it wiser to check out a few other places, and yesterday morning me and the Girlfriend made a quick recce trip to a Luftwaffe camp and vehicle workshop. 
The camp had housed around hundred soldiers, and probably far more by the end of 1944 when masses of German troops were evacuating the northern front. We had a map showing where some of the barracks had been and we began by trying to locate one of them. After some wandering around we realized that the markings on the map didn`t really fit with the actual terrain so it took us a few kilometers of walking before we found some concrete foundations from a building. I swept the detector around but it picked up quite few signals. A waterfilled hole or crater nearby had some good signals, but except food tins I only found a broken Luftwaffe marked soup bowl or terrin and a condom. On a small hill next to the barrack were more signals but it was mostly rifle casings that looked like they had been cooked off in a fire.
We moved into the vehicle workshop area where the signals from metal in the ground were far more frequent. We had wasted a lot of hours trying to locate the barracks but there were still some time left for searching before we had to get back home. 
In a small dug out in a slope the Fisher F5 suggested I should do some digging. First I dug up some scrap metal, and a crate full of heavy accumulators. Then I began removing rocks and broken concrete to get to a very good signal. A few minutes of work later I could wipe sand off a white metal plate with black numbers on. A license plate! I could see the letter "WL" which meant it had sat on a Luftwaffe vehicle. It was in very nice condition, far better than any plate I had found previously. Very satisfied with the find I went hunting for more of the same signal but by now the days luck had been exhausted. I dug up a handfull of mystery parts and a hole that was full of modern army excersise ammo from a heavy machine gun, caliber 12.7. 
We didn`t have much more time for fun and games so we slowly moved to the car and headed back to the civilization. But I don`t think it will be long before we go back to do some more rust hunting there.
At home I gave the license plate a wash with soap and water and am pretty happy with the result. Pics of the cleaned relic on the bottom of the page :)

I wish you all a great week. Stay safe :)

This last week just blew away in a hurricane of roadtrips, housework, potato harvesting and metal detecting, so I think it is true the saying that time flies fast when fun is being had. Early in the week me and the Girlfriend took the car and explored valleys and forest roads in the region, enjoying the amazing views autumn creates. We harvested ca half the potatofield and are amazed by the result. Dinner for most of the winter is free this year :D
 I spent nearly fifteen hours over two days searching on a new permission. A rather large area where it had been quite a lot of activity during the war, with soldier camp, storage area, workshop and a POW camp. This place has been well searched before me but I am sure some goodies are still hiding out there, just waiting for the right digger to come along. Anyway I walked around there for hours but didn`t find much. The first day I ended up with a few enamel food bowls, a couple of mugs, the spoon from a göffel, a enamel urinal and a large zink bucket with "Stube 10" (Room 10) written on it. 
 
The next day started out like Christmas in September! I checked a small ditch that had mainly three signals. Good in each end and kinda iffy in the middle. I began with the middle signal and half meter down I scraped sand off the side of a German helmet! Out of the ground I noticed a bullet hole on top of it, so I guess someone had fun shooting at it. Now I was hoping the rest of the ditch would be filled with amazing relics. but after removing modern food tins from each end of the ditch it was completely silent. Not even a nail. I tidied up around the ditch and went for another signal. Now I got the base of a Notek headlamp, and its bracket. Together with some rubbish I later found a small shaving mirror, with a Dunlop advertisement on the back. A very cool find.
Hours passed and when I was back at the car the only other thing worth saving I had found was an empty M24 head with a shrapnel sleeve on.

