Ok, this one ain’t gonna end well, but lets roll it.

Yesterday went back to the sparse site which produced the smooth ’29 merc the other day to try to close it out, by working an out of the box field section (and, in a future entry, I’ll explain why this section is uniquely out of the box, and likely not previously detected hard, but that ain’t happening tonite).

Bottom line, dropped more clad and wheaties on a run rate basis than anywhere previously in the primary section of the site, and, further, got a nice deep 12-43 which I figured could end well as an exotic silver or copper, and spent 20 minutes hacking at it, and by the time I was done, it was so deep I was speaking Chinese when I recovered it (which, of course, is easier to do than learn Euskara, which, my really old loyal readers know, I can both read and write, but not speak, but more on that later).

And, what the eff was it?  A goddamn 8.5 inch long copper spoon.  Whohoo.  Here it is —

This thing’s effing old.  Prolly 2 to 300 years old.  Are you kidding me?  Who uses copper spoons?  And yes, I’d rather pull the proverbial 64 rosie than this nonsense.  And my wife agrees.  She’s in shock when I say others get excited about pulling this trash.  She says they’re poseurs who can’t pull silver and wish to remain relevant (fortunately, I don’t have that problem (in many dimensions)).  I make no judgements on what makes other people happy, but only point that I’m a poseur who pulled everything but the girl on this day; all good tells, and nothing deep and shiny, and am posting said 200 year old spoon.  And so it goes.

But, as always, there’s more.  Much more, and its all bad.  In this case, a self-diagnosis of a stress fracture of one of the small bones in my #2 toe (that’ the one next to the big toe, as if it matters).  This is a big deal if you plan to run a marathon in the next two weeks (as I do).

As this is a metal detecting blog, I ain’t gonna spend too much time on medical issues, but its still my effing blog, and their ain’t no goddam sponsors, so I can say whatever I want, and that is, I’m pissed and disappointed.  I’ve worked hard to train for this marathon, and, broken bone or not, I’m gonna start it and I’m gonna finish it.  But, what does all this mean?

First, self diagnosis is a useful skill.  If you can teach yourself to competently read and write Euskara, as well as dozens of other disciplines, you certainly have a chance to teach yourself basic podiatry and other medicine (but, it is alot of work, and kept me quite busy over the last week).  Its more or less simple (well, complicated, actually) Newtonian physics, but Newtonian physics is still tractable to normal people (unlike quantum and particle, which are a bit more of a challenge, and much more useless).  Unlike, of course the coming (and intractable) train wreck known as Obamacare.  Unfortunately, under the latter, self diagnosis and self administration of medicine may be the only way to get along in that post apocalyptic medical world (of course, I don’t personally recommend self diagnosis and administration of medicine; always see an MD if you are sick; hopefully Obamacare will allow you to).

Second., due to my injury, its over for metal detecting (and metal detecting blogs), at least for now.  No stress on the foot.  So, unless I manage to get thru a long run with zero instances of pain in my broken toe (and that’s possible, as I’ve rigged up some mechanical solutions, but unlikely), or find a bust dollar in the coinstar machine or are otherwise inspired, their ain’t gonna be no more entries here for a while.  Prolly a good thing, don’t cha think?

Got out for about 2.5 hours this morning, to a 50s park I was hitting early in the year, and hit a couple of weeks ago, and was skunked.  It was a six silver site (now 7), and I just wanted one final hunt to clean up some loose edges, and mark it “closed” in the db, and I also wanted a site with very few targets to minimize the stress on my knees and feet.

Its still dead, but I did muster a 1929 merc and a 1920 wheatie, and just 4 clads.  One of the clads was a zincoln at 7 inches.  Are you kidding me?  It was in with a dime, and it sounded like a 12-38.  Since I found a copper at this park, I figured why not dig it?  Boy I was pissed.

The merc was right on the edge of the site about a foot into the woods in some tall grass.  Only 3 inches deep, and came in as a 12-44.  Sounded good tho, tho I really expected to be a penny.  I was quite surprised.

So, we have a zincoln at 7 inches, and a merc at 3 inches.  Coins usually sink further in the sunny, grassy area, than the wooded areas.

Just a ’62 rosie this morning, but we’ll take it.  This, from a new site for me, a school from the 40s or 50s.  Got it within the first 15 minutes of hunting, which seemed like a good sign, but the site was otherwise dead.  Just 4 clad coins, and no wheaties or other good tells.  Site is huge, but the ground is rocky and hard (despite a bit of recent rain), so I may table it for a while (but, since it is a school, will only be able to hunt it in the summer, so we’ll see).

I haven’t seen a silver coin come out of the dirt since 6/25, before today.  I haven’t gotten out much at all, tho.  Only three hunts since the starflake entry, and one was very brief due to rain.  All were at the starflake/woods trifecta site, kicking around this old barn or stable type building that looks at least 200 years old.  Hunted out, unfortunately, as I feared due to the really shallow rock, but you can always hope to get lucky.  Did get a couple really deep copper relics in a couple of spots, and 3 shallow wheaties, so it was possible.

Too much rain, family, work, holiday, and marathon training to get out much, which is how I imagine it will be for a while.  Detecting and marathon training don’t mix, as detecting is so hard on your knees, and you run the risk of injury.  And running 20 miles in our heat and humidity leaves you to shot to detect.

So that’s that.  May get out for an hour this afternoon tho, we’ll see.