http://privydigging.com Travel back through the annals of time with me as I unearth toilet treasure Tue, 19 Aug 2008 01:17:15 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en This was one of those houses that I had scouted a year ago and was unable to find any promising areas in the sizable back yard. But with the help of some later Sanborn maps, I was able to locate the 1901 privy so I thought I'd at least test ... http://privydigging.com/2008/08/10/the-bols-in-my-quart/ Well, yet again I was sure that we'd be digging a corker. The house was 1870's, everything was just right... no doubt a shared 2 seater right on the property line. It wasn't a cruncher but it had the right feel to it, plenty of brick and fill to whet ... http://privydigging.com/2008/07/12/oh-well/ As you may have read in the April '08 stories, I have been in contact with a realtor who had just purchased an 1870's manor. About 1 month ago she contacted me and said they were planning to have a public tour of the property, as there had been so ... http://privydigging.com/2008/06/24/duncan-manor-tour/  This dig was next door to "On The Privy Trail" in '06. I had probed the yard 2 years ago but was given a resounding "NO" as the archaeologists were going to do whatever it is they do (which turned out to be a ziplock bag full of mud with ... http://privydigging.com/2008/04/28/a-spot-of-tea-with-the-girls-next-door/ Many of you privy diggers who live in areas of the US which are affected by COLD weather will know what kind of mental anguish one undergoes in the winter when the ground is frozen solid or is covered in snow.  The wrestlessness of cabin fever can make the most ... http://privydigging.com/2008/04/20/thanks-for-flasking/ This story began about a year ago, I was working for a customer tiling a kitchen backsplash and in our conversations I mentioned my hobby of privy digging. To my surprise they didn't respond in the usual brow furrowed "you...what?" but calmly commented on how their son in law had ... http://privydigging.com/2008/03/16/pity-the-fool/ When my father was over from England, Tricky and I took him to a dump site. We poked around a little bit but didn't find anything of a decent age. My dad appeared with the front end of this item and I said, "OH! Look, it's part of an ink ... http://privydigging.com/2007/12/01/lets-play-a-game/ Well, I thought this was going to be THE pit of the year. I had visions of iron-pontiled sodas jumping out of the pit and lining themselves up on the tarp, ready to be taken home. Open pontiled medicines by the score at every turn. But alas, I ... http://privydigging.com/2007/11/12/cracking-pitcher-guv/ I did this dig with my friend Jahleel... but you can call him Phil. (As in Philadelphia, not the city but the cream cheese). Someone once said he had a body carved out of cream cheese... and that was a guy too... yikes! Anyway, he gave me a call with ... http://privydigging.com/2007/11/11/given-a-breakliterally/ This was a lousy pit! No questions asked, it bottomed out at 3 1/2 feet, hard clay all the way to the bottom and nothing but hammer bottles to show for it. Be that as it may, Tricky Dickie was happy; he got some keepers and that's better than ... http://privydigging.com/2007/10/16/sorry-to-bother-you-your-kid-is-throwing-things-off-the-roof/