Lone Dig 12/05/99 Sunday Dec. 5th I awoke to the pitter patter of rain on the roof over my head. As I lay there in bed contemplating the sound I
realized what day it was. It was Sunday and me and Rick were supposed to be digging with Justin O'brien today, oh no! I got up and went upstairs, fired up my computer and checked my e-mail, no e-mail yet, then
the phone rang. It was Justin and he was pumped up and ready to go stating that it was hardly sprinking at his house at the moment. Well I'm game so I told him that I would get the gear around and head into Ricks and
that if the rain didn't get any worse we would dig anyway if it was ok with his mom. I grabbed the gear and off I went. When I arrived at Ricks house the light drizzle had settled into a rather steady
rain. It was cold outside around 40degrees I guessed as I went up to knock on Ricks door. Rick answered the door and he was all dressed up. "Where are you going?" I asked him as I stood in the rain with my the
drops pounding on my raincoats hood! "I'm going to Fort Wayne Christmas shopping, it's raining out!" Wow what a bummer. It was raining too hard to ask Justins mom if he could dig so I took the probe and wondered
around Ricks yard trying to probe his privy which we had been unable to locate till he left. Before he left I remembered that the day before when we had been out testing our new probes that I had just had made that I
had probed a likely spot in my brother Jr.s yard which was right next to Ricks. Jr. was in Michigan and wouldn't be back till late tonight so I couldn't ask for permission. Oh well I figured I'll just do a little test
hole he'll never know I was there! I went over to the spot where we had been probing but I only probed lightly as when probing the day before I had felt a bottle crunch under the steel point of my probe at about the
three foot point! I also had probed a shallower pit right in front of this one. That's the one that I decided to do the test hole on. I went to the truck and gathered up my tarp, digging tool and shovels and
headed into Jr.s backyard to start digging. By this time the rain was beating down on my hood rather steadily but I wasn't about to wait a whole other week to dig. After about a half hour in the shallow pit I
had found a nice 1880's green wine and a clear pumpkin seed flask but there wasn't much glass or debris in it so I filled it back in and stood around wondering whether or not that I should start a test hole on the deep pit behind
it or not! I finally decided that it was early and I was already wet and cold and muddy so why not, I'd just do a small test hole to see if the age was any good or not!