I talk to dead people. Now--hang on a second--before you call the loony bin and have me committed, you should hear me out... I talk to dead people, but the dead people don't always talk back. I mean, sometimes they do. Sometimes they give me a nudge in the right direction. Sometimes they whisper through a gust of wind. Sometimes they manifest as a crow perched in tree--constantly heckling and shouting commands. Granted, this is usually when I'm all by myself at some abandoned homestead--with no one to confirm the phenomena--but I assure you that I'm not making this stuff up. Yesterday was a horrible...

Today I received a text from my husband: "Can we get the DeepSeeker?" Of course, he was referring to the Garrett ATX DeepSeeker Package--the one with the whopping price tag. Rather than just smack him upside the head with a reality check, I gently reminded him that we just sold a car to buy an XP Deus. I mean... technically the car had been rusting in our driveway for close to two years but I'm not about to throw the house on the market for an ATX--regardless of how much I love Garrett. Now granted, I made the mistake of spoiling him with the XP Deus for his twenty-sixth birthday. Like many hobbyists,...

No matter how you slice it, marketing has a lot to do with metal detecting. All those times you've knocked on a door, sent a letter, or called a complete stranger to get permission for a property--that IS marketing. But rather than marketing a product, you are marketing yourself. You are--essentially--selling yourself to perspective permissions. Marketing is my second nature--falling somewhere after writing and metal detecting. I've worked in marketing for the past seven years--generating leads, running campaigns, writing collateral. Once I realized that the skills I developed while working...

Some women enjoy weeding their flower beds and poking around in their vegetable gardens. I prefer digging for treasure. I reap more reward from pulling a two-hundred-year-old coin from the ground than I do a carrot. Don't get me wrong, carrots are tasty and all... but can you display them in a shadow box and brag to all your facebook friends? Well... I guess that depends on your facebook friends. If I started posting carrots in the metal detecting groups, I might lose a few of those friends. I guess through writing my blog and sharing my perspective, I've sort of been launched into the spotlight....

This is not my typical post. This is a compilation of tips and tricks I've learned about metal detecting... with a lot of help from my readers and my detecting family along the way. My goal in writing this post is to hep beginners and perhaps teach others a thing or two as well. - The Right Machine -  The right machine is important. Whether you're just starting out or looking to upgrade, you need a metal detector with the right features. I purchased my first (ACE 250)... and second (AT Pro) metal detector through Robert Wyatt at Quality Metal Detectors. Robert goes above and beyond. I encourage...

This weekend was epic--my husband hates when I use that word, but I would be robbing the experience if I used any lesser word. Allow me to begin with the story of Daniel Kaufman. Mr. Kaufman was an abolitionist icon--if you will--and those who supported slavery attempted to make an example of him in order to deter others from helping slaves find freedom. If your happen to drive through the quaint town of Boiling Springs, you will see a large brick home with a historical marker. The marker reads: "Daniel Kaufman: An Underground Railroad agent from 1835 to 1847, when he was sued by a Maryland...

The other evening, my husband and I took the munchkins to the park. A few kids were already scaling the playground equipment and digging around in the mulch. For the most part, the parents hovered nearby... but there are always exceptions. One parent dropped off his hellions and wandered across the soccer fields with his hands stuffed in his sweatshirt pockets--disappearing from view. There is nothing more infuriating than parents who abandon their misbehaving children at the playground for everyone else to deal with... especially, when those misbehaving children have a massive dump in their...

These past few weeks, I haven't been able to recruit any relatives to watch my kids. (For those of you who don't know, I have a eighteen-month-old daughter and a four-year-old son.) And let's face it, unless I'm plucking diamond rings off the beach or gold nuggets from the creek, I can't afford the going rate of a babysitter. Last I checked, South Central PA doesn't have very many beaches or gold deposits. So--being the compulsive digger that I am--I opted to strap the little one to my back and buy a dog harness for the other one. (Hah! Just kidding, though the thought had crossed my mind once...

I can still remember my sixth birthday party. At the time, we were living in Sandwich, MA. My dad was the senior pastor of the baptist church. We lived in the parsonage, which was built off the main parking lot behind the church building. But this particular parking lot wasn't really a parking lot at all--not to a six year-old, anyway. This particular parking lot was a vast and tumultuous seascape with roaring waves and hideous creatures rising from the deep. Honestly, I forget the details of the party. The cake might have been strawberry? There could have been two or five friends? I assume...

On Saturday, I had the privilege of introducing a friend and her teenage daughter to the hobby of metal detecting. Their passion was so refreshing. Not many people get excited for digging iron, but these two special ladies were over the moon when they dug up a square nail at eight inches--with screwdrivers nonetheless. In my experience, digging eight inches with a screwdriver to recover an iron something-or-other is commitment. Allow me to back up... this escapade was prompted when Liz requested a retreat from a personal hardship. And in my experience, there is no better distraction from an emotionally-draining...