Today it was again time for "Jimmy and Inkas Adventure Afternoon" (name pending, and should we get jackets with logo made? :D ). The traditional Sunday search was on around lunchtime, shortly after Jimothy had fell off his livingroom table and woken up . I on the other hand had been up since before the squirrels, and was fresh and ready with the metal detector. We opened up a ditch he had found earlier which had a few good signals spread out in it. It didn`t sound like it was full of things, but it could be deep and it was worth a check. The signal I dug first turned out to be half a Kraftstoff barrell. It was laying on its side so it was a chance it had stuff inside. I removed rocks and soil until I could use the flashlight and get a peek inside the barrell. It was clean and empty. We didn`t have  much more luck on the rest of the ditch either. Some bottles, a MG ammo belt, two Soviet rifle oilers, a tent peg, a K98 muzzle cap, a few broken porcelain plates, a gasmask and canister, some karbid lamps, six shovels and some 7.92 rifle ammo was about the only stuff we dug up. 
We moved over to another place. To a square hole dug into the ground that had lots of signals. We had to remove rocks and roots but pretty soon broken glass, food tins and rusted cutlery were piled up on the side. This pit had as so many others like it been set on fire, coz we found lots of melted glass and metal, and it was also full of ashes and charcoal. I was searching one of the corners and a little bit into the wall I hit todays jackpot! Out came a aluminum disc. A German erkennungsmarke! It looked like it was a bit corroded, but a great find. Of course Jimothy had a rage fit and threw his detector so high up in the tree that he had to call the loggers to help him get it down. We dug through half the pit and saw that the layer of burnt relics seemed to be only 20-30 cm deep, but just before we had to leave​  Jimmy was following a signal that seemed to go much deeper. We decided to save it for another day and then bring the Fiskars shovels and do some real digging. 
Strolling back to the cars we checked a few signals but found nothing but a lid for a canister of some kind. 
​ At home I cleaned the ID tag and it reads " Stellungs Art.Abt. 118".

Tomorrow is a new day and the plan is to search around a bit in a Wehrmacht camp and at the same time try to pick the seasons last berries to make sure the freezer is really full before winter.

​Enjoy your day :)

We have been very lucky with the weather lately, and have tried to spend a lot of these beautiful autumn days outside. Before the weekend I joined the Girlfriend on a short mountain trip for her fieldwork. She had set a trap for collecting insects earlier and now we were collecting it, and picked a lot of huge blueberries on our way down again. The next day she was going to another locality much farther into the wilderness, while I was going to hunt for some rust in the bottom of the valley. I hadn`t been back to that camp yet this season so I was excited to see if I would find something nice there still. A couple of hours in I dug up the first good finds. A mess kit and two canteens. In a small trash pit I uncovered a small wooden box. It fell apart when I tried to move it and inside were a few hundred nails. Also in that pit I found several parts from a welder, a tent peg, a shotglass, perfume bottles, glass jars, toothbrushes and such. Later I dug up two bits that looked like those large pegs they secured the legs of Flak cannons to the ground with.
Lunch was consumed sitting with the back leaned to a tree, gazing into the forest for any squirrels and ravens. I only saw a couple of ravens fly between the treetops as they screeched their messages to the forest. Back on the search I checked a small hole in the ground and the detector gave a pretty bad signal, but I decided to dig it anyway. 40-45 cm down, under a barrell band was a helmet with intact leather liner! I think that some color will be found under the rust as well. For a while I could only find rubbish but then the detector went crazy again. It was another little dumping pit. This time full of food tins, bottles and small food buckets. I`ve found similar buckets in POW camps before. Inside one of the buckets was a Soviet soldiers enamel mug, and he had decorated it with a nice yellow flower. One or two hours later, just before I decided to head back home, I found another relic worth rescuing. A vehicle headlight, maybe a Bosch. The glass was missing but the rest were in very good condition.

