A bit more than a week ago I ordered a bolt cutter so that I could get deeper into a dumping pit. Lots of barbed wire had been thrown on top of the rubbish pit making any more progress searching there difficult. I had found too many interesting things to just let it go, so earlier this week I picked up the bolt cutter when the post office opened and went directly to the pit to begin cutting my way in. I quickly discovered that this job was way harder than I had imagined. The wires are tough and the tool weighs some kilo, so now several days later I can still feel it in the muscles. Good training.
After ca 7 hours I had managed to cut open prehaps a  2 m x 1.5 m passage near the side wall of the "bunker". Relics had came out in a steady pace but nothing very interesting yet. Many small bottles went into the pile to bring home. Some bottles were new to me and one had a bit of the label intact, Nivea sun cream. I found a book where the title page was partly intact and it was fun to for once know what kind of book I had found. "Marie Verwhanen" by Joseph Lauff. A lot of radio parts continued to come out from under the barbed wire cover, and I picked out several bakelite contacts and connectors plus a few radio tubes. Filtered together were a bunch of cable hangers and when I lifted those out I found underneath a Zeiler field torch made from bakelite. I saw porcelain but got disappointed when it was only half a coffee cup, but thirty minutes later I found the other piece. Now it was only a small piece missing from the edge of it, so I picked up any porcelain part I could see for the rest of the day, and later I found one small piece that fitted. Some of the last bits I dug out that day were a very nice Göffel and a brass ashtray with a horse design, a Karbid box, a bakelite pen and two name tags made of some early plastic. When I was about to close the pit  I noticed something white and paper like. I carefully pulled it out and it was the instructions on how to use a Wehrmacht radio . Awesome end of the day. I placed all the lenghts of the cutted barbed wire on the bottom of the pit and covered it up so no animals will hurt themselves on it. It is still a lot of work to search the rest of the pit and I wish I had some kind of mega-magnet that could just lift all the wire away in one go :) I might ask the landowner about the possibilities to get the help of a mini-digger next season.
​ The weather report for the coming week was not promising at all, showing days with temps down to -10 Celcius mixed in with milder days with snow. And Thursday afternoon I heard the Girlfriend shouting excited from her lab something about snow. Sure enough, when I looked outside there were a few flakes falling. A few hours later the cat wanted to go out and I had a big surprise when I opened the door. A few centimeter of snow covering everything! Damn, not good!
Yesterday morning the snow was still there, and it was all frozen with -4 below zero. After coffee I put the winter tyres on the car and got into my digging gear. If the promises comes through this would be the last chance for any digging. It was a bit milder and less snow in the Gebirgsjäger camp so I marched right up to one of the "signal hot-spots" I had found last week. Here I had also forgotten a Field kitchen drawer I wanted to bring home. I began searching between some trees. A small area, ca 1x1 meter. I spent the next hour collecting Kriegsmarine buttons. When it was empty I had ten of them, three of which the larger golden type. Very nice ones. I also had four standard uniform buttons and a small one for a cap. 
A little further away, after a handfull of good signals that were just garbage I came across a ditch with a lot of interesting signals. Here I kept on digging until the alarm on my phone went off a few hours later, alerting me about other chores I could not postpone doing. If the season is really over now this is where I will start up again, and in any case I am going back as soon as the weather allows it. The first thing I uncover is a 1liter alco bottle with some very nice markings, and next to it I see a gun!! Wow!! It takes a moment before I realize that the slide and barrel is missing. It is only the lower part of the gun. It is always like this! This is the third time I find the handle of a gun. Never a full one :D I am anyway very happy with such an interesting find and I keep searching and digging until I have to go. I couldn`t find the missing parts now, but I took with me some cream tubes, a small ashtray and a glass part which I think belongs to some antenna system.
I really hope there will be more chances for digging this year but it ll be a miracle if we ll get such a long season as last year, but if it is really over I am satisfied with that too. I have had a great season, lots of amazing finds, dreams that came true, I dug with Baard and Skule, made friends with some other cool diggers and had some nice interactions with some of you who follow me on my trips through the screen as well!!
Now lets hope for bonus season, and a good next season. And in the meantime I will sort and clean finds, share pics of that and create some relic- and miniature art.
​Have a great winter time my friends :)

My initial plan for yesterday was to relax and let my hand heal but something called me to the forest. The weather report for the coming days also had a bit to do with the decision to go searching. It showed a week with rain, and dropping temperatures, so it is likely that the rain will turn into snow. 
When I looked out the window and the thermometer, it was 8 degree Celsius, which is very decent for being a week into october. I wanted to go and do another checking around a couple of barracks where I had been a few years ago and had found a few nice things. On the way to the barracks I had to pass an area that had been used as a firing range shortly after the war, and spent an hour there picking some 5 cm mortar fins and fuzes. A few squirrels probably worried I was there to raid their winter supplies made lots of noise and jumped around on the branches. 
I spent another few hours around the barracks. Other than a nice lampfoot I dug up a pioneer axe and a regular army issued axe. The rest of the signals I took out of the ground were food tins, cream tubes, a hammer, stove parts and a fishing lure. 
