Last night King Winter said a brief `Hello`. It is always a little shock when looking out the window in the morning and seeing the first frost of the autumn covering everything. It is really beautiful though. All the autumn colors and the white cover that is sparkling in the morning rays, truly spectacular. The sky was all blue and the sun warmed a bit, melting the frost rapidly. Soon after the morning coffee we went looking for treasures and berries in the forest with the vehicle workshop. We found the dumping pit I started before the weekend and I continued digging there while Girlfriend strolled around to get an overview of the area and try find some good berry spots.
Almost immediately I had a nice find in my hand. A cloth chevron in really good condition. The black cloth triangle had the silver/aluminum tress sewn on, which had gotten a hint of green color from some copper wire that laid next to it. I think the chevron is either for a WH Panzer Obergefreiter, or a SS Rottenführer, either way a very nice find :) I found some remains of a book, a metal plate with a paper label with French writings on and a bakelite box full of safety pins for ZZ35 igniters. A smashed field radio took some time to get loose from the ground and in the process I found three intact radio tubes and several destroyed ones. Then I uncovered the tip of a boot, dug it out, and got a funny surprise. A pair of German ancle boots had been cut down into a comfy pair of slippers, now thats an unusual find :) When I removed some soil I got all excited. I saw a dog-tag, and then another, and a whole bunch of them!! Three seasons ago was last time I found a dog-tag, and have wanted to find more ever since. Now I had 16 of them, and of course they were all blank and unissued. I should have been more specific when I wished for finding tags :D
​ I dug up a couple of lighters, two were rusted but a third were made from finer metal and had survived far better. A Luftwaffe marked teaspoon was a first for me. I have never found aluminum teaspoons marked with the eagles before. Sadly this one had rotted in the middle and broke in two. Three small ampoules with something inside was also something I have never seen before. They were a little bit bigger than matches, made of brown glass and filled with a dark fluid thicker than water. A little mystery. One of the last finds today was a small hand held wire spool. We had other things we should have done today so it was time to end the digging fun. The Girlfriend had no luck finding berries, but had located several possible dumping ditches which we ll check out sometime soon.
Have a great week :)

The rain was still pouring down when I got up. My clothes and boots were still wet, but I just had to get it all back on and go finish digging the dumping pit. It was not very pleasant stepping into the cold and dripping forest in my already soaked gear but a few minutes into the digging I got warm and happy again. After some wrestling with big bits of iron and rocks I finally had the last of the rims dug out and moved to the surface, or so I thought. I soon discovered at least one more under a huge rock in the corner of the pit. I wasn`t able to move it an inch so I left it there. At least I know where it is should I ever need it :D I wonder if the rims could be for an RSO (Raupenschlepper Ost). Other than the rims I found four pairs of soldier boots, a enamel cup, a dinner knife with Heer markings, some broken car pennant frames, a few vehicle parts and a strange steel ball with a wooden core, holes on each "pole".
 I strolled around for a bit picking up signals and the area had to be the camps workshop. It was full of bolts, nuts, spark plugs and such rubbish. These low quality signals were all over the place so I moved towards the main camp area, looking for more dumping pits.
In a blown out "cellar" or bunker in the hillside I got lucky. Lots of signals, metal poking out, rolls of barbed wire, bottles and food tins strewn around. I opened up a little spot in one of the sides and had a small painted sign in my hand all of the sudden. In poor condition but it had a pointy end, white and blue with a red "T". Some digging later I started wondering if this had been a radio bunker. I was digging up lots of radio related bits, radio tubes, batteries, wires and cables, plugs and pieces of headphones and mics. I also found the front panel of a reciever or sender, lots of papers with some text visible, like a signallers log scheme. It looked to be in nice condition but crumbled and "melted" when touching it. I dug up two buttons, a standard uniform button and what I think is a WW1 Reichsmarine button. I made a few more cuts with the shovel and found a very nice box for the Druckzunder 35 and a fire extinguisher. One of the last things I picked out from the mud was a great little gem. Gustav Barthels "Little Wonder Torch", a miniature alcohol torch. Its handles had broken off but easy to replace should one want :)
​ I am hoping for better weather soon so it ll be a little more comfortable being outside because this dumping place is very interesting and I cant wait to get back here.