Yesterday I met up with Jimmy for our traditional Sunday search. He had found a large dumping pit and we were gonna check it out.  It was ca 2m x 2m and after some time we figured out that it was pretty deep as well. Food tins, bottles and coins came out in a steady pace. The coins were mainly Norwegian, but it was a few Finnish and Danish ones between them. Quite soon into the dig Jimmy touched the edge of the pit and out fell a beautiful KVK II with Swords. The guy is like a medal magnet..
When we were done being impressed over the find, we continued the work, trying not to cut ourselves on all the broken glass sticking out everywhere. Then Jimmy found a really nice bottle. A large brown 0.7 l, marked Albert C. Dung, which was a chemical factory in Germany. I dug out a civillian coffee- or tea cup with some abstract decorations. I have found some of these old civillian cups before and am slowly growing a collection of them. On the bottom in one of the corners of the pit we found a whole lot of gaming pieces.
Now we had to check the walls and edges, so we worked our way around it with pin pointers and knifes. A coin fell down in front of me and when I checked for more of them I found something completely unexpected. It knocked me out of balance for a moment, so I just whispered to Jimmy that I had found a medal. I opened my hand and showed him an Iron Cross! It was a bit caked in muck, but it was really an Iron Cross that had found its way into my hand. Of course Jimothy wanted it so he threatened to stab me with a rusted fork, but I tore of his Lego-like arm and threw it into the forest to calm him down. No, I lied, he was as surprised as me, and just slightly less happy than me about the find :D 

We had checked the edges and began to close up the ditch, checking the spoils thoroughly for any missed relic. I still had a little luck left, so when I sweeped away some sand I suddenly saw a Wound Badge! It had a tiny bend to it and missing its needle but other than that in great shape! An incredible end to the day!
​It had been a lot of work and we were both tired and hungry, and it would be dark within an hour so we just sweeped the detectors around the pit before we strolled back to the cars making plans for future digs and projects.

​Until next time, have fun :)

​ 
​

We haven`t had more frosty nights since last week, but when I drove to the dig site yesterday I noticed that the fresh snow on the tops had crept a lot closer to the tree line. The forest covered hillsides, and most of the ground everywhere else are now a mix of green, yellow and red. It is really beautiful, so that the days are a bit wet is a low price to pay for such spectacular views. 
In the morning sun I did some walking around with the metal detector while enjoying all these colors going on around me. A few signals in I scored a mess kit, and a small box for ignitors. Near a little curve in the river going alongside the camp was a nice view point and there were a lot of food tins and bottles laying around under the moss and berrybushes. Clearly a place the soldiers had enjoyed hanging around after duty.  Nearby I dug up a very nice Finnish coin, a broken wall clock, an orange smoke candle and some cable reels.
​
 Near the ruins of a small building I began digging a rather weak signal. It was half of a door hinge some five centimeter under the ground. I took it away and swept the detector over again. Now I got a weak but clear signal so I continued to dig. Soon I met large rocks and began suspecting it was a trash pit under them. The layer of rocks were ca 30-40 cm, but then metal, glass and bits of planks began showing up. Some of the bottles I pulled up had labels, or parts of labels intact, and it is always interesting to be able to see some of them since most bottles don`t have them any longer. Deeper in the pit was a Juwel primus, and then another one next to it. When I removed them I saw a leather pouch. I thought it could be for glasses or sunglasses, but inside there were some dentist tools, a big tweezer, scissors and a thermometer. What an odd and cool find! The next item also gave me great joy. A trench art cigarett case! Quite large and it looked to be nicely made. The motive on the lid was a man drinking champagne, and on the backside prehaps the name of the one portraited; "Hans Düppelhofer. Liinahamari (which is a small village in Petchenga, Russia) 1944". A super find! Something as unique and personal as a good trench art item is hard to find. The next item to be carefully tucked onto the pile of relics was a full ampoule. And then a intact lightbulb.

Some time later the bottom of the pit was found on ca one meter but how much was left to any of the sides I didn`t know yet. After widening it a little I knew what direction it went and I continued that way. Now I found the side of a possible box, and a little scraping and digging later I could take out a MG ammo box from the earthen wall. The handle was missing and the lid had a hole but other than that it was complete, and best of it all was the tri-tonal camo it was painted in! I`ll definitely find a good way to display that one. 
The well started to dry out but I was still fighting one of the last relics loose from a rock holding it tight. A gasmask canister, and inside it someone had stuck a Heer axe head, and a wooden pestle for a mortar grinder. The canister looked like it has lots of color left so I will give it a go in oxalic acid to see how much of the rust I can get off it. 

