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 :)
​

This weekend I searched on an interesting piece of land. It is a bit high up in the terrain where the Germans constructed a small camp complex with soldiers, pioneers and Org.Todt, plus Red Army POWs and their guards. The engineers and the POWs were to work on positions and other installations in the area. It was a bit of a walk up there but with some stops for breathing and for eating blueberries I made it up there alive. The weather was a bit sketchy though. It couldn`t really decide if it was going to be nice or nasty. There were some ruins of stone built shelters here and there, and I had seen several earthen dug outs. One or two rusted stoves tipped over on the forest floor had also been observed on the way up.
I got the detector turned on and within a minute it gave a good strong signal from a piece of brass. It was a field made luggage tag that had belonged to Prinz Fritz. His unit was also stamped into the tag,: 3. Gebirgs Artillerie Regiment 118. Thats the nicest luggage tag I have ever found, so I was very happy.
The next good thing I found was a full gas mask canister, and then a few coins from Finland. One signal I struggled a bit with locating, and when I did find it I was about to just chuck it away as it was just a piece of wire. But when I lift it up from between the small branches on top of the moss I see that it is not just a wire. If this really is what I believe it to be it is the darkest and most sinister thing I have ever found. One end of the wire had been bent and curled into a strong knot around a triangular ring from some equipment, so that one of its corners stood out. The other end of it was looped up into a handle. The whole thing was 30 cm long. Definitely made for hitting something. Or someone. Having studied the history about the POWs, I have read in litterature and biographies, more than once, about guards and Kapos who armed themselves with batons, or torture instruments like this thing I had just found. I ve seen it referred to as "Der Knüppel".  
​ Under some rocks I find a small dumping pit. And it is full of good stuff! A few minutes into digging I see the contours of a helmet! Wow, must be helmet number seven or eight this season! It is in good condition and has the leather liner inside. The next minutes two gasmask canisters show their rust colors from under the sand. One full and the other was empty. But I find the gasmask a bit deeper into the dumping pit. I dig out some civillian porcelain and glassware, which I of course also really enjoy finding. Some of those old things have great designs. Im digging rather fast but when I spot a big fishing hook I slow all the way down. Don`t wanna one of those attached through the gloves and fingers kilometers from the car. It is nice and sharp and soon after I find a whole packet of hooks, still in the paper wrapping. Between loose hooks is a Red Army soldiers spoon, with name and initials engraved. I am still digging slowly when I feel the steel on the sole of a Gebirgsjäger boot. It is a pair of them, both is displayable condition so I place them safely to the side with the other relics. I have rescued maybe twenty gaming pieces when I see the rim of a helmet in front of the bayonet blade Im scraping sand with. This one also in good condition and with the liner intact. And under it is a third helmet!! OMG! Am I having a full ditch of helmets again?
​ As I was digging on, I was already making plans how to transport 120 lids down through the forest. I didn`t get any need for those plans though, coz soon the pit was empty. Almost empty. As a small bonus, or actually a great find, was a Edelweiss badge laying under the moss on the edge of the pit. "Awesome!" was all I could think about that find :D I double checked around the pit before I filled it back in and tidied up the place.
I was going to search some more but the clouds finally burst open and made it pretty unpleasant. Soon thunder could be heard as well and I guess being up in the height with a backpack full of metal and electronics can be a bit stupid :D
I hope I ll make a new trip there soon, and I wish you all a good week :)

Edelweiss!! :)