At home I hung all the gear for drying, cleaned myself and then the house. Hehe, it took me half an hour to carry all the war junk I had piled in the hallway downstairs to my work station, but now it is all clean and nice and the Girlfriend can return, any minute now I guess so I better start preparing her some good dinner:)
Have a nice weekend, enjoy it the best way possible :)

The Girlfriend is doing the last week of her fieldwork and will be back home this week so I have been busy out in the woods digging up rusted relics to impress her with.  The floors have been dragged full of sand, vegetation, mud and rust so I have a big job cleaning the house before she returns tomorrow evening, if not there is a chance she will be less impressed. And knowing myself, I will probably go searching tomorrow, leaving me with only a few hours left for panic-cleaning :D
I have been doing quite a lot of walking and digging the last week, mainly in a large Heer camp, but didn`t find huge amounts of relics. Most of the time it has been raining but there were some moments with partly blue sky and a warming autumn sun. One of the days I found a ditch along the top of a slope. It had some really promising signals so I had no other choice than to get sweaty, well, if it hadn`t been just easy sandy soil I would have dug on me some heat. I like such easy digging conditions, sandy soil often it preserves relics well too. The reason for the signal was the top of a large parafin lamp, nice blue lacquered steel. Next to it was two gasmask containers, one had the lid open, but the mask looks to be ok, the other one was closed but also have the mask by the feel of it. Other than that the ditch held some cream tubes, bottles and food tins.
After searching in the slope where I could only find stove parts and rubbish I was back to the top of the slope and got a very good signal almost immediately. Ca 20 centimeters down I had contact with metal. I suspected it to be a fire extinguisher, as I have found many of those the last seasons and my fingers seems to have memorized the extinguishers configurations quite well. The soil was so loose that I could just pull the item out and it was an extinguisher. Mounted in the bracket, and in an amazing condition! The text and logo was all super clear and clean. Probably one of the best preserved items I have ever found. Having it on the surface I scooped around in the sand with my hand and suddenly had hold on another one! This one too in great condition and in the bracket! Both the brackets had some small damages but I am so pleased with this find. Now I spent some hours searching the rest of the edge of the slope but the luck had ran out.
Another day I spent some time in another part of the forest and found a rather big dump. I did a little probing and it is very possible it is good stuff there. It is a lot of metal, barrels, fuel cans, food tins and barbed wire, lots of wire. I didn`t do any digging there, I only pulled out a German leather boot and realized I will need a good wire cutter that can eat through the barbed wires so I can access the other stuff, whatever it is. Later on the day I wandered into a huge patch of raspberry bushes and swapped the detector for a bag. When I had filled it with the sweet red berries I went home to make jam.
Today the weather looked like it was going to be decent enough for digging so I went out quite early. I followed another path in the forest this time, and found the remains of two or three buildings and searched around them for a while. It was plenty of "building shrapnel" but I did pick up a small ashtray of the souvenir kind. It had a viking ship and "Norge" engraved on it. Too much rubble and roots made it difficult to dig there so I grabbed my backpack and went strolling again. Not long after I saw a metal pipe sticking out of the ground. It has some strong signals around so I was back to digging. After a little while it had become clear that this was a massive dumping pit. Filled with oven parts, pipes, tubes, vehicle parts, wagon parts and rocks. Big rocks. It was a real heavy day. After a while it began raining hard too, not the fine drizzle that had come from time to time. Oh,no, this was big heavy angry-rain. The nice rich soil quickly turned into mud and I was soaked to the skin. The water pooled in some of the relics I had brought to the surface. After several hours of that joy I had to stop. I had no more space in my backpack and I was getting quite tired and hungry. I had placed in the "bring home pile" two krafstoff barrell tops, a car jack, a lug wrench, window glass for a car,a porcelain cup, a bakelite box, a vehicle horn, some other vehicle parts and four nice Notek lamps!!   
