Wow, it's March Already?

Sorry for my sparseness over these past couple of months, a couple of blizzards, Mono, and lots of work have kept me from posting any updates and pictures. I found some time tonight so I thought I would let everyone know what was up, and share a neat video series with you. Lately, I've been looking for some neat gadgety projects to do just for the fun of it, and I found this wonderful source--"Weekend Project" from "Make". I haven't been able to get out to detect so that is also why I haven't posted any updates! Here's a sample video from this Make Series:

(My only addition to this would be separating the light from the sound maker so that the light stayed on, while the "cricket" chirped.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Opt0E5S1760

Happy New Year and 2009 in Review

Well, I had a wonderful 2009 season, and collected $73.72 in modern clad, a new record for me, doubling what I got last year! I'll try to keep this short and sweet so I'll just talk about the photos. The first few pictures are my jewelry and non clad finds. I collected a total of 15 wheaties, meager, I know, but for my area I feel I managed fairly well. I also pulled two silver dimes, a 62 D Rosie, and a 63 Canadian. My oldest coin to date is now a 1919-S wheat penny that I found on the 31st--what a way to end the year!! This beat my other oldest coin, a 1935 buffalo nickel. I found my first dollar and half dollar coins this year, quite a surprise to dig those up! Also I found two 10k gold rings, my first, and a sterling man's ring. Another surprise was a couple of Euros and Cayman Island coins I found!

















Then here are my relic finds. The doll's head was found while bottle digging near an old house in south Asheville. Included in my relics are civil war bullets, (the bottom two below the three casings) and some 50 caliber bullets and shell casing from WWII! I also found some square nails, a Timex watch that stopped tickin', and lots of keys and knives. I hope everyone has a wonderful New Year. Happy Hunting!!

Latest Metal Detecting Trip tied in with Green Activity

Well, yesterday afternoon, I decided to take off for a little bit to go hunt a new park I've found that is HUGE! I mean, this place is everything from a greenway, to a sports complex, to a tot lot extravaganza! This place is literally teeming with people losing money/jewelry. So, I pulled out my 5.3" coil, thinking there would be quite a lot of trashy signals amongst the goodies, but I was pleasantly surprised. I actually ended up switching back to the stock coil to cover more ground.
So, my total take was $5.05, my new highest amount of money collected in one hunt, about 3 hours. My area is not very populated, so this is good for me! Then, contributing to this total, was my other first--a dollar coin! A 2000 D Sacajawea Dollar coin coming in at a solid +86 VDI on the trusty M6.

Then, as I headed out of the park, I wanted one more good target, and Gollum nearly tackled me as I removed this from the ground:

You see, this was the one that was thrown into the volcano, but actually survived the magma, and ended up in my park! :^D

Well, determined to break my new record of $5.05 from Friday, I headed out this morning at 7:30 to the same park and hunted for two hours, getting just over $2.00. This is where I found the watch, button, and Civil War musket ball?...this is a pretty historic area, but seeing as the park itself is modern, I was pretty surprised to pull it out of the ground at only two inches! So, after taking a lunch break at Subway, I headed off to a nearby town that was established in 1889 and found their City Park, right smack in the middle of everything. (Definition of Everything: In 2008, The town's population was 1490) Since this park was amidst all the action, all the action enjoyed watching me and whispering...for those that were courageous enough to come up to talk to me, (I bite) I gladly showed them my finds and explained just what exactly a METAL Detector finds. There was the occasional nutjob, but for the most part, these folks were wonderful people. Anyway, blah, blah, blah, longer story somewhat shorter, I found 100 coins (My first 100 coin day!!) totaling $6.27! Thanks for looking!

So, my green tact on all of this was that I removed quite a bit of trash from the ground. I don't know what happens to the surrounding soil in an environment where there is quite a bit of metallic trash, but it can't be good!

The main, long term green activity I wanted to point out was my step towards saving cups at the local coffee shop, BeansTalk. In an effort to cut down on their "To Go" cups of coffee, this shop is encouraging customers to either use one of their regular mugs, or bring their own. So, washing out one of mine, I went over last night and gathered 'round the laptop with a nice mug of Colombian coffee for .40 cents less than what everyone else would have to pay. Winter here I come, I'm set!

First Post Bio and Introduction

Hello all,

My name is Ashby Gale; I am a freshmen attending Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, and I've created this blog as a part of a college seminar class, Contemporary Green Living. I grew up in Hilton Head Island, SC and moved up to the mountains of Asheville in August of 1996. My hobbies include coin collecting, cooking, botany, jazz saxophone, camping, hiking, fly fishing, biking, backpacking, and metal detecting, which will influence much of what I will discuss on this blog, occasionally tying it in with green living.

Yesterday I visited a beautiful part of the mountains here in WNC by hiking along a section of river on the Hebron trail. About 1/2 mile in, you'll come to a set of beautiful cascades, twisting throughout a sea of boulders. On our ascent up to the top, I spotted a harmless water snake, sunning himself amongst the rocks. What a beautiful creature that can be at peace on a square foot of land, overlooked by numerous hikers until a pair of observant eyes spots him among the detritus thrown about the rocks!

Then, today, I awoke to a drizzly cold morning, desperate to put a damper on my day.