I spent the whole day in the forest today. Early morning the Girlfriend dropped me off before going on her own expedition. Having wised up a little bit from my previous trips I didn`t turn on the detector before I got close to the barracks I have wanted to search around. It is a bit of a climb up a steep hill up to the plateau with the barracks. In the bottom of it, just by the base of a tree the detector gave a great signal. I removed the moss and saw that I would need the rootcutter and the saw more than the digger tool, my trusted old bayonet. It took a little bit of swearing and sweating but then I freed a German shaving cup from the grip of the roots. These often have names and art engraved on them so I wiped it off with the back of my glove. "1944" and and anchor with the Soviet star had been engraved on one side of the cup. The other side had a heart with a knife through it, and a gun pointing to the heart, inside it a bottle and a glass. Quite the symbolism. Between the motives is a name with cyrillic letters engraved. 
I checked between the roots with the pin pointer and it told me to keep digging. A little cutting, sawing, hacking and scooping out sand later I lifted out a enamel water pitcher. Pin pointer said to continue so I did. After a while I reached metal again. This time I looked at the bottom of a mess kit, and I could just pull it out of the sand. This one too had engravings. Its motive was a house, and on the bottom a name written with cyrillic letters, prehaps of the place. It wasn`t empty under the tree yet. I scooped out a large rotted battery, some food tins and then I pulled out a bayonet! What a start! I was warm and sweaty and became even more so when I reached the top of the hill. On the way up I found a couple of heer axe heads, a razor and some coins and buttons.
​Finally I was by the remains of the barracks and after a rest I began searching and soon found a small dumping pit. 
A lot of charcoal, ashes and melted blobs showed that this pit had been set on fire, but a few very nice items had survived. The first one was quite interesting. I didn`t realize what it was at first but after a while it dawned on me. It was a four pointed star cut from metal, with a hole drilled where a strong wire was attached. The other end of the short wire was coiled so that it could fit around the top of a tree. A christmas star of course! From a celebration in the barrack. Or at least I hope it is :D I found a burnt out M24 grenade head, and then I uncovered a metal dome. Hm, dared I hope? The shape looked more and more like helmet as I dug it loose, and soon there was no doubt. It looked to be in good condition, I could even see traces of a decal beneath the mud and rust! Under it was a broken binocular case made from bakelite. In the centre of the pit it was nothing  worth saving, but to the sides of it things were still intact. Lots of food tins, a few coins, a shotglass made of amber colored glass, three rifle cleaning kits and then I saw it. Another one! I had removed some moss and the rim of a helmet stuck out from the ground. This one had seen more flames than the first one, but the metal was still strong so it`ll probably be worth giving it the old oxalic acid bath treatment.
I got up on my feet and searched around the bonfire. In a small patch were several aluminum signals. I opened up the first one and had a EKM between my fingers! From a Gebirgsjäger unit! Fantastic. I could almost not have dreamt of a better find. It was in beautiful condition. The marking on it: St. I / G.JE.R.138 bloodtype 0 and rollnumber 152. Of course now I imagined the other signals around it could be a whole bunch of such tags, but they were all food tins.
The hours went by and I strolled around checking signals and enjoying the day. I found some of the usual bits before I had a little luck again. Under a blueberry bush was a beautiful Eastern Front medal, the Ostmedaille. I had been roaming around for hours and it was time to head back down to the road and find the pick up point.
The Girlfriend arrived at the same time as I nearly fell out of the forest, wet, with a muddy face and with a heavy backpack. She had also had a successfull trip, and had picked lots of huge blueberries and mushrooms on her way. She had found blueberry paradise so one of the days we`ll bring some bin bags and fill them with goodies.
Now it is weekend and time for some relaxing, or, maybe I should (shouldn`t I ?)  go for some searching :D