 It ll be a rainy few next days but I think we ll be able to squeeze in one more trip to the fields of rust before weekend comes with all its relaxiness ;)
​

Last Friday morning the world had become frosted. The grass was white and we had to scrape ice off the car windshield before heading out to the forest. On the way I noticed fresh snow covering the highest mountain tops, so we have arrived at the point of no return, winter is coming. The first couple of hours it was quite terrible searching. My fingers felt like they were about to fall off, but when the sun got its blasters set on full it became quite comfortable. I was in the Gebirgsjäger camp where I have spent much of the summer and by chance I went with the detector straight on a small dumping ditch. Except the usual rubbish I found a nice tent peg, an empty leather EKM pouch and a green plastic coffee cup, produced in Norway probably before the war. In the edge of the ditch I found lots of metal fittings for a variant of the Schu Minen, which probably had been produced in the camp and sent to the front in Finland. The last items to come out from the ditch was a wooden bit in the shape of a shield. I wonder if it could be from the production of Lappland Shields as it has roughly the same size and shape. A meter away from the ditch I pulled out a metal piece that really looked like an oversized Lappland Shield, but I suspect it is just junk.
During the weekend me and the Girlfriend went for a small expedition to find berries. We didn`t get the best haul but it was lovely being outside in the nice weather, and we did pick enough to make some syrup and jam for the cold winter months.

One of the next days I joined my friend Jimmy to search in his Gebirgsjäger camp. An enormous camp filled with signals in the ground. That was very exciting. He had done some stunning finds here earlier so I had hopes that we would find some treasures. We discovered a ditch near the foundation of a barrack and went to work as we got some big signals from it. Since it was late afternoon we only dug about two meters of it but had a very nice and rare find. First we dragged up a soup container, but it had several holes in it from being hit with a pick axe. Then a nice and empty M24 head before we started uncovering a large piece of metal. At first we thought it was a small wagon or hand cart, but when Jimmy managed to tear it loose from the ground and get it to the surface we realized we was dealing with a mystery part. I sent photos around to some guys working on German vehicles and soon after Morten G. came up with the answer. It was a Pak wheel holder for a Krupp Protze vehicle. Not many of those around thats for sure.
We closed the ditch up to complete it a day we have more time, and began searching for signals again. Then Jimmy began digging something, and soon after he called me over, having problems hiding his grin. He had found a pistol! And in quite good condition. What a lucky bugger! I am not sure what type it was but it looked a bit like a Browning. We will know for sure when he has cleaned it up a bit. We didn`t find much else before we were back at the parking place, where I ca 30 meters from the car dug up a Notek lamp in nice condition. Hopefully we`ll be back there soon to finish up the ditch though.

Yesterday I did a short morning trip to another camp I`ve been searching many times. The first signal I opened was a small hole full of radio parts, a smashed bakelite radio, lots of bottles and several flashlights. Soon after I found a nice looking Göffel, and then a very good signal grabbed my attention. The piece of metal was stuck under a rock. I got it loose and thought it was just some scrap, but then I turned it over and it was full of text. I had in my hand the largest luggage tag I`ve ever seen. It read: "Heinz Gelbstrauss In Kittlitz Kreis Angerburg Ostpr" and on the back side his unit "I. GD. N.A. 91". Back home I tried to find Kittlitz in Ostpreussen and it is the small village Kietlice in todays Poland. I am very happy with this find! 
Later on the morning I began digging another good signal. It was food tins, but next to them was porcelain! A tea plate, almost intact and nicely stamped with eagle and producer, but two bits were missing and couldn`t be found. I emptied all the junk out of the hole and on the very bottom was a bunch of buttons. Kriegsmarine buttons, both metal buttons and some made of glass! Also a very nice and interesting find, specially since the site is almost on the mountian. It must have been the Gebirgs Marine :D

Weekend is once again upon us and who knows what the next days will bring of weather and activities. For sure I will be doing my best to enjoy life, and hope you guys are doing the same.

