As the spring has gotten away on me and I'm soon slated to head north for the summer, I thought I'd share one of my better finds from this spring. Despite having been out digging a few dozen times this year I've only come home really ecstatic about the days' finds on a couple occasions. In any case it's been unusually nice weather for getting out and doing some digging this spring, and I can never complain when given the chance.
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_e_smile.gif)
The abridged version: Hiking from a spot my digging partner and I had found the previous year with the scattered remnants of a 718 strewn about, we settled upon the next pole site for some exploration. Poking around for about 10 minutes landed the feeling of glass on the end of my fork, and I knew it could be good as we were no where near a modern pole site and this piece was over 6" down. Digging the piece out, I was ecstatic to find 3 pieces of a CD-718 which amounted to the entire insulator - apparently frost-popped in place! I snapped a photo, gathered up all the shards, and kept poking around the pole site.
No more than 10 minutes later I was poking near a small shrub about a metre away and I hit glass again. While hitting glass is no rare while looking for threadless, hitting anything substantial (that isn't a bottle, or a fragment of insulator so miniscule that it can't be identified) is quite unusual. This felt substantial. Of course, the shrub presented numerous problems in unearthing what lay buried beneath its roots and it took me over 5 minutes of digging to even see what I had located. Blackglass! But how much? The answer became quite apparent within a couple more minutes of cutting out roots and removing soil.
The piece came to day, and because of it's prone position it remained un-frost-popped and was essentially as mint as the day it was made. I was ecstatic, as this was my first intact Foster Brothers CD-740! Suffice it to say, I went home happy and have been back to the site several times, though no glass has been unearthed there since. I'm sure there's something more to be found there, it's just a matter of time and effort. Fortunately, both of those things I have to spend.
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_e_smile.gif)
I'll be awaiting my opportunity to see this sort of sight again in the near future.
Keep looking! They are still out there! In 2012, insulators discarded in the late 19th and early 20th century continue to come to light, and you never know how or when it will happen. Hit the local lines, even if you're just walking at first, and you may be surprised as to what sort of gems turn up.
Take care,