I had picked up some interesting signals last time I was here and I wanted to start the day checking those. The first piece of metal I dug up was long and round, so naturally I thought I had found a Panzerschreck. While I dug, moved rocks and cutted roots I realized it was just a rotted smokestack. I got it out of the way and pulled out more scrap metal before finally a good piece turned up. The front of a rear Notek lamp which seemed to be in good condition, solid metal and all the glass intact. I dug up a mystery part, looking a bit like an old vacuum pump perhaps, some kind of mount to secure a box or a crate to a vehicle and a pair of rotted woolen gloves. At this point I would have worn those gloves if they had been more intact, coz the frost made it feel like my fingers were falling off.
I moved to the next signal and when I could see the metal I was dead sure I had the front rim of a helmet under the soil in front of me. "What an amazing find to end the season on!" I thought as I kept digging. My dreams of going home and making it a nice and warm oxalic acid bath shattered when I dragged the piece out of the ground. It wasn`t a helmet. Instead the relic gods had offered me a large meat grinder, a really heavy beast. I placed it back with the hope that one day another digger will get the same emotional rollercoaster.
Up next was the end of a dumping ditch I had abandoned a couple of seasons ago because of laziness and a very difficult root and rock blocking the relics under there. I still had many hours of daylight ahead and had worked myself warm already so today I was getting to the bottom of it.
With the help of my saw and the bayonet I got the roots away and could loosen the rock so that could be rolled out of the ditch. Now I had to dig loose two bands from a 200l fuel drum (luckily the drum itself was no longer there) which lay on top of some other stuff. The rest was easy. Some shovelling of sand later I had recovered a large vehicle heater, two times the size of the ones I have found before. A lamphouse with a kerosene lantern inside, probably to hang on a wagon I imagine, some kind of box which looks like it should be on a vehicle or wagon and two parts which I believe are covers to be attached to headlights so they are not visible from above.. but maybe Im wrong and some of you will give me the correct ID :)
Two days later I braved up for another cold morning in the forest and went to the gebirgsjäger headquarter. Last time there I had found lots of signals in the bottom of a slope and fantasized about helmets and guns waiting for me to dig them up. The first signal there was very promising, the "flap" from a rear Notek light. Im sure someone restoring a lamp will need it. The following signal was much better but was just a handfull of rifle ammo. 8mm Norwegian rounds for the Colt machinegun, but produced under German management in 1943.
The signals in the bottom of the slope were checked one by one, but other than the two first finds it were all parts from crates and boxes, and one padlock.
I went over to the radiobunker to cut barbed wire for a few hours, That was as always a terrible job. They are hard to cut and it takes forever to make a big enough clearing for searching under them, not to mention the large bits of rocks stuck between the layers which have to be removed so they doesn`t slide out and fall on my hand or head.
In the end I had very little luck, except not getting cut by wire or glass this time. I found a small pile of relics, one cream tube, a pencil, a few perfume bottles, a part from a Norwegian "shoe box" mine, 8 large "eyelet" screws and the top of a Drahtgabel, a hook for hanging wires and communication cables.
Now I was pretty cold, wet and stiff so I had to get up and move around a bit. The cold temps made it difficult for the batteries on my detector. I could barely hear the signals it was giving, but still, the next hour it really did the job. On a small hill it found me twelve german coins and a brennzunder, but after that it was the end, it just died, no more juice in the batteries. I was anyway pretty ready to go home. I wanted a warm dinner and to construct a pillowfort in front of the fireplace.
The last couple of days it has been getting colder, and the top of the ground is feeling quite hard, even after six-seven hours of sun, but I need to make another go tomorrow, coz the rest of the week the night temps will drop to -10 Celsius which will be the end of digging, unless there will come some warmer periode again. So I am getting ready some warmer gloves, a scarf and I will bring warm coffee with me.
Thanks for reading and enjoy your week. Keep Smiling ;)