Three Heer Buckles in a Row

Last week my shovel didn`t taste soil even once. I was far too busy with work and with travelling to buy a "new" car.

My old Digger Van was about to die so I needed something driveable rather quickly. I found a nice looking VW T5 online, and travelled half the country to have a closer look at it. I liked it, bought it, and drove it the nearly 1100 km back home. When the nights gets cold we are going to convert it to a mini camper/ mobile digger home.

One interesting thing I noticed while driving was the amount of insects crashing into the windshield, it was covered, and smeared over the whole front of the car too. For several seasons there have been quite little insects, but they seems to be having a great season this year.

This week was a bit calmer and I got several trips out to the woods.

My friend Baard arrived to his summer paradise and together we put in two seven hour long shifts metal detecting.

We wanted to continue on the interesting site we found last season and spent the first day checking signals in the once busy Wehrmacht camp.

Baard opened the rust-fest by digging out a pile of 9mm ammo and a decent coin spill. I was still familiarizing myself with the Nokta Legend and dug lots of rifle casings and some horse related bits, and one of the smallest horseshoes I have ever found, probably worn by a tiny mule.

I got some signals around a birch and had to cut away some roots to get to the source. A few large nails first, but the next item was good. A steel Heer buckle. In pretty good condition. Moments later I found a second, in similar state.

Baard expressed his hate, and went on to dig out a nice unfinished trench-art project. A German coin in the process of being turned into a ring.

I dug up a small patch that held a couple of coins and a handfull of gaming pieces, before I found back to a small dumping ditch I hadn`t finished last year.

Here I dug out a porcelain lighter, a fishing lure, a göffel and a third belt buckle. In the very end of the ditch was a enamelled bowl belonging to a field kitchen.

Before we ended the day Baard uncovered a large cast iron stove buried in sand, and I found a small coin spill and a second aluminum göffel.

Mauser rounds.

The tiny horseshoe.

A nice view.

The first belt buckle coming out of the ground.

The second buckle, also in nice condition.

The abandoned ring project Baard found.

Gaming pieces.

A Norwegian coin.

Piece of battery with some interesting markings.

Another Norwegian coin.

A small coinspill. German and Norwegian coins.

The second göffel.

A smashed binocular.

The three buckles.

On our next trip out we were not lucky with the weather at all. Even before throwing the backpack down in the basecamp we were soaked. Inside my boots deciliters of water were sloshing around, and the cloth were just sticking to the skin. Terrible.

The finds were worse. Rifle casings, most often rotted steel casings, and food tins. We searched a spot for a while where we had a tiny bit more luck, finding uniform buttons and coins. There a silver topped salt shaker also came out of the soggy mud.

We sat down for a moment to have a coffee and some food, and incredibly the rain stopped and the sun peeked out between a couple of clouds, Its rays tried to dry us up a little, bringing with it a welcome boost of morale.

Seconds later the insects realized this new situation and large clouds of them manifested above our heads, taking their aims at any visible skin we had. I actually praised the rain that began pouring again minutes later.

For many hours more we kept searching, but didn`t have any luck with the finds. While Baard dug out a dumping pit filled mainly with bottle caps and a few perfume bottles I found the top of a mess kit, a crushed chandelier and a large gas tank.

Crossing fingers for better luck at our next attempt.

In this camp the germans had prepared shelters by the foot of the mountain.

Baard found this neat little sign.

Salt shaker with a little silver.

I hope there will be some engravings on this mess kit lid.

Part of the smashed chandelier.

The gas tank.

Baard opening up a dumping pit.

Today me and the GirlfriendWife woke up to sun and not a cloud on the sky, the weather we were supposed to have yesterday, which were cloudy. The weather reporting service will get a mail about this mix up. But it was the last day of the weekend so we just had to follow our plan and get ready for a long day walking to a mountain.

She was going to put up an insect trap for her science project, and I would try to locate the small Wehrmacht camp that should be on the same site.

Already a few minutes into the climb I deeply regretted having not brought the sun block. Very soon my pale nordic skin would become red and painful. Nice. GirlfriendWife should have done a better job nagging me about that sun block beforehand.. But, it is always to late to turn back so I muttered something about bathing in aloe vera later and put one foot in front of the other.

After a long walk we finally reached the area and could drop our backpacks and relax a little in a beautiful place, and when the sights had been enjoyed we went to work.

It didn`t take long before I had found the first signs after german activity. A patch with several pick axes, shovels and horseshoes scattered around. I wanted to find where the soldiers had their quarters and that took some more time, but in the end I think I localized it.

There were some stoves sticking out of the ground and some typical soldier garbage here and there. Creamtubes, food tins, a key and a field made dinner plate hammered out of a piece of steel. Nothing exciting, but it was nice to finally find the place.

Before having to leave I walked in a loop across the area and spotted a panzerhandlampe between some rocks, accumulators rusting away in a stream and next to a small marsh I found a gasmask and its canister.

We will be back there soon to feed the bloodsuckers again, and perhaps find something more interesting.

Thanks for reading. Keep Smiling ;)

First find was a huge shovel.

The hammer had some interesting markings.

Lots of barbed wire.

Some relics laying on the surface.

A fieldmade dinner plate. I thought frying pan first, but its rather thin metal and no handle.

A strange place to find bike parts.

First I found the canister. A meter away from it I dug up the gas mask.

The mask was in very nice condition.

Here is hoping that no one is laying half way into the water up stream.

Paradise.