On Friday the cold knocked my car battery out flat, but then the weather flipped over to mild again. On Saturday the temperature was higher than we had in most of June, a whopping +9 Celsius, adding a little rain to that and it was enough to thaw the ground again making a little digging trip today possible. I got up early enough to make use of the 5-6 hours of dusk we have now. What is called the "Mørketid" (dark time/period) has begun and we do not really have any daylight, and the few hours of dusk we have grow shorter every day. We won`t get to see the sun again before the end of January. It is like a looong evening, but it is kinda cozy, So around 09.30 it was "light" enough to do some searching and I had found my way to the slope next to the Heer camp. I continued where I left last week and again I tried to dig every signal. The pile of rubbish metal grew rapidly as it seemed to be far between any good finds today. The few things that found their way into my pocket were some k98 casings, a few signal flare casings and a part belonging to a karbid lamp spares box. It is a part that held a few extra glass covers and the blinders for the lamp. It`ll be interesting to see if those are present when I`ve cleaned up the part. I found a coat hanger made from a thin wire, a soup ladle, a spoon and a gasmask filter. Next to the filter was another iron signal which I just had to dig, probably another bolt I thought, but then I saw that I was cleaning soil from the handle of a bayonet. That was really great! I freed it from the ground and it looks to be in very nice shape. I can`t wait to clean it up! For a few meters I dug nothing but wire bits, and a few more rifle casings, plus the bottom of a tunnell lantern, before another rather bad signal turned out to be a great little find, a heart shaped cookie form, just a perfect find now as we enter the month of Christmas, and of course I had to send the photo of it to the Girlfriend who was at work :D Now a few hours had already passed and it got darker fast. The next few signals I dug it began being difficult to see what it was I was uncovering, but I found the blade from a knife, a mystery part, a Finnish Lahti-Saloranta m/26 machinegun magazine and the very last signal was a smashed flat canteen, which will be a perfect base for one of my miniature diorama projects:) 
It looks like there might be a few hours out there again tomorrow so I am still not calling the season over:)
Enjoy your day :)

Last evening it began snowing,but miraculously the temperatures stayed above zero degree Celsius, and that gave me hope that the season still wasn`t over. When I got up this morning the outsides was covered in a fine layer of the white but I knew that in the forest it would be less so I got into my digging gear and shouted an "adieu" to the Girlfriend before I ran out to the car and headed to the Heer camp I had found earlier in the week. 
The first hour before I had gotten really warm it was freezing, my fingers felt like they were about to fall off, but I kept digging signals and moving around and soon enough I couldn`t feel the cold anymore. I kept at it in a quite steep slope just below the area the camp had been situated and it looks like also here, as in many other places, the camp had just been bulldozed off the edge when it was cleared some time after the war. There is an incredible amount of metals here and barely half meter between the signals. 99% of them is rubbish though, twisted and unrecognisable bits of rust, food tins of all sorts, wires, nails, horseshoes and buckets, but inbetween all this there is the odd find worth saving. Today the pile of good finds wasn`t very big but I picked with me a handfull of uniform buttons, a big piece of an RSO sprocket, a leather k98 ammo pouch, a single leather mitten and a hobnailed boot. The best find was a very nice looking K98 bayonet, and the very last signal I dug just as dusk fell was a M39 egg handgrenade. Sadly this one was still live so I dug the hole a bit deeper,put the M39 back into the ground before filling it back, so it is safely laying there until its thin metal body is rusted away.
Remember, the snow and the cold is all in your mind..I am going back out there again one of the next days, I won`t stop until the ground is rock solid and I ll need flames to get under the soil :D
Have a great weekend :)

M39 Egg, the last find of the day:)

Even though we had some frost and snow in the start of November it has been an unusually mild month, and I bet many relic hunters in the Northern hemisphere didn`t mind that one bit. I for one couldn`t be happier with these extra days of searching. The last week I ve been using the daylight hours as good as possible. I have walked lots of kilometers and dug a whole bunch of signals, and carried home many kilos of rusted treasures, all while being wet, tired and cold, which was kind of lovely. I have searched the vehicle collection point and found a few more vehicle bits and a few other things, and I have made a few sweeps with the detector on two new locations, a Heer camp and a Russian POW camp. These two last places will be the first ones I`ll visit come spring, some time in the oh so distant future.
In the forest with the vehicle bits I found a few smaller car parts, a few rifle cleaning kits, some tools, a sad looking Notek lamp and lots of other rubbish. Two interesting finds from there was a MP38/40 magazine in great condition and some kind of painters/chemical worker gasmask.
In the Heer camp I did not have much luck until the last half hour before darkness fell, when I found the interesting part of the camp area where all the relics apparently are growing. On the surface I could see several barrack ovens, barrells, rusted fuels cans and barbed wire.  In that patch of the forest I found a few M24 potatomashers screwcaps, K98 rounds, a rotted gasmask, a 10.5 cm LiG (Leichte Infanterie Geschutz) casing and a large curved Madsen machine gun magazine. This will be a very interesting place to search thoroughly next season.
On the site of the POW camp I first went with the landowner to check one of the old buildings on the farm and on the loft there we found some unused German cavalry straps with nice markings, a field kitchen ladle and a Colt MG ammo band made of cloth, great little finds. I serached the field for a few hours with little luck, but when I moved onto the slope on the side of the field the detector began making lots of noises. It was obvious that the camp had been cleared by bulldozing stuff off the side of the field. Here I found a German canteen cup, a losantine box, the bottom part of an orange bakelite fat container, a few axe heads, some crushed stoves, a German uniform button, a couple of wooden shoe soles, food tins, horse equipment and the lid of a trench-art cigarett case. This piece was very interesting, it had engraved a reindeer and a sun, and "Nordkapp 1944" but it also had some strange stuff engraved which I really wonder why he engraved on the lid; "26-4", "5+9", "14-8", "9" and "38km". The only things I could find that could possibly be from Russian POWs were the wooden soles and the roughly made rests of a knife handle..
At this point it really looks like King Winter is coming to stay, the temperature has dropped to below zero Celsius and the rain has turned into snow, that said I might make a very last trip out on Sunday/Monday but that really depends on how the weather develops. I am of course still hoping for a miracle and that December will be all rain and plus degrees :D
​Anyway,have a great weekend and a pleasant winter ;)