I made it home safely and everything is hung up to dry, and there is mud everywhere, man, how will this go, and I have one-third left of the pit to dig, so it ll be a busy day for me tomorrow. Its gonna be wet too looking at the weather report :)

Snow is covering the mountain tops and it is wet days here in the valley. Yesterday it was raining so much, and the weather report promised that we could expect similar today. After the morning coffee I peeked out the window again and I didn`t see much rain at all. I had a few errands to run but after that had been done I drove to the forest. The dumping pit from last trip was todays primary objective. It had of course been constantly on my mind since I left it.
When I reached it I searched around it and picked up a couple of Finnish coins and more of those brackets, which I now know what are. It is the rubber pads on halftrack/RSO tracks, just minus the rubber, that could have been burnt away or cut off for recycling at some point.
In the pit I began by removing the loose stuff from previous visit, making sure to have a good look through it not to miss anything. A difficult task when the soil is wet and sticky. When that was done I started searching through the un-dug part of the pit. I pulled out a food tin and my jaw dropped! I laughed out loud and could not believe my eyes! I couldn`t tell which of the variants but I was looking at a Nordfront- or Lapplandfront Cross sticking out from the soil! The two last seasons I have found two of these awards, with a year and a day apart, now this one some twenty days early. What a trip :D I freed the badge from the soil and noticed the enamel had a little damage and that the front plate was missing. That sucked, and it would be difficult to find the small flat part in this mud,  but I was so excited by the find anyway. Then I looked down and saw the part laying there! It must have come out together with the food tin. Now I was even happier. I placed it in a safe spot and got back to searching.
The hours went by and I had dug through the pit. I had dug up a lot of the track link brackets, a lot of food tins, some small bottles but only one large bottle this time, toothpaste tubes and a few padlocks. I also found a knife, an axe, a field torch, some rifle ammo and several medical ampoules, all empty.
Having backfilled the dumping pit and stretched my back I searched around for a while. First find was a pick axe with "73" engraved on the side, then a pair of medical scissors and a pair of ski goggles.  Then I moved towards the car and alternated searching and picking blueberries. It is probably the last of the blue gold that will be picked this season, but next week we can begin picking the red and delicious lingonberry.
The last signal I dug today was another pretty good find, a German fire extinguisher for a vehicle, and the holder for it.
As I was driving home the rain came pouring down. Hopefully it won`t last too long. 
After dinner I gave the badge a light cleaning and it is a Lapplandfrontkreuz variant I did not already have. It came in 12 variants and the three I have found are different from each other. 
​Happy days my friends. Enjoy autumn as best as you can :)

Autumn is beginning to show her face around here now. The evenings have become dark again. The morning air is crisper. The wind is carrying needles and the green hills are now dotted with yellow. The forest floor is deep green and flaming red and is filled with berries. I have a feeling this season will be shorter than last years`..
We strolled into the woods which was now fairly dry after having been showered well the last days. Our mission was as it often is when we visit this forest, berries, mushrooms and treasures. We hadn`t been here since october last year so I was excited when turning on the metal detector. Girlfriend was picking berries and I checked some signals given by the detector. When I was digging up a rusted can she nodded to the ground next to where she was standing, "Did you see this?" she asked. I had not seen it. She had found some large bits of metal poking out from under the moss. It was a pair of large steel spring suspensions together with several brackets. The best thing though was a large jack for a German vehicle . It is of course rusted but I think this one easily can get new life. It`ll be a perfect jack to have in my VW T4.
Around some small birch trees were a lot of different signals. Just a few meters away from where I had found lots of coins and such on our previous trip here. I took away the top layer of moss and let the pin pointer guide me. It pointed me to coin after coin. Uniform buttons, a K98 muzzle cover, and lots of 7.92 rifle ammo that had exploded in a fire. Between those I found several bullets as well, but a couple of the bullets drew extra attention. They were obviously "B-patronen" that had a small explosive charge, and it had also exploded, tearing the bullets open. I spent an hour crawling around the birches before Girlfriend returned with 6 liter of Crowberries wanting a tea break. That suited me fine so we enjoyed a break sitting on a carpet of moss, enjoying life, listening to the forest and were lucky enough and got a little entertainment from a squirrel too.