​Until next time, Keep Smiling, and if you can ,stay muddy :D

Several days ago I went back to where I found the 11 helmets. The last leg of the road to get there is sort of a forest road, and when I came driving down it I became aware of a big "something" in front of me. It looked towards the car for a brief moment before it jumped off the road and into the forest. I am quite sure it was a lynx, or a cheeta or some kind of experimental super-cat, although we dont have too many of those here. It was anyway a pretty good start on the day.
It were ca 4 meters left of the ditch to dig and search through, and with one meter to the bottom it took many hours. The finds were few and it was no more lids there. For several minutes I thought I had one, but it was just the edge of a up side down frying pan I was uncovering. One of the only interesting things in it was a square can in very good condition. Its original green paint had survived, and it had a Waa ink stamp on the bottom. A stencilled text on it says " SIKKERTIV". Towards the end of the ditch came out the top of a mess kit, and it had a name engraved; " Hafner". 
I still had half the day left so I wandered around and checked sometimes a good signal. One of those signals was a small brooch, set with some pink rocks, or glass. Almost a treasure. The only other good find I had that day came just before I went back to the car. Together with two wine bottles and a food tin was a knife I always wanted to find. A Luftwaffe gravity knife! Its wooden grips were long gone but the metal wasn`t that badly deteriorated.

It was early when I took the first sweep with the detector today. I hoped for a pistol, but it was an axe head. A small ditch had interesting signals and I hoped for helmets. It was horseshoes. Then I got a strong and clear good signal. Now I hoped for a medal. It was ! At least half a medal. It was a German Ostmedaille, looking like it had been broken in half. I went over the berry bushes again with the detector and picked up two or three more identical signals. It was a few melted blobs and one full Ostmedaille! Between them all was a MP38/40 magazine loader. Great stuff!
Later when back home I discovered that one of the blobs was a partly melted Ostmedaille, the half medal was melted, not broken, and that the full one had signs of having been touched by the heat as well. 
 I found a big metal box, that seemed to be intact. It took some effort to get it free from the ground and up to the surface. It wasn`t what I had dreamt about but still a good find, a drawer/box that was mounted under the Opel Blitz, prehaps on other vehicles as well. It is in good condition so it ll find its way to one of the many Opels being restored. I couldn`t be dragging that heavy thing around all day so I leaned it up against a tree that I would have to pass on my way home. Not far away I found a little cluster of signals. I removed the top soil and saw it had been a big fire. At least one crate and a radio had gone up in flames there. Some boots too, and cutlery. Melted blobs of glass and metals, and bits of charcoaled cloth outlined the fire pit. Using the bayonet I scraped my way through the layer of ashes. Coins had survived. The first one was a beautiful 2 kopek coin from Soviet. The rest were Finnish coins. A small square piece of metal met with the tip of my bayonet. I gave it a rub against the clean back of my glove and saw the word "Petsamo". Wow! The badge had a motive of two soldiers in winter gear firing a machine gun, with the word under it. I am not sure what this badge is for, but that is research I am looking forward to do. For sure it fits right into my Finnish/German collection :) The last pieces I dragged out from the ashes were a close combat knife, a bike wrench, a pad lock, spork and a canteen.
 I had begun the journey back to the car when I see a 2 m x 1 m hole in the forest floor. I peek into it and there is a few bits of metal laying on the surface. I open up one of the corners of the pit and seconds later I see the back side of a helmet! It seems to be in decent condition even if the leather bits are missing. I decide I have to go through this pit before I can go home, and one and a half hour later I was happy I did. Under the helmet were two bakelite karbid boxes, a Einheitslanterne and two different spare parts boxes. One of metal and the other in bakelite. The rest of the pit held some coins and gaming pieces, a field torch, leather ammo pouch, a candle in a bakelite container, perfume bottles and cream tubes. Enough spoil to fill the pockets two times over. 
The weekend is coming up, with plans of berry hoarding, but if lucky I might get a few hours searching done tomorrow:)
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Bumblebee or wasp nest.