After the spectacular Notek day I couldn`t wait getting back out there to see if my luck held up, so as soon as it was light enough I went back to the site in the forest that once had been a vehicle collection point. Today I couldn`t see or hear any elgs but I saw a big white hare just a few meters in front of me when I strolled through the forest. I tried to take a pic of him but he was too quick and was gone before I knew it. And while digging Mr. Squirrel ran around collecting snacks for the winter.
At the site I continued my somewhat systematic search hoping every signal to be another Notek. At first the weather was rather nice but it gradually changed to bad, then to terrible and moved into high gear with a monsoon style rain and stong winds. It felt like water was coming from everywhere, above, the sides, from the ground and it didn`t take long before I regretted not having brought my rain poncho, but I kept at it until the lack of daylight made the woods darker and it was time to retreat.
Today I found mostly rubbish. I dug every signal and most of it was unrecognisable steel bits, bolts, smashed and rotted food tins, heavy towing wire, parts of a couple cast iron ovens and bits probably from an engine or gear housing. A few parts was intact and although I don`t know what they are for I brought them along in case anyone restoring old vehicles will need them. Around a small tree I dug out a M24 handgrenade carrying rack The tree and its roots had grown between its parts so a little bit of cutting was needed to free the rack, and that was the last I saw of my nice and trusted foldable saw. Being greenish-brown in color it is well camoflaged and I didn`t notice before two hours later that it was missing so I had no chance to find back to it, prehaps I am lucky next time I am here.
I found several battery cells and a few smashed up car batteries, and one find surprised me, a toothbrush, the only personal effect I ve found in this site. I found the bottom part of a vehicle rifle rack with the leather padding intact, two license plate holders, one rectangular and one triangular, but no sign of the plates themselves. I did find a small white plate with a red outline and prehaps some text under the rust, which will be interesting to clean up. Just before deciding to call it quits I had this massive signal that I had to free from the moss and soil. As soon as I could see what it was I went "Oh nooo,whyyyyy, my car is sooo far away and it is difficult forest between here and it.." But I knew I had to bring it home as it is too cool to leave behind. It was the top of a 200 litre fuel barrell, marked "Feuergefarlich Kraftstoff 200l Heer 1941". It weighs a ton of course and it was pure hell dragging it out of the forest but I managed and after giving it a quick clean I am very happy I did because it was a bit special having a "1" stenciled on it in white paint.
Now I ve hung myself to dry and will do other stuff for a few days as the weather will be nastier than today, but it seems next week hold promises of better conditions and I have a new interesting permission I might visit, a Russian POW camp with several barracks including a guards barrack :)
Until then, Enjoy the weekend :)

After two weeks of winter, snow and sub zero degrees I was sure the digging season was well over, but suddenly the weather changed. A few days of heavy rain and plus degrees removed all the snow and thawed away the ground frost allowing me to get back out to the forests!! Full of joy and fresh brewed coffee I jumped into the van and took off towards a site I wanted to continue searching. The days are really short now here north so there wasn`t much time to loose. I turned on the Fisher and began my little trek through the relatively thick birch forest towards a clearing further in. This place had been a collection point for vehicles after the war and it is signals everywhere so after a while I just gave up getting up on my feet after checking a signal, I could just walk on my knees and crawl between the spots needing to be dug.
On my way through the forest I saw tracks from a few elgs and most of the day I could hear them behind the tree line a few hundred meters away, I really hoped they wouldn`t come over my way and luckily they stayed between the trees and left me alone.
 I tried to dig every signal so in the end I had built quite a pile of rubbish, but a decent pile to bring back home as well. The first find was a lug wrench and then part of a lamp and a OVT clasp. I dug out a dinged up Notek lamp, it wasn`t too damaged so I was quite happy with that find. Then I found a hood panel from a vehicle, and another large unknown to me vehicle part. Next to a shovel I found a rear Notek light part and I hoped to find the rest of it but instead I found the bottom part for the first Notek. The next signal was another vehicle panel of some sort and then I found a holder for a small variant of a vehicle fire extinguisher, which I actually found one example of here earlier this season. Then I went on to search through a long ditch where it was very much rubbish but also the best finds of today spread out through it. When I filled it back and began preparing to go back home because of lack of daylight left I had dug up two more complete Notek lamps, and these two looks like they might clean up nicely, and I also had a small vehicle flag frame!! 
The weather report isn`t very promising but as long as it is possible I ll do my best to get out doing some more digging before the real winter kicks in :)