For 44 years, there has been an area of lawn that just flat refuses to grow grass, we’ve seeded it, tried sod plugs from other parts of the lawn, fertilizing the patch, nothing works, so I did the next best thing while mowing, I ignored it…
I think I may have solved the mystery though, first, let me set up the basics…
The house is a 260 year old Colonial house, the original builders and owners used to hay the 50 acres of land the house sits on…
There may be a lot of potential history under the lawn… As well as the answer to the mystery
A couple weeks ago, I started a new hobby, metal detecting, I picked up a Whites Coinmaster Pro, and started detecting around the lawn, found a few interesting signals, but the ground was still too frozen to dig…
Two weeks ago, I used the CMP to detect and dig up a signal the detector identified as a 50¢ piece at 2" down (basically, that’s the “big object” target ID), and since the ground had thawed, I dug the signal…
…tin roofing shingle from around the chimney stack, probably blown off the roof a few years back and embedded in the lawn…
Last week, a co-worker loaned me his Fisher Coinstrike, he said it was a great detector, but too complicated for his tastes, he didn’t have the patience to figure it out…
…it’s not that hard really, and it’s far more adjustable than my CMP, I really like it, and will probably buy it off him, the CMP is nice, but too simple for my taste…
Anyway, back to the story
I took the FCS out yesterday, went over to the bare patch, and found the first repeatable signal about 3" down, pinging a mid 20 on the meter (mid 20 and above are generally desirable targets), I dug the signal, and found a metal tooth from an antique sickle-bar hay mower, then on to the next signal, this time, a large, folded up and tarnished piece of copper flashing roofing trim…
That would explain the bare patch on the lawn, copper toxicity, as copper is a herbicide, and given the size of this piece, I’m sure there’s more copper flashing there, poisoning that patch of lawn
And of course, if it goes without saying, if I find a large cache of gold coins, like that couple in California, I will NOT be posting about it online