Not all recoveries are precious and sentimental jewelry. A surprise recovery of a sprinkler head that I wasn’t even aware was missing.
On Tuesday November 5th, I received a call from Linda. The previous Tuesday, Linda was doing yard work, specifically , using a leaf blower to blow the leaves, into a pile, towards the back of their property, in Wells, Maine. As she was taking the leaf blower off, of her back, she felt it hit her ear and snag something. She immediately thought of her Diamond Stud Earring and slowly walked into the house, to check the situation out. When she got into the house she heard something land on the floor and she then saw the backing, to the Diamond Earring. Linda then started checking her clothing and couldn’t find the earring, on any of her clothing. Linda searched the floor and surrounding area, where the backing had been found. Nothing. She also checked the leaf blower harness, still no luck. Linda continued searching, day and night, using a flashlight, outside, in the dark to see if she could catch a glimmer of the light, hitting the diamond. Nothing found. She then had a friend come over and search with his metal detector. Still nothing. This is when Linda called me. We agreed I would come to her home and search on Thursday, November 7th.
When I arrived! I was promptly met by Linda. She took me to the area, she thought the earring, may be at, in her backyard. Linda still had the other Diamond stud earring and I set the Minelab Manticore Metal Detector up, with the other earring. I was able to set the machine up and was receiving nice loud low tones, every single time. As I gridded the area, Linda and I would check out every non-ferrous target , in the low conductor range. After a couple hours and checking dozens of targets, I received a nice low tone, in the Gold Range. This one sounded different and seemed like a fairly big item. As we were investigating the target, we didn’t see anything, on top of the ground. All of a sudden, Linda says, the target may be a long lost sprinkler head, they had been searching for. As we dug deeper, we discovered the missing sprinkler head. Linda told me the sprinkler head had gone missing and her flowers weren’t getting the water they needed. Linda and her husband had been looking for it and they were going to have the Irrigation service person, search for it in the spring. Well, now he doesn’t have to, saving Linda and her husband a service call.
So, the earring has not been found and I am going back next week and search the remaining lawn, as I only covered approximately 40% of the lawn, today. Linda will continue to search inside the house and will be using a small swifter on the floors, in the area the backing came off. It is so tough because the earring may have been lost at any point while she was in the backyard. The earring may have been blown out of the area, Linda thought it should be in and into a totally different area. At least one more search will be needed, to cover the entire backyard. I will definitely update you all, if the earring is found.
As you see, it’s not always jewelry that is found. In the past, I have found Property Markers and Water Shut Off Valves, for clients. Now I can add a Sprinkler Head to the list.