find ring in paddock Tag | The Ring Finders

Ring Lost in Whangarei Paddock for Two Years – Found!

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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Nearly two years ago, Jono lost his wedding ring in a farm paddock.
He had been walking back across the paddock towards the house, after working in one of the outbuildings. Idly playing with the ring as he walked.
Once back at the house, he noticed it was now missing.

Retracing his steps failed to locate it in the grass, and he reluctantly gave it up as lost.
After reading about my recent recoveries, Jono decided it might be worth trying to retrieve the ring and gave me a call.

He wanted it, hopefully, to be a surprise for his wife so he cunningly organised the search for when she wasn’t home 🙂
I met up with Jono shortly after she had left and we went through the details of the loss, and where he thought it might be.
While he went to turn off the electric fence, I showed his young kids how the detector worked, giving each a turn on the headphones while I waved my hand with my own wedding ring over the coil.
It was a struggle getting the phones back off the youngest, who was transfixed by the detector chattering away due to the overhead powerlines.

The search area was going to be a corridor across the paddock. Starting at the fence nearest the house, I began to work my way across the paddock towards the shed.
Early in the search, I unearthed one of his childrens toy cars – so someone was happy already 🙂
Stock had pugged the ground fairly badly, so I was listening for a deeper target. After a few false hits I got a clean non-ferrous tone about 15-20cm down.
I dug the small spade in and turned a clod of soil over. In the bottom of the upturned plug was his ring.
Still shiny in the sunlight after its time underground.
Smiles all round.

Ironically, Jono is the immediate neighbour of another recovery I had previously done.
Jono lives directly over the road from Luke who had his wedding ring sucked off his finger by a calf he was feeding a couple of years ago. Also found and returned, again from a paddock, and just a couple of days before his anniversary.

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Lost Gold Earring in Northland Garden – Found!

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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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!

 

 

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Ring Lost in Whangarei, Eaten by Cow – Found!

  • from Paihia (New Zealand)
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Over the years, I’ve had my share of looking for rings lost while gardening, throwing things for the dog, or just being lobbed randomly during arguments.  This was my first hunt for a ring that had been vacuumed off a finger by a calf!

Luke made contact after reading of my successful hunts, and for me the story was too intriguing!  He had been letting the calves suck his fingers in order to keep them tame, and the hand came back minus the ring…

On the day in question, he hadn’t banked on the powerful combination of bovine slobber and suction!  Catch was, had it been spat out on the ground nearby,  chewed, swallowed and passed through the digestive system to turn up elsewhere in the paddock…or was it still in there?

He was very pleased to see me, and we headed straight out so he could show me where it all happened, also pointing out the calves that I could end up scanning!  The ground had been dry, which was good as it meant it was unlikely to have been pressed deep into mud – however the Autumn-flush grass was mid-calf (That’s my calf, not the cow variety) which was going to make it very hard work.

I started at the “Point Last Seen” and nosed the coil in and around the grass in the immediate vicinity with no luck, so I resigned myself to gridding about an acre of very lush pasture.

With my back into the corner of the wire fences, I took the first swing, and was immediately disheartened by the erratic threshold sounds of electrical interference from a buried cable. Not overly bad fortunately.  Second swing…. third swing and a golden tone rang through the headphones! I parted the long grass, couldn’t see anything.  Out with the pinpointer, it chirped away…but I still couldn’t see anything.

A slight change of head angle and a flash of yellow lit up in among the dead stems. It was already making itself very comfortable in there, and I was glad I didn’t have to use the rubber gloves 🙂

Knocked on the door of the house again, and was met by a huge smile when I held the ring up – That’s when I found out, it’s their wedding anniversary in just a few days.

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