Don't Mention the 'L' Word

Are you lucky,  or what?

Judy's technique improves swiftly, I must say! She's a willing student and I'm intent upon driving home the fine points of good practise, but of course, at this time there's a very large discrepancy between our abilities in the matters of locating, digging, isolating and pocketing targets at speed.

When I returned from a solo mission on the field that she had worked the evening before, she was astonished that during the same time slot of an hour and a half, I'd returned home with no less than eight items worth keeping compared to her total of just one... which she promptly lost!

"Jeff, how could you have been so lucky?"

"Judy, banish that word from your lips right now!"

"Which word?"

"The 'L' word! This is never a matter of that, and if you ever start believing that it is, then you will begin to fail. Once upon a time I did this every day of the week that I could spare and did it for fifteen years continuously. Let me tell you this — the 'L' word does not enter into it — detecting is simply a game of numbers. The only reason that I found more than you is that I dug more than you, and probably in the order of five times as much!"

Edward VII half penny 1907, General Service button 1902-52, lead token, 'Land of Leather' brass tag - 1990's. Napoleon III 5 centime 1856, Part of an 18th-century shoe buckle, George III cartwheel penny, racing pigeon ring 2002, and the worst find of the day... some kind of trashy aluminium finger ring that when dug looked as if it was made of silver.

Of course, this happens to be true. I recover items quickly because I know that these barley fields will close come sowing time and will not open again till this time next year. I want a clear picture of what their potential might be by then and so I want to uncover as much information as I can in the time available this season. It is a brief window of opportunity that cannot be frittered away upon delays.

Time flies!

However, I do not fly across a field blindly thrashing away at the job.  I'll walk slowly and detect lowly, dig swiftly and accurately and isolate an item from the soil by rapid division of the clump that it resides within. With wide overlapping swings of the coil that do not rise above the ground at their extremities, I just don't miss anything in my path. I will also dig 'iffy' signals that others might consider not worthwhile simply because so many in the past had turned out to be positive once a few inches of surface soil had been removed...

Hence the title of this blog... 

Judy cannot hope to match such speed in the short term and should not even try to. Bad habits are so easy to acquire but are so very hard to eliminate later and so for the time being she must endeavour to perfect good technique - and take her time over it. If so, then surely the finds will come for her!