Have a nice weekend :)
​

Busy days and nasty weather has kept me mostly at home, but for some hours early in the week I was searching and digging. I had planned to walk to a site where it is ruins of a few Wehrmacht barracks. That plan fell apart some sixty meters from where I parked. Between some birch trees I saw the traces of an old filled in ditch, a food tin was sticking out of the ground and when scratching the surface a bit with the bayonet, broken glass came to show so there was little else to do than to check it for treasures.
It began good with a German mess kit under the first layer of moss and roots. It had the color intact and the initials of the owner engraved. Then I found a few barbed wire poles, but an interesting type I`ve never seen before. It looks like they are meant to be stuck into trees. Those I could not leave behind, I`ll find use for them in the garden. After removing more rocks from the top it became sandy with very little roots and nice to dig. A red lacquered late war canteen piled up on the side together with lots of the usual bits and pieces. A fishing reel stuck out as an interesting item so did a rubber pad from an RSO track link. I pryed loose a stone from the side of the ditch and together with it flew a Lapplandfront Cross!! I saw it like in slow motion as it spun through the air and landed in the sand. It was green-blue from being burnt in the fire that had been in the ditch. All the beautiful blue enamel were gone and the center of it was missing. Luckily I carried a sift. Like gold panners are using. I spent the next three or four hours going through the rest of the ditch , sifting everything. 
The missing piece of the badge was not found. It is very possible that it had popped of and melted in the fire. That I missed it and it is still there is also a possibility. Maybe sometime in the future I`ll re-sift it all if I get desperate enough :D
While sifting I spotted gold, or at least something looking like gold, maybe tombac. A very nice thin "gold" ring had been lost or thrown into the ditch. I like such finds. I imagine the owner had become skinnier during the retreat from Finland and it simply slipped off from his finger while he was throwing stuff into the ditch.
My back and legs needed a stretch, so finally I tried getting to the barracks. I almost got there. Halfway there I found a spot with lots of signals and had to check them of course. These were rifle casings and stripper clips, but in between them was a little gem. It was half of a EKM ("dog-tag"), but when I turned it around it appeared to be a complete tag, just folded over. Very carefully I tried unfolding it just enough to see what was on it, but it snapped. Still, I was super happy finding a tag. It was from Landesschützen Bataillone 809. A unit mostly made up of older soldiers and soldiers not completely fit for frontline duty, and was used to guard depots, POW camps, installations etc. 
I decided to end the day on this high note, and strolled happily back to the car, eating some berries on the way. I really need to take the Girlfriend out for a berry-picking day soon.
​Tomorrow I am making another attempt on the barracks.
​

Judging by the temperature, rain, fallen leaves and the abundance of berries and mushrooms in the forest one can say that autumn is here. I had hoped that summer would last another 5 or 6 months. Now it looks like I need to find rain clothes and woolen underwear and gear up the searching a notch so I can gather enough rust for the winter. And berries. Need to pick a few kilos of those. The blue ones. They are the best. It goes without saying that the rust is most important of course. So I spent yesterday searching in the Gebirgsjäger camp. 
 The forest was wet and it felt cold kneeling down to pin point a signal. The Fisher had shown me a patch full of metal and I had been taking away nails and a couple of cream tubes from it and was hunting for the last item hiding itself in the black soil. Its round shape finally gave it away and I could pick up a button. A crowned eagle. Polish. Hm, how did that end up here, must have been some Polish POWs together with the Gebirgsjägers.. I thought. I began walking down the slope towards the marshy area where I found all the leather bits a couple of weeks ago. I dreamt about finding great things there. But I needed to get there first, and I didn`t move fast since I had to check signals along the way. Now I found another small area with lots of signals. It almost looked like someone had been emptying a backpack or a crate. Under the moss were a broken porcelain plate, a k98 cleaning kit, some buttons, two pocket knives, gaming pieces,perfume bottles and cream tubes. In the very edge of the spill, stuck under a root I found a Wound Badge! It was missing the needle and was made of steel, but still, awesome to find.
By the marshy place, which I actually think is more of an overgrown old pond than a marsh, I threw the backpack under a tree and went to check the place with my detector. I found bits from gebirgsjäger boots and several leather frogs for the k98 bayonet scabbard and a few ammo pouches. Some weaker steel signals caught my attention and I got a bit of a dip in the water when trying to reach the metal. It was fresh, but I could feel the shape of a helmet so it was worth the soaking. The lid I pulled up to the surface was black from all the years in the silt under water. It had three small holes in the dome and lacked the leather liner but looked to be in nice condition. That was such a cool find! I stuck my arm back into the water and felt around. Sure enough I had another one! This time it was only half of a helmet, the rest had rusted away. The next ten minutes I found fragments of four more helmets. I kept searching and found a canteen, Soviet or Finnish, and some shoes.
 I was drenched. Not a dry spot on me, and the backpack was getting full. I wandered slowly towards the car, checking signals and eating berries. I found and dug a small dumping pit that had some food tins, signal flares, trench candles, spoon, knife, cream tubes and a k98 dummy rifle casing. No coins or more medals though, prehaps they will be found on the next trip :)
Have a nice weekend :)