I had a small section left around the birch trees with still some signals so I removed the moss and picked out a few more of the exploded casings before luck really struck. I found a ring! The face of the ring was a brass shield with the Finnish lion, and it was attached to a brass band. A really great little find I am very happy with. Not long after I got another great find. I had uncovered a small decorated square, it was attached to another square with two metal rings. I thought it could be one of those Lapplandfront medals so it got my pulse up a little. I dug more of the item free and then I saw it was a bracelet made up of several of these square links. One of the squares was decorated with a polar bear, another had a reindeer with a sled and a third had a viking ship and the ones between those had some flower decoration. This was also one of those finds that will find its way to the display cabinet.
We moved a bit further into the forest and kept at if for several hours more. I didn`t find much though. I stumbled upon a little pile of rifle ammo, some oven parts, another coin (again a Finnish one) and the strangest find of the day, a musical note sheet stand. In a pit, under a lot of rocks I found a brass plate, with two holes on the top. I don`t know for what it could have been but my first thought was a gong for the kitchen. Something to call the troops to dinner with..prehaps..
Girlfriend had filled two enormous bags with berries, and discovered a couple of dumping pits for me. But it was getting late and we had a big job ahead cleaning berries so we loaded up our findings and tumbled our way through the forest back to the car.
It had almost been midnight before we had finished cleaning the berries so it was a late start this morning. Girlfriend had to work but I wanted to do some more searching. It was a very light rain but it had been pouring down all night, so the minute after I stepped into the forest I was soaked. I opened up two small dumping pits. One had only garbage, but the other one had two or three non-garbage items. Three field torches, but one of them was broken,a Scho-Ka-Kola tin and a beautiful candle holder made from a signal flare! Trench-art, that is like relic-gold. Always a one-of-a-kind, so personal and it is like touching the history :D I am a huge fan of such soldier art. 
It took a little while but I found back to yesterdays dumping pit and began searching around the first one. It was a lot of signals and apparently it could be anything. The first two signals I dug there was a nail and a coin. Then I found several brackets of some kind, and a few more coins. All the coins but one were Finnish. The odd one out was a Norwegian from 1940. I opened up one of the corners in the dumping pit and that was a bit of a struggle. A strong network of roots, then rocks and roots before more roots, but below that was a good layer of relics. I pulled out food tins, medical ampoules, coins (again with the Finnish ones!!) buttons, and more of those brackets. A few perfume bottles, a leather EKM pouch and two handgrenades. A M39 egg, and a M24. The egg was empty but the M24 had the sprengkapsel in place so I dug it down rather deep.
It was already getting close to dinnertime and the rain began its pouring again so I thought it was best to head home. But that dumping pit will be on my mind till the rain stops and I can get back to it. Just too bad it is supposed to rain a whole lot for several days now.

Early Monday morning when the forest opened up for business I was there, ready for my shift. I had brought lunch and some coffee as I probably would spend the entire day there. My plan was to finally complete the dumping pit.  It did not look like it was much of a job left but it took me until lunchtime to do. Other than food tins and bottles, the rests of a burnt up Volksempfanger radio, I also dug up a Finnish coin, an intact medical ampoule, a handfull of wrenches and a porcelain coffee mug. It was no markings on the mug, but it was intact and it might become my new go-to coffee cup.  After checking for more signals, probing a bit for glass, bakelite or porcelain it was clear that the pit was empty. I checked all the edges and the area around. I only picked up a few buttons and stripper clips. I made sure the place looked ok, and took a coffee break, hoping there would be some squirrel action.