After a little bit of relaxing and something to eat and drink I made a big loop from the slope I was in, through the forest along a hill towards the place where I had parked. Circa half kilometer before the car were another couple of barrack foundations where I have searched many times, and walked past even more times. I hadn`t found much on the stroll there but now the detector suddenly gave off a great signal. It was a small rectangular box with the logo perfectly intact. "Cavalier" - German condoms. Near one of the barracks it should be a small dumping pit I had just started once, and I went to try find it. As has happened many times before the scream from the metal detector swinging in front of me changed the outcome of the day. Before I had kneeled down to check what had made the signal I saw its origin. The very familiar shape of a German helmets rim was sticking out from the moss and grass!! I could see color intact on it too! I got it out of the ground and it was in very nice shape, only the leather liner and chinstrap were gone. After taking some pics of it I put the helmet aside and continued with the metal detector. Barely half meter away I got the same signal again! I made a cut in the ground with the shovel and could feel with my fingers the rim of another helmet! I looked around. The place was full of these small mounds built up from moss. Would it be helmets in all of them??! I dug up the second helmet and it too was in nice condition, minus the leather. I could even see hints of decal and winter camo on it. I got back up on my legs and began checking the little mounds. They had no metal in them unfortunately but a meter away I had another one of those good signals. And I couldn`t believe it. Helmet number three!! Same shape as the two previous ones! What an amazing day this turned out to be! I closed my eyes and swung the Fisher again. Great signal! But this time it was parts of a mortar grenade box. I checked the surrounding area thoroughly and it seemed like I had reached the helmet quota for the day. 
Very happy I found my backpack and put all the finds in it and ended this weeks searching on a high note. With these three I have found seven helmets this season, unbelievable :) It will be fun cleaning them up and see what will be left of color and decals, and maybe names if lucky.
Today the shift in weather has already kicked in. The temps this morning were 0.2 degree Celsius and the snow had crept far down the mountain sides. I guess it will be optimistic to hope for such a long season as last year when I had my last digging the first week of December. But it will be a few trips to the woods again next week anyway.
Until then, enjoy your weekend and Keep Smiling ;)

Monday and Tuesday were both spent outdoors in the relic-forest. On Monday I searched through what was left of the dumping pit where I found the panzer skull. I began with quickly going through the spoils from last time in case I had missed something. I was of course hoping to find another one of those skulls, but I guess it had rotted away, or melted, or I just missed it again. One small coin and a gaming piece appeared to be the only relics I hadn`t got the first time. The rest of the pit took about an hour and held only a few uniform buttons, a French toothpowder tin and some perfume bottles. Naturally I grabbed every broken bit of porcelain I could see with the hopes of completing one or two of the plates I found most parts from earlier. Before filling the pit back and tidying up I checked the edges. On one of the sides I found orange bakelite. A nice example of a german soldiers Fettbüchse (fat container). Also I found a german uniform button made of bakelite/plastic. Not often to find those.
I still had some hours before dinner time so I placed my backpack under a tree and went searching for good signals. Now and then I scared up some forest birds. Or rather they scared the crap out of me everytime I took a step and one of them noisily flies off one meter next to me. I picked up a small wristwatch, a dataplate from a norwegian radio and I found a small dumping hole. Two oil cans with brushes in their lids were worth rescuing from it. They will fit perfectly in a vehicle- or garage display.
Yesterday I drove off early to continue in the big dumping pit where I found all the radio parts and the Lapplandshild. The weather report had promised rivers of rain but that hadn`t manifested yet. It was just a little wet from the nights rainfall. I fought with tree roots, wires and barbed wires, and a few big rocks for an hour to free a stove and two large fire extinguishers. Like really large ones, a bit more than a meter tall. The most complete one had nearly all the red paint left. I found some radio parts, more bottles, some pages of a book had survived and I found a miniature vice that I think I need to restore. Because of the barbed wire it became difficult to dig, and I kinda tunneled a little underneath some wires and managed in the process to stab a thin sliver of glass into my palm. Not very pleasant. After a while it became apparent that further digging would be impossible without adding a new tool to the arsenal. Strands of the heavy duty barbed wire is blocking me from reaching more of the good stuff. The rest of the pit as well has a light to medium spiderwebbing of the stuff. I had attached myself with cloth and skin to it for an hour trying to find a way around it when I sat down for a rest. I found the phone and looked at wire- and bolt cutters while I ate. 
After lunch I searched the surrounding area and found a couple of places with signals all over. Large stone set rectangles told of barracks, so I did some probing and it is definately worth spending a few days searching there. I picked up a few coins, k98 rounds, 9mm rounds, toothpaste tubes, food containers and a key. Two rather large car window frames also took a while to get loose from the forest floor.
During the day it had come a drop or two of rain, but now a steady but soft drizzle began. It soon grew in intensity and suddenly the rivers the weather guy had promised arrived. I hastily gathered my belongings and jogged to the car. 
Today I went to one of the camps I hadn`t been in since summer. I wanted to see if the hunters were still around or if it was safe to do some strolling there. There were no cars on the parking lot so I went in searching. I really had no luck though. After five hours walking in the wet terrain getting eaten by blackflies and gnats I called it quits. I had found a shovel, a handfull of Finnish 9mm ammo, two K98 rounds, a 7.5 cm casing and some kind of thick lid. It was not comfortable using the stabbed hand so I might consider a few days rest to let that heal while waiting for the bolt cutter I ordered when I got home yesterday.
Winter also seems to be approaching more firmly from next week if to believe the weather people. Several nights with temps below zero celsius is bad news, coz that quickly turns the ground into concrete..
Have a nice time and before you know it I am back in the woods hunting for rust again :)