The weekend opened with heavy rain, thunder and lightning. It took about an hour for the weather to roll over us and before the sun broke through the clouds I was already dirty and muddy. I continued searching through the ditch I ve been digging lately. Food cans and rocks was on the menu, but then I broke loose a rusted can from the wall of the ditch and it was heavy, and it rattled when I shook it. Exciting! Very surprised it was not rusted solid I just twisted the lid off. The insides looked brand new. It was full of small bolts and nuts, and tiny metal parts all covered in greasy water. 
I dug up two barrel bands and then found the bottom part of the barrel was still intact, although the wood was rotted and soft. I got it out of the way , checked the bottom of the ditch and like a mole continued forward. Now I struck another barrel. But this one looked like it was intact. It took close to two hours to free it from the ground. It was laying upside down and there was a chance something was inside it. Wrapped around it was a rubber tube I really wondered what could be. I had to dig all around the barrel to get it loose. A complete fuel hose with nozzle and hand pump. The type that was stuck into the Kraftstoff barrels. I could still smell fuel from it. In the process of getting it out of the ground I also found a very interesting lamp made in USA. A "Lorraine Controllable Driving light", in pretty nice condition too. The only thing inside the barrel was a zink bucket. 
Not even 45 cm further I struck another barrel. This too took a few hours to get around. It was also empty. But next to it there was a "Verbandkasten", a Red Cross medic kit box (it was empty) and a massive piece of metal that I think might be the trailer hitch part from a field kitchen. In the side of the ditch was a small piece of thin wood that made me wish I had a time machine. It had been a wooden sign, probably for a lazarett, and only the red cross symbol had survived. It was so thin and delicate that I`m not sure I ll be able to save it. 
I was tired by now and when I found a metal barrel blocking the ditch ahead I packed up my toys and took the rest of the day off.
 
I spent the next sunny day, and then the following rainy one at home, before Monday appeared with perfect weather and me continuing in the ditch.

I took the detector and checked the ditch a couple of meters in front of the metal barrel. I got a signal, not a great one and of course the signal from the big barrel interfered, but I had to check all of the ditch anyway. Under the top layers was wire. Lots of it. A sane person would probably just leave it and look for another signal to dig on, but I spent a lot of time and energy trying to get the stuff away. It was stuck everywhere, and pulling on it only resulted in that the thin steel wires found flesh. Luckily the Girlfriend had gifted me a great multitool to have in my kit and the wirecutter on that one saved the day. `Snip-snip-snip` and the large bundle of electrical wire was out of the way, and it had drawn blood only from five fingers.
Now things began to pour out of the ditch. Some brackets probably for vehicles, a Solex carburetor, a little cloth, an inkpot and then a Notek lamp! And another Notek! What?? I was so surprised. Both in quite good condition.  Work got slowed down again by two large tire chains and I needed a bit of a rest after fighting those to the surface.
Under the chains was a large coal bucket and a Notek for the rear of the vehicle!! Wow, a real Notek-day today apparently! As I am getting closer to the metal barrel I am slowed down yet again by another bundle of wires. These are 1 cm thick so there is no cutting through them. In the end I somehow got the wires out of the way and found several more Noteks along the way! Also a complete bunker stove in great shape! I had built a pile of smaller items as well, here was an ashtray, some bakelite connectors, an enamelled soup bowl,  foldable steps for the field kitchen, two coal scoops, several small bottles, the bakelite cup from a thermos, frying pan, porcelain plate, a pair of goggles and 1/4th of a car tire plus some tools and other parts.