The day was still relatively young so I began checking the forest for signals. I soon had a few meter long zig-zag ditch, it could almost look like a trench line, in front of me. It had some signals so I began digging. 40-50 cm down it became clear it was a ditch used to throw things in at some point. A bunch of rifle ammo in their stripper clips came out of the ditch first. Clip after clip till it became a little pile. Then a fishing lure and a pair of coins, Finnish ones again. A coin purse followed, together with a field torch. I have found many of those torches the last weeks. Then when I was digging away some soil with my hand I felt something rubbery and carefully dug free something that reminds of a gas mask but it is not. It is made of leather, with rubber inside connected to the hose with the air valve, like one is supposed to be able to inflate it somehow. If I saw it online with no context I would say "fetish-mask" but I do not think the Wehrmacht back then was that open minded.. :D So if anyone knows what the mask is please let me know :)
Scraping away at the soil some porcelain appeared. I scraped away carefully and the porcelain grew bigger, and bigger. I realized it had to be a large serving bowl. But would it be intact, and have markings? This was very exciting so I took it easy. But when I removed some sand from above the bowl a metal thing fell down. I managed to ninja-grab it before it hit the porcelain. And then I looked at the thing. It was a trench-art box!! Wow! I placed it in the relic pile and went back to the porcelain. I dug it free and saw when I reached the foot of it that it was in two pieces. That sucked a bit, but on the other hand it looked to be a nice clean break so it would be an easy fix. The best thing was the markings. The eagle and under it " O.T" - Organization Todt. An amazing find! Having the porcelain safely put aside I continued the ditch ca a meter more with only minor finds. Now a rusted barrell "blocked" the ditch and I realized it had become late and decided to deal with the barrell after a good nights rest.
I did not waste the morning dew today. I wanted porcelain hunting. Did the morning routine in record time and was in the forest before the squirrels. The barrell got dug free and removed and I continued to mole my way through the ditch. Bottles, bottles, and even more bottles. So many that I began to hope for broken ones just to mix it up a little. Very little metal at all. Meter after meter till the ditch was done. A champagne bottle still had its labels intact so that was a keeper. Parts of a helmet liner, toothbrushes, a bakelite bottle, a pair of sunglasses and a set of keys was basically it. Oh, and a thimble. A nice one, with a red band and Greek letters around the edge. Interesting to find two Greek items (the coin from last dig) here North.
It was still a couple of hours until dinner time so I walked around picking signals and trying to find another dumping place. Under the signal of a small Finnish coin was the rests of a burn pit. Lots of ashes, melted and broken glass but on the edge of it was two wooden bowls. One was broken into several pieces but the smaller one was in very good condition.

Back at home the porcelain bowl has been cleaned and glued together. It looks really great. I am very happy with that find. Im going back to that place soon after a little bit of rest and Im hoping there will be some more nice bits there :)
​ 

Im just back home after another 7-8 hour shift in the dumping pit. I will feel this tomorrow. Moved a ton of soil and hardly had any breaks. I had a good few minutes break a few hours into the dig. Some racket from the trees above me got my attention. It was two squirrels parkouring like tiny furry marvel heroes from tree to tree. Always a real joy observing such shows. When I couldn`t see them any longer I continued badgering away. This section of the dump was from the bottom almost to the top just ashes with broken and melted glass and the occasional flakes of rust , while the top ten centimeters had some bottles, food tins and smaller items. I found several coins. Finnish ones, except a Greek coin from 1925. A handfull of gaming pieces were gathered up through the day, one of them was a blue dice. Next to a cigarette case was a white ball of thin plastic, like a ping-pong ball. Did the Germans play ping-pong?
​There were several Odol mouthwash bottles in good condition, together with some toothbrushes and cream jars, tins and tubes. A razor and a few mirrors completed the personal hygiene relic pile on the edge where I was digging.
