Where do you start???

[Kayper]

Hello everyone,

I have a few questions. Understand I am new to MDing (understatement) so these may seem like obvious questions. I live in an old farmhouse built in the 1800's it was also the local blacksmith shop. (slag is the bane of my existence, but I have learned to think of digging it as a learning experience for digging plugs) Anyway, I have recently found an old creamery on my property as well as an old dump. Both sites are rather large.(at least for me) First question is where do you start? The dump site has a pit but I can tell stuff is also buried in the side mounds surrounding the pit. Do you start at the top of the mounds and work your way down or do you start in the pit and work you way out? The next question is do you remove all the glass and debris and carry it out or do you rebury the broken glass and junk? The pit itself was never really covered with any dirt. If you carry it all out I think I am going to need a very large roll off to get rid of all the garbage. I found the kitchen sink there. (leave it better than you found it rule) As for the creamery I am not certain when it was built. ( I still have some research to do on it) There is a great deal of broken brick just below the surface soil. Do you start your search at or near the foundation and work out? The whole area is really overgrown. So I do know the first order of business is to clear some of the brush out of the way but I was wondering if there was a starting point to see if it was really worth the time and effort. The area has not seen a mower or trimmer in at least 13 years. I will try and post some pics of the area at the moment we are getting snowed on again(happy spring) so it will be a day or two before I can get back out there. Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Kayper

 

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[littleneckhalfshell]

Sounds like you and I are in looking for answers to the same sort of question,
(see Old Farm in Catskills NY - how to search?)

I know of two trash piles on my property that contain glass, iron, even old battery cores from the old radios along with all the other cast offs of daily life from long ago.

I would guess that the only way to do a complete job on a trash pile would be to sift it. A metal detector would miss the marbles, pottery, or glass that might have some worth, and you know the metal detector is going to ring on all that rusted iron that is all mixed up in with everything else.

clearing the areas you want to search definitely seems to me to be the first order of business, I am thinking of laying a old heavy plastic tarp down on the one foundation area, to try to kill off the grass that is there, to make digging and detecting a little easier. (a nice lawn is not part of the consideration, and I would just have to mow it later in the summer anyway, less lawn, less mowing, more time for detecting Wish you luck.