I was only 5 hours into the digging but I had no more room for even the tiniest of relics in my backpack, and I would need some energy getting this haul back to the car, so when I reached the metal barrel I called it quits. I was super happy finding no less than seven Noteks; three front lights and four rear ones, plus two smaller oval rear lights. A real lamp day. It ll be a few days until my next digging, but I hope to have this whole ditch done by weekend :)

​

It is August already. Luckily this month still counts as summer, which the weather-departement seems to have gotten a notification about coz they delivered today. Blue sky and sun, and temperature around +20 Celsius. Usually I would spend such a day around the house and relaxing in the hammock, but I was in need of a bit of digging. Around 10 o`clock I was on place in the Gebirgsjäger camp, ready to score a little rust. I chose a patch of open ground as my starting point so I could detect and at the same time let the sun fill up my vitamin D reservoirs. I am glad I did, because after digging up the first few rifle casings and nails I found a nice little Reichspfennig coin. A mixture of signals from the Fisher F5 led me to a small dumping pit where the good finds were a German mess kit, a food tin and a bottle. What could have been a nice find too was a M24 grenade head, but it disintegrated when I pulled it out from the ground. I searched around the foundations of a small building and found maybe all the nails they had used when setting it up, but a few meter from where the entrance had been I dug up a small fishing lure, possibly more modern.  Searching in the sun gets too hot, so I went into the forest again and walked to a pre-discovered ditch. I have known about this ditch for a couple of years but now it was apparently time to open it up. But first I needed water, lots of water, and food :)

The ditch is actually a row of three ditches. Each 4-5 meter long, with a fair amount of varied signals in all of them. Of course I began digging in the end of the ditch that had rusted food cans. Boring and annoying to dig, but maybe something could be under them all. Forty minutes later I knew. It was nothing under them. I continued down the ditch and even if the food cans were present, other relics had been thrown into the mix. There were also more rocks and roots so digging was not so easy as with the cans. Parts from wagons or vehicles, cream tubes and bottles piled up on the side. I saw a needle, like the one a doctor would use. And I knew I had to be extra careful now. Some years ago I dug in a pit in a field hospital, and struck an ore of those needles and one of them stuck itself under my finger nail. Not extremely pleasant. I found some rusted metal flakes near the eight needles so I hoped that was from the box they had been in. A little funny find was the tube of Wehrmacht mosquito repellent. I should test if it is still effective. Next I wrestled out a large piece of rubber that had been like a trousers,boots and suspenders in one. But it was all rotted and destroyed. Tucked into it though was a Notek lamp bracket that had been preserved perfectly.
I removed more rocks and soil and felt the corner of a box. As I scraped away the soil around the item, wooden bits came of it. It was a wooden box that fell apart, but it had a metal box inside! It was neatly placed on a couple of rocks in the bottom of the ditch. Not thrown in like all the other stuff. So I became very intrigued.
​ I lifted the lid and looked into a painters kit. The lid was actually the paint palette. Brushes, a scissor, lots of oil paint tubes and a box with water paints were in it! What a cool find!! 

Using the cutter on roots and the bayonet to pry loose more rocks before scooping out soil I advanced into the ditch. I found a field torch, and what I first thought was a helmet or a lamp turned out to be a perfectly preserved enamelled bedpan! I dug out several wrenches, files and tools, some mystery parts, a vehicles rear light, a small engine and a ceramic part with a logo, I think it reads "Steyr". Almost on the bottom there were two bakelite items. A canteen drinking cup, and a karbid box for the Einheitslanterne. I check again with the pinpointer and with the help of the bayonet I uncover a real nice air pressure gauge with German text.  I scraped a bit more with the blade and used the pinpointer. No signals. I got up on my feet and checked with the Fisher. It was silent the next half meter or so in the ditch, before it was full of signals again. A perfect place to end the digging for today.
​I think I will be continuing here soon..