I dug up a few shot- and schnapps glasses and two saltshakers. One of them was very nice. Small and made of blue glass with brass fittings. The white round piece of porcelain I saw showing through the sand being scraped away turned out to be a Finnish made civillian tea cup that fit good with the plate I found last time and next to it was a orange butter jar which the German soldiers had in their food kit. Most times I find one of these it is broken, but today I was lucky and got a perfect one. A small aluminum tea egg was also in good enough shape to be rescued. I dug out a primus of the kind that were issued to soldiers and a few hooks from Y-straps. Stuck under a root was a canteen, with a bakelite screwcork togehter with a dog tag pouch in some synthetic material, a couple of pocket knives and a matchbox cover with engravings on! 
As afternoon approached the piles of bottles and relics had outgrown the space in my backpack so I had to leave a tiny patch of the pit for another day. 
Back home I emptied all the finds out over the floors and instructed the kitty to hunt out any spiders that might have hitchhiked, while I took a shower and after prepared dinner. Having completed the eating I picked up the matchbox cover and gave it a scrubbing, and under the much was some fine engravings. Great Success! It had lines around the edges, "1944" on one of the sides and a reindeer on the other side. Totally worth seven hours of work :D
Have a nice evening and a good week :)

Even if the weather was wet and nasty yesterday I spent the whole day out in the dumping pit. I really only noticed the weather the first couple of minutes of digging anyway. It is so exciting searching through a dumping pit, but it can be very hard work as well. Some times one is rewarded with a great find, or several ok finds, but often one only has the joy of the hunt in return when one just spent seven hours digging through food tins, rebar and wires. This dumping pit has so far been a mix of the two first options. 
​The first find I had was a bakelite cup for a canteen, but not the usual black-brownish variant. This one was orange. I have never seen one in that color before so I was pretty pleased to be able to add it to the collection. After spending some energy on removing different electrical wires and roots I hit a porcelain deposit. I carefully dug out a tea cup and plate, a dinner plate, another tea plate and a bowl. All were Norwegian produced except for one of the tea plates which had been made in Finland, and all of them were intact. Then I found a melted lightbulb! That was such a cool find. I love melted and deformed glassware. I thought I was pulling out a food tin which there have been quite a few of in this pit, but it was a gasmask container, feels like the mask and filter is present inside it too. Next to it was a rifle cleaning kit, also full, a pair of goggles and a radio tube. Now I had tunneled towards the bottom of the pit so I needed to dig away the edges and search through them before they collapsed on me, but before I did I pulled out another piece of metal. It was actually three pieces and I saw immediately what it was. Three gorgets! One of them was of a poor aluminum alloy and completely rotted. The two others were made of thin sheet metal and not in great condition. They had painted eagles on them I could see in a few small places, so it will be very exciting to clean those in oxalic acid although I do not have great hopes..
After a short break I kept at it. Digging up a lot of bottles I was lucky enough to get one with the label intact, some French brandy. A few gaming pieces got rescued and then I found another one of what I think is a cyanide capsule. I found one last season, and here was the second one. A small brass container, with cloth sewn around it, and inside is a glass ampoule,,strange stuff really.
A M39 egg grenade found its way back up to the daylight after 80 years underground. Now it had rotted and presented no threat any longer. When it was way past dinner time I wanted to go home and rest and I was wet and hungry. I scraped away some soil and got the last finds of the day. Three bits of bakelite. A lense cover for binoculars, a small bowl and a toothbrush. The toothbrush was interesting because it had been made in Australia. I wonder how that ended up here, sometimes it would be really great if these items could talk to us and tell their story :D
I still have a little bit left of the dumping pit so maybe I ll get back there tomorrow :)
​

Sometimes time flies fast. This last week was like that. On wednesday the Girlfriend came back home from the course she had been attending, but yesterday morning she drove to Finnmark where she is doing her fieldwork. Like a snap with the fingers.  We have been busy together these days though. One of the days we went to the mountain where she harvested a lot of plants while I was crawling around with my pinpointer picking small bits of metal. A few days earlier I had dug some MG bits there and now I wanted to collect them all. During a few hours I filled a box with parts and when there was only food tins left I joined the Girlfriend who was now picking blueberries.
