July 21st - Hidden Treasures Found As Excavation Begins!

Work started at 8 this morning when Dave Fabian showed up with his big excavator to start peeling away the top soil so we can begin digging and setting grades for our footings. Since I am late in arriving in Rico, time is of utmost importance as a month of summer is already gone. It's our goal to have it dried in (roof on) before the first snow fall.

10 years ago when my neighbor Annie’s water line had to be replaced, we threw an extra chunk of copper pipe in the same trench down to the meter pit and brought it up into a very small room attached at the back of the cabin. Late May of this year we tore off the back addition, (which wouldn’t have made it thru another winter, the north wall having nearly collapsed.) The small room was removed as well and the only thing remaining was the water line sticking out of the ground. Because of the close tolerances to property lines, once the small room was removed, it couldn’t be rebuilt as it’s too close to the property line and now the water line has to be dug down and pulled into a new location within the new house foot print.

Phone man arrived today and because of some former sloppy installation work, the phone company will be required to move the post sitting in the middle of the alley over to a new location at the back corner of the lot. Someone in the past decided to run a phone line to my neighbor Carol’s house and just ran it across the property with part of the line exposed above the surface. The phone company is running a new line to the house at the property line as we have cut the line in two with the excavator.

It’s always exciting to see ground broken and even more exciting to see what the excavator might uncover. Up near the alley are some dumped ash pits from long ago and broken glass begins to surface. It will be great if we find some good bottles or who knows what other goodies may surface. First find is a nice old green ink bottle and then 2 milk glass facial crème jars, then an old vinyl doll, still intact with movable joints, guessing about 1940 or 50. Even her hair is intact…although it could use a good washing! Next a miner’s pick axe and a marble.

The real find is yet to come when Dave is digging the trench to bury the new phone line. Every scoop yields a new discovery. First a beer bottle with a perfect silver dollar hole broke in the side of the bottle. How it didn’t break is amazing. Next another green beer bottle with just the top of the neck missing. Next scoop- 2 nice beer bottles, both intact, fall out of the bucket as Dave is moving dirt. Next scoop I spot it in the excavator bucket…I yell for Dave to stop…what a prize, a perfect amber whiskey bottle with a patent date of 1886 on the base. The side has some nice embossing and with the added neck the bottle dates around the turn of the century. Joe who is the general contractor on the job finds another perfume bottle and then I spot a large white “knob and tube” insulator ½. Now another marble and the last find of the day is spotted by Dave on the excavator. It has landed in the dirt pile in the back of the big Kenworth dump truck. It’s an oval shaped whiskey bottle, but newer, guessing the 20s or 30s?

Rob, Dave’s son has been on the backhoe digging the hole for the waterline to come into the house. My next door neighbor in Rico, Dylan, is down in the hole with a shovel carefully preparing the ground to lay the new 60’ length of copper into the hole so it won’t be affected or damaged by rocks either below or above it. It starts to rain, a little harder now and now the sky lets loose for the typical high mountain afternoon thunderstorm and hailstorm. A bolt of lightning and Dave comes bolting out of the excavator cab. Like a huge lighting rod with steel track, it's not a place you want to be in the middle of a thunderstorm. Dylan is scrambling to finish and has forgotten his rain suit and is now soaking wet. A run home-2 blocks and he is back in a flash with his bright yellow suit. Susan has hauled off numerous loads of nice black dirt to their storage lot and will hold it for the future when we need it.

Dave’s excavator bucket is equipped with an extra toothed jaw and I see why now as he picks up rocks some as big as 3’ across. He dumps them in a pile out of the way. These will come in handy later for building a stone retaining wall down near the street. The rain has created a slick greasy surface on the hillside where Susan has been backing in and now her back tires spin as she tries to back up for a final load. Dave helps her along by extending the arm of the excavator and hooking the bucket over the huge tailgate of the truck and helping it back up the hill. These guys are experts and it’s a pleasure to watch them in action. Raining like hell and we call it a day. Hopefully it will dry out by Monday.

I drive down the canyon tonite to see my friends Jack and Lynn who are camped out at the Priest Gulch campground. Sloppy Joes with them and Lynn’s sister’s family and what a great visit. They have been here for 3 weeks awaiting my arrival. Late before I get home, glad to have a warm dry bed as it's down in the 40’s tonite.