At the start of the year, Renene was clearing undergrowth on their rural Northland property. Later on she realised that one of the many branches around the head had somehow spirited away her sentimental earring.
As so many people who lose rings or bracelets do, after a fruitless search for the lost earring they conceded defeat and accepted the loss… Until she started searching online for a metal detector to try and find her special missing gold.
We spent a few minutes on site going over her recollection of how she and her husband tried to find the lost earring, where they thought it would be, and the infamous spot ‘X’ was marked as a start point.
The vegetation was very tight, and a layer of past weedings and prunings covered most of any remaining exposed soil. I nearly took the headphones off to run on speaker the entanglements were so bad, however for such a small piece in a sea of background chatter I needed every subtle tone… I quickly cleared the ‘easy’ bits around the site, and headed out to change to a smaller coil to get in under all the shrubs when I got a new bit of intel – the path they usually took in and out.
Back onto the standard coil, and I started to grid the higher probability area of their entry/exit track.
To one side was a pile of branches which I worked hard up against, intending to leave it for a later, more detailed pass if it wasn’t found in the early searching. But since I was there, I’d clear them and close off this area now.
Heaved the pile up and swept the coil underneath, a faint whisper made my ears perk up. I put the detector down and shifted the pile.
A second pass and there was a distinct but subtle tone. Out with the pinpointer and just under the surface, on it’s edge, was the lost earring already making itself very comfortable for a long stay.
I made my way out and beckoned to Renene to come over to see her newly found earring lying where it had fallen some 10 months ago.
She was a bit pleased!
So very happy that Pete made contact as I took the bold step to ask on our local FB grapevine for help. Every so often I would return to the supposed site to try and find the lost earring and as the months progressed I started to doubt where I thought I had lost it. Pete didn’t take very long and was very thorough – he has to contend with my guinea fowl calls in the back ground but within 1/2 hour after deciding to explore further Than the initial field area & after carefully listening to my poor recollection of the loss – there it was – in bedded in the under growth – I certainly would never have seen it If it wasn’t for the metal detector alert as it looked quite insignificant and dull And certainly didn’t look like metal but another piece of undergrowth !. Not for long – will be off to get it properly cleaned tomorrow .