The rest of the weekend was spent making tea from the plants she had collected. When it had dried we weighed it to alittle more than a kilo and the tea is now curing on glass jars, and I am looking forward to have a cup when it is ready. We also launched a small raid on the strawberry field.
After she left yesterday morning I went back up to the mountain to continue the search in the Gebirgsjäger camp. I had very little luck. I brought home a handfull of k98 casings and two medical ampoules. After searching many hours I finally had a massive signal stretching for about a meter long and half meter wide. It turned out it was a dumping pit for horseshoes. Small and big, new and worn thin. Nearby I had found what probably was the camp kitchen so I wonder if these horses who had worn the shoes had become dinner for hungry troops. In the afternoon I still hadn`t found anything interesting so I enjoyed the nice weather for a while, just sitting by a tree eating blueberries I could grab from around me.
Today I decided to go to a huge dumping pit I still hadn`t finished from last season. I have gotten many good finds from it so I was pleased to see that nobody else had found it, which is kinda strange as I know of at least one other digger searching this camp. I started from where I had left off. It was just lifting away the top vegetation and begin moving sand. Very soon the first bottles, wires and food tins got removed and I could see the edge of a porcelain plate. I pulled out three plates but only one was intact. It had no German markings, just the Norwegian producers logo. The next find was a fork, and two large buckets that I spent a lot of time on getting out of the way. It was two items behind the buckets. I thought it was a speedometer at first but it is some other kind of meter which look like it could fit to a cars dashboard. The other item was made of porcelain. I moved away some sand and saw it was a coffee cup. But would it be intact, and would it have markings? Exciting. I got it loose and it was a intact Luftwaffe cup! Awesome! Last season I found a Heer cup here. I wonder if there is a SS cup in the other corner :D 
Bottles kept pouring out like it was a  glass recycling station I was digging. Mostly it was small perfume- and ink bottles with the occasional wine bottle in between. I spent another hour digging around a big mess of wires to get the bundle free and out of the way, it was really annoying but I was rewarded with two bakelite boxes. One small for powder charge for Gebirgs Geschutz and a larger for a field artillery gun. A small porcelain lighter and a roller date stamp was also rescued from time and deterioration. The date on the stamp said 22. Nov 1946. 
​I found the bottom of the section I was digging and picked up some rubbery material. Attached to its underside was a medal!! The Eastern Front medal, "the order of the frozen flesh" as it was called. It looked to be in decent condition, for sure far better than the last one I found. Some plastic foil turned out to be a car pennant when I got the sand brushed off it. Too bad it was completely destroyed, it would have been a cool thing to have in the collection. Behind a bunch of the remains of field telephone headsets was a porcelain bowl. Intact but again only Norwegian markings on it. And behind that again was a drinking glass and a few gaming pieces. 
But now it began raining. At first I just continued digging as I hoped it would just be a quick shower. It didn`t stop. It just grew stronger and wetter. It was time to fill the treasures into the backpack and get home. Seems it would have been the end today anyway because I could barely close the backpack it was so full :D 
I cleaned up the dig site so it looked nice but I think I might go back there tomorrow if the rain stops :)

On Friday the Girlfriend left for a work related course so I would have to manage by myself for almost a week. The weekend was sunny and warm so I hung up my hammock and spent two days there, reading and eating icecream, living the Life. Monday morning was a bit cloudy and wet  so it was an easy choice to make, skip all housework and go digging. 
In the last 48 hours I have been out searching for ca 19. It was a lot of walking involved. And digging a great number of signals. Very much of what I dug up was rubbish, maybe even more than usually. The terrain in the camp area is hilly and a mix of forest and marsh. To begin with I found a small stash of M24 stick grenade parts. Mostly the metal fittings for the wooden stick, but there were a few brennzunders as well. A few meters away I found the head for a grenade too, it had been emptied and looked to be well preserved, we ll see later after I give it a bath in oxalic acid. During the next ten minutes I dug up four 2 cm casings and a 7.5 cm LiG casing, all in steel but in good condition.
