We finally had a good snow melt this week. Still a lot on the ground in the open areas but I thought I could find some areas to swing the coil at a cellar hole site that is sheltered by some pines less than a mile from my house. This site has been pounded to death but I didn't care. It had been 62 days since I was last able to get out and detect due to the heavy snow.

The trail in to the site still had a good amount of snow.



I did find some sheltered areas around the cellar hole site that had 6 inches or so of snow. I pulled some ox shoes and a horse shoe, some bits of copper flashing etc. Nothing special. I was nice to just be detecting though!

If we think the winter was tough on us this year, many of the local wildlife species have had it a lot worse.

This poor doe had been sheltering in the pines at the site. A pine needle diet will not sustain you for too long in harsh conditions. Fox or coyote had not gotten to her yet so she probably died recently.



I did have a good laugh at myself a little while later. Got a good signal on what I thought might be a musket ball. Pinpointed tight and not too deep (after kicking 6 inches of snow away). I kept digging and it kept pinpointing with my coil in the middle of the hole. After digging about a foot down, it finally dawned on me what was going on. I had been digging under a small tree that was stuck in the snow. There was a 22 slug in the small tree.



After a couple of hours I decided to call it quits and started heading back up the trail. Not more that 10 feet from where I found a half cent several years ago I got a decent signal. Kicked the snow away and it sounded even sweeter. I was really surprised to see a large copper at the bottom of the hole. Was even more surprised to see it was a Fugio.









The hike out was tougher than the hike in due to temps rising. I kept stepping through the surface crust. But I am not complaining! Got out to detect for the first time in 2 months and managed to find a Fugio in the snow!