This morning I went to the site which I was going to search when the detector gave up a few weeks ago. In this small patch of forest the British Scotsguards set up a position with a few 2 pounder guns to shell the advancing Gebirgstruppe coming from the south. Earlier this summer I found a british gasmask and heaps of german barbed wire here. Behind the gun positions there were dug-outs for the troops. The fighting here hadn`t lasted many days so it is a fairly clean area but I hoped to find some more proof the British was here and maybe if lucky a dumping pit.
I started checking the dug-outs and the area between them while moving towards "the front" of the position. All the dug-outs was either totally empty or there was some german barbed wire dumped in a corner or the entrance of them. In some the only signals was pieces of metal sheets and chicken wire. As I took the camera to snap some pics the battery died, so I had to use the camera on the GalaxyS3, not as good but better than nothing :)

Naturally the most promising area with lots of different signals was the most difficult one. A deep and large dug out full of cut down bushes, branches and frozen water. I dug for a good while here, got cold and soaked, and I didn`t find anything interesting really, but found one small rubbish pit with stuff dating back to the sixties. The rest of the position gave little results as there was almost no signals anywhere. I went back to the spot with signals and kept digging there for an hour more before I called it quits. Fresh, cold and wet to the bones but happy I drove back home to make some good food and sit infront of the fire to dry up:)

Finally I could go searching with my Fisher F5 again! I had it back from the shop where they had changed the CPU, but it would not work when I tried it, so I called them and right away they sent a coil as the problem would have to be there. A burden lifted off my shoulders when I turned it on and it worked the way it should. Happy I set of through a field, sweeping the detector in front of me. 
I had chosen a area where it had been a German camp during the war, some 300 soldiers had been stationed here, guarding a nearby POW camp and overseeing the work on the railroad. Someone had told me about some concrete constructions in the forested hillside above the camp area and I had to investigate it. 
Crossing the field I had a good signal and had to see what it was. I drew the shovel into the ground but it was like hitting asphalt. 3-4 days of subzero temperatures had frozen the ground completely. Luckily the top 5-10 cm was no match for the axe and I could get to the rust. Ofcourse it was some agricultural rubbish.
In the hillside I found a small plateau with some concrete stuff. From what I could see I think it was some kind of communication mast. I dug a few signals here and found pipes and wires mostly but will certainly do some more searching here come spring.

I went back to the camp area to do some searching. I did search here once before a few years ago, but never located any dumping pits so that was going to be the mission the next few hours. There were signals all over the place, alot of modern rubbish from farmers, but after a while I started to find more familiar types of metal. I went around just registering signals and doing a test dig once and again. I found what I think is the well, looks like it is full of metal, and found at least two ditches which I think is the main dumping pits. Better yet, the weather report promises mild weather the next days and the detector seems to be working perfect again. A huge thanks to the guys at the repair shop! :)  Bliss :)

Had to send my Fisher in for repairs, and hopefully I ll have it back very soon. In the meantime I can`t sit at home staring into a wall so I drove to my favorite site for a few hours digging. Within three hours I had filled both my backpacks and left the hole open so I can go back and continue tomorrow. I had found a good spot, coz the hole was full of Mg ammo drums, a ton of Losantine containers, Mg 34 bolt bodies, rifle cleaning kits and a crazy amount of gasmask canisters and rotten gasmasks. Todays potentially best find was sadly in sad conditions, a Mg barrel container and the top of a ammo crate. Prehaps tomorrow I ll find some in better condition :)

I had a long day of digging planned today, I wanted to search the British trenches, one German camp and on the stables/Org.Todt site. I put all the digger gear in the car and sped off to the first site. When I had got myself out in the forest I turned on the metal detector, and it gave off this series of beeps like it is NOT supposed to do. I turned it off and tried again. Same reaction. Hm, what could this be. Had the batteries run out allready? I removed them,checked that they had power and inserted them again. When I turned it on this time it didn`t make the beeps, but the numbers on the display seemed wrong. I tried to groundbalance it, it made another type of beeps than it should and the numbers on "setting" and "phase" only showed "0". I had a tiny hope there was something wrong with the batteries so I got back to the car and drove to a gas station and bought a new set of batteries. The Fisher F5 have been working as it should since I got it some years ago,but two weeks ago there was that one day it acted strange. I drove to the German camp because there I had located a couple of dumping pits earlier so if the Fisher wouldn`t work at least I could do some digging. 
 Into the forest again, and I braced myself as I put in the new batteries and turned on the thing. Same as half hour ago. No matter what I tried the detector would not work. A bit angry and frustrated I wanted to smash it and throw it deep into the forest , but then I thought "what if I hit a squirrell!??" There was nothing I could do, no point in ruining both the detector, the forest and its inhabitants. Having found Zen again I went over to one of the dumping pits and dug it empty. It was deep and filled with rocks and there was not much rust in it, nothing worth keeping. The other pit was smaller and also here there was not much interesting. I did find one nice beer bottle with some text on. I never saw it before so it will be fun cleaning it up finding out what it says and what it was. 
 The broken detector had snuck back into my mind and I decided to drive back home and then contact the shop and see if it is possible to fix it or if I have to buy a new one. So bad timing when it is only weeks before winter hits with full force...

It was so good being out digging again. It has been about a week with no expeditions but today there was no excuse to stay inside. The night and morning was very cold, it dipped a few degrees below 0 and everything was frosty white when I peeked through the curtains. A few hours later when the coffee session was done and the sun had melted away most of the frost I was out the door. I still have too many places I want to dig so I decided to just begin in one end, the site closest to me. Followers of my trips will be familiar with this site now as I have been there many times, the large Gasmask Mountain. Several rock slides last winter have made it a bit spooky to visit now and I see new boulders have fallen each time I go there, soon I`ll need a boat to get to it. After wandering around looking for any good surface rust for a while I found a patch to dig where a large rock had smashed down from above and ripped open the ground before launching down into the fjord. The relic gods was pleased and poured gasmaks canisters and ammo drums at me as I drew the shovel into the soil. Much of it was in a sad condition, but a few of the ammo drums might show some original paint after cleaning. I found a bakelite Karbid box which is always kool to find, some of the orange bottles and square bakelite Losantine boxes and even a nice alu tent peg. 

Between all the destroyed gasmask filters I found a small and heavy box. I got it out and brushed of the soil, the lid had a hole so I could see there were some kind of cartdriges inside. Exciting! The lid came off easily, but the hinges was destroyed in the process. I carefully pulled one of the little shells and it was of paper, like a shotgun shell. I really like this little find and it will be interesting finding out what it really is. After closing up the hole I took another stroll around the place. I could hear the little whale was surfacing, making a ghostly sound as it breathes and some ravens and a large eagle was circling in the sky. Pure bliss. At the same moment I looked to the left of me and saw a metal plate. I have no idea what it is, if it is rubbish or something kool, but I liked it and decided to drag it home for further investigation. My hands and backpacks, yes, I had brought one spare backpack for them extra finds(!), was full so it was time to try climb back to the road and go home...