When I was taking a rest and some lunch I heard a dog barking nearby, and suddenly a happy Retriever came jumping out of the bushes. He had a yellow west with red cross markings and a radio. Apparently a rescue dog under training. Its handlers was calling him back, but the next hour I got "rescued" by him three more times. I suggested to the Red Cross guys that they could hire me and I`d happily roam the forests being found by the ecstatic dog.
​On top of a hill I emptied a small dumping pit. In it was a German coin, a toothpaste tube, some bottles and ampoules, and a steel Heer belt buckle. It also held some cutlery and a nice cigarette casing with the owners initials scratched in. I had noticed the forest floor was abundant with berries. Mostly blueberries and cloudberries. I picked a bag of the latter for the Girlfriend, and ate several handfulls of delicious blueberries.
After a few hours with no finds I noticed what was a pond earlier this summer had now dried out. O`Joy!! Every time I had walked past the pond I had been wondering what might be hidden under the water. Now I would know. I spent the rest of the day digging the muddy pond bottom and found several horseshoes, bolts, a tent peg, an axe and lots of rifle ammo. When I had done about half the area of the pond I had to call it quits. I was tired, all wet and very hungry. As I strolled out of the woods taking a tractor road I had never walked before I found a decomposing reindeer in the middle of it. Quite nasty and smelly.
This morning I was on my legs before 07. My muscles and joints were aching, so to punish them for whining I decided to take them out for more digging, maybe that will teach them! Half hour later I parked the car, and the second I slammed the door shut my head was swarmed by gnats. Those agressive little beasts was in my ears nose, mouth and eyes. It was something else I tell you! They should use these bugs for interrogation or torture! From a pocket in the backpack I yanked a seldom used mosquito netting to wear over the head. I am so happy I had that, or else there would not have been any expedition today.
​ I found my way to the pond and continued the searching there. A few hours later I was done. I had only found crap. A few large files, lots of horseshoes, more ammo, a bent tent peg and parts of a horse drawn wagon. None of the helmets, guns and dog-tags I had dreamed would be there.
​Now I strolled into the area where several barracks and huts had stood. The foundations of them is clearly visible and here and there ovens are still laying around. Of course the amount of signals increased in this area but much were low quality signals, like nails and wires and the occasional red plastic excersise ammo, and food tins, oh, the food tins... The Fisher gave happy noises when I sweeped it over a small ditch and it was ten 7.5 cm casings. I have found a lot of those this season. I need to figure out something cool to make with them. Another ditch also had a good signal but that find went right into the mystery-part category. First I thought that I was digging up a rubber coat, but when I finally had it on the surface it was several bags. I have no idea what they was used for, what nationality or if its war or post-war. Hopefully some of you readers will be familiar with them and let me know. The next signal was 25 rounds for the Mauser rifle and next to a dug-out I found a Panzerfaust Klein tube!! That was really a nice find for me, and I can`t wait to clean it up to see if colors have survived. 
A few garbage finds later I began digging a hole filled with rocks. Really difficult work but the signal was too good to be ignored. Half hour digging payed off. I pulled up a grease box and a MG oil can! Except a small hole in the can it was in great condition and will display wonderfully.
Just centimeters under the moss I excavated a live 7.5 cm grenade, took a pic, covered it back and GPS marked the location. It is far away from where people usually roam but maybe the EOD will want to play with it.
The day had passed rather fast and I was on the move towards the car when I came across a spot with a lot of signals, so much that it ll take several trips. I spent an hour and half picking up a lot of small MG parts, and maybe some K98 parts and also a shovel a pick axe and three detonators, Sprengkapsel No.8, used for grenades.
It has been two great days out in the nature, and the mosquito netting made it bearable. But everytime I removed the netting to drink or eat the gnat bastards did their thing and when I got back home I could count 36 bites in my face. It is itchy and my face is as swollen as it hasn`t been since my boxing days :D
Well, the Girlfriend will be back tomorrow so there will be a few days till next dig. But I will try lure her with me out under the guise of berry picking ;)

Until next time, keep smiling and keep free from bug bites.
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