It is only Thursday and so far its been a great week. Yesterday the Girlfriend and I went on a roadtrip to a national park up North, where we took a riverboat to see a famous waterfall, Mollisfossen. The trip with the boat took 80 minutes both ways. Many spectacular views. We stayed at the waterfall for an hour and it was simply amazing. It is 269 meters tall and you feel the roar from it in your bones. Highly reccommended.
I have also spent some more time up in the mountainside camp I visited in the weekend. I tripped across a ditch there and decided to get sweaty and worn out. I think it is an irrigation ditch the Germans made to lead  water away from their shelters, and it had obviously been filled up with rubbish from the camp. The first few meters of it had very little interesting items in it. A few bakelite light switches and sockets was worth saving as they were in good shape. Later I dug up some wooden tent pegs, a plastic map grid tool, two MP38/40 magazines, a shower head from the camps bathroom I guess, and some MG 34 parts. Soon more MG bits began to show up, a wrench, ammo belts, feeding blocks and then a belt loader! It looked to be in pretty ok condition and after some digging I think I got all the parts for it. I also found two gasmask canisters. One taller than the other, which was neat coz I only ever found the tall canisters.
 That was on Tuesday. I climbed back up there today to continue searching the ditch. It was a lot warmer weather today. Completely blue sky and +20 Celsius. So the insects got wild when a sweaty human stepped into their territory. Luckily I had my mosquito netting with me and put it over my head. I could just continue where I had left off the other day and moments in I saw the front of a German helmet! A super beginning of the dig! Under it was a rifle cleaning kit and some stripper clips full of 7.92 rounds. Then I felt the round domes of two more helmets after having removed a rock! Brushing away some sand from them revealed a third lid on top of them! Holy Cow! I had to double check if I was having the most realistic dream ever, but I was awake. Possibly more awake now having dragged up four helmets in less than ten minutes. All four in very nice shape.
Less than an hour later,between some tent pegs, bottles, ski goggles and food tins, I had dug out six more helmets!! In one of them I saw a name painted. Oh, I can`t wait for winter to come so I have time to clean them all :D
​After lunch and a bit of a rest I went back to work. Now I uncovered some losantine boxes, a field torch, a small map tool , a full gasmask canister and a great looking spork, and believe it or not, I felt the rim of another helmet through the tip of my gloves! This one was in exellent condition and with a well preserved decal! Unreal!
Now a pipe was sticking out near the bottom of the ditch. It took a bit of work to clear sand and rocks from it but in the end I could wriggle the pipe loose. Although it wasn`t just a pipe. It was a K98 rifle! Or, parts of it at least. The buttstock had been broken off, bolt gone, and the barrell had a slight bend to it. But I am well happy finding this piece. It ll make an exellent lamp!
​I dug on for a little while but I realised it would be hell getting all this stuff back to the car. Its not an easy trek with just the backpack alone, and now I had 11 helmets and lots of other junk. My backpack is roomy and luckily I had a simple WW2 style Red Army backpack with me as well, so I got it all loaded up. I felt like I was sinking ancle deep into the ground under all the weight, but somehow I was at the car less than an hour later. With weak arms and shaky legs I got the stuff into the car and drank the rest of my water, ate an apple and a banana before I headed home to unpack, shower and prepare dinner for the Girlfriend who was on her way back home from another mountain.
Unless my legs and arms falls off before tomorrow, I might get back up there, or I ll go pick blueberries somewhere. Time will tell.

​Have a great day :)
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