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strangest things found digging post holes

A

Anonymous-0

Well-known Member
Didnt want to hijack below post ,.found a decent log chain while digging a post hole ,, probably plowed under only a few yrs before ,,.augered rite on up ,,. another time brother and i were building garage ,, owner says water line should be rite here,straiht with front of building , so move building 2 feet more back toward the trees,, all went well till we got to last hole of the front wall ,, water boiled up ..
 
What I assume was a dead cat wrapped in a plastic bag. Was like soup in there. Actually only seen plastic when I pulled up hand auger and being the curious fellow I am reach down there with my hand. Dang arfull smell and hard to keep from heaving. Gotta be some turn about there on CURIOUSITY KILLED THE CAT. Know it dang near killed me. Rocko.
 
Phone lines, electric lines, and a main gas line for a development. Had locates done. Never was charged nor held responsible for any of them because of locators fault. Thank Goodness!
 
Never found anything exciting in a post hole myself but I did find a silver spoon marked USN once when Dad was digging up a stump.

Talking about Dad, he found the power line to the house buried less than 3 inches down when digging a post hole to install a handrail for a set of steps. Granted the power panel was only 6 feet to the right of the steps but the line was supposed to be at least 3 feet deep, not 3 inches, and he didn't plan to dig down much more than a foot since the post was also going to be attached to the steps. When he called to get someone out for a repair, since he had cut one leg of it, the operator didn't believe he had cut anything (remember 3 inches, not 3 feet). When Dad explained that he wasn't stupid and knew the difference between sparks from a rock and those from a 100 amps of electricity blowing the post hole diggers out of the hole and leaving a melted spot on them, she changed her tune. Guy that did come out took out his knife and started poking around in the hole ooking for the line (or a rock?????). He then poured water in the hole and poked around some more. Dad went in the house and called the power company back and described what the idiot was doing. By the time he got back out the guy's radio had come to life and he got sent on another 'emergency' call and a new guy showed up to fix the line about 30 minutes later.
 
While cleaning up a spot on the farm we found half a horseshoe and half of an axe head that looked like you split it the long way from the top. I guess there was some blacksmithing going on there at one time. While putting in a water line to my brother's house, we pulled up an intact mule drawn sweep plow. With a wire brush and some handles, we could use it. It was at least 18" in the ground, but there were quite a few tenant houses in that area over time and junk shows up. We have a hog pen close by and they have rooted up a lot of glass bottles and a few pieces of metal, including a carburetor, a buggy axle, and a torque converter. I have yet to see a hog break even a thin bottle.
 
Busted up an old concrete pad . They had used evrything for rebar . pieces from an old hand wring washing machine , horseshoes, bed springs.
 
While setting posts for the chicken run I found an intact brown glass bleach bottle and an old leather shoe. Neighbor says, "That's funny, that's not even where the dumping spot was." I have a feeling this whole place was a dumping spot as I spend lots of time pulling up mangled metal and cement junk.

Completely different, but one day during harvest something caught grandpa's eye from the combine cab. Stopped the machine and got down. It was a white porcelain teacup laying on top of the ground. The fancy kind with the glazed in guard for a gentleman's mustache. He had disked, plowed, planted, and harvested the ground for 40 years at that point. Not a chip on it. He kind of looked puzzled at me and then told me that he thought he remembered a farmstead in that location back when he was a boy. Truly amazing.
 
A neighbor dug pits in the grove through the years, filled them with junk and then threw a few inches of dirt over the top. The grove was getting pretty thin last summer so he had it dozed and bought new evergreens. When they had the post auger out there digging the holes for the new trees, you know what they found. It's good the auger was hydraulic so they could reverse it. Burying stuff the wrong way in the wrong spot will come back to haunt. I doubt if some of those trees will make it trying to grow above that junk. Jim
 
When my first wife was a child in the late 40s she was outside making mud pies, getting dirt from a hole the dog had dug. She dug up a Chilean peso, very similar in size and appearance to a Morgan silver dollar. The date of the coin was 1803. Because of its location and other circumstances, it had to have been there for a long, long time.
 
While helping my brother dig corner posts for his cattle fence, I was down about 2 ft, and found a hammered out diging fork of some kind. It had three pionts about 5 inches long, and a place for a round handle. This was at a old stage coach stop. There was still part of a adobe wall still standing. Now the area is full of houses, but the adobe wall has a iron fence around it to keep people out. The area is called Stage Coach Park. Stan
 
Neighbors phone line. Set the corner post and poured concrete. Later in the day neighbor stops by and says his phone keeps ringing when he answers it just hears static. Long story short the phone company missed marking that line when they came out before i started digging. I nicked the line and didnt know it.
 
Also forgot that i found a building foundation and a old road bed, bottles. All at different locations though. Unfortunately no money as of yet. Only things that slow up instaling a fence.
 
Was planting some young but rather tall trees that needed a stake for support. Using a 3 inch hand auger for the stake, I found the natural gas line that runs from the main in the street to the meter in our house. (This branch is 1.5 inch poly or similar plastic pipe.)
Repair crew came out and replaced the mangled section, even without turning off the gas supply.
 
digging post holes all i can claim is the phone line, and waterline, now digging with a large excavater iv found some strange stuff! example a complete transmission out of an old truck, parts from a 1800's wagon, crane cable, [ probably off a old dragline]and the list goes on
 

When we first moved to our place we found an antique fireplace andiron under the workbench in the garage. It wasn't a few weeks later I was digging up a flower bed behind the garage and found its mate, perfectly intact. Why one was buried and the other not I'll never know. There was lots of junk there when we first looked at the place, including a JD combine laying on its side (wheels and engine gone unfortunately) along the side of this same garage. A condition of the sale was that it all be gone when we moved in.
 
I haven't found any artifacts digging, but once when I was digging postholes I stopped for the night with some holes left open. The next morning I came back to put the posts in. I looked down the first hole and a SKUNK looked back up at me. Luckily, the hole was too small for him to lift his tail. Got the gun. He is still there under the post.
 
I used to live on and own some property that back during the late 1800's was once a town. The deed to the property showed it all as being divided up into 34 different lots. I was told that there was a bank located here as well......all long gone. The only thing that even hinted that there was a town there at one time was that there were about 4 different cisterns located throughout the property. While digging post holes for a new fence, I noticed something "shiny" come from the ground. I stopped digging and got off to see what it was.....wow....a silver dollar! It was all dirty and scratched...but my mind was absolutely racing...thinking I'd uncovered the buried bank treasure! It was exciting to say the least. To my disappointment the silver dollar was dated 1970's something. What a bummer.
 
My neighbor dug a post hole and left it open for a few days before he could get back to it. One day his 10 year old boy didnt come back to house for lunch. They went looking and found him with his leg stuck in one of the holes. Seems he feel in and his leg bent at knee pinning the leg in the hole. Boy was fine and laughing. Said he had been hollering for someone to come for a couple hours.
 
Digging a hole for my mailbox post right next to my neighbors. Second lick I grabbed an old rotted post, it came right out leaving a perfect hole. Job finnished quickly!
 
Read of a fellow who bought a bank repo place, when clearing the brush that used to be a yard with his loader and grapple, he got into a woman's body.

Read of another fellow who hit something digging, decided to dig further and found a buried highway truck. They got it out and called the police, the previous owner of the property had reported it stolen.
 
couple of years ago was replacing a gate post, turned up a pair of fencing pliers. remembered getting a thrashing for losing dads pair when we built that fence!
 
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