Hey Oily,
What's the history of your property? Where was the smithy in El Dorado? Are you in an old part of town? I guess what I'm asking is, is there a reason that there are really good hammers in your garden? By the way, anyone that gardens using a Ford 555 is a serious gardener!
The property has been in the family for as long as this area has been settled. It is now ~200 acres of the original 1200 in the estate. I've heard stories of several houses (including slave houses) on the estate over the years. There are currently two houses and an old barn on the property (Barn tools another good discussion). It was, according to all I've been told, a cotton farming estate that turned quickly oil boom in the early 1920s. The property, and all available facilities, were used to board oil workers during the boom and never went back to it's full farming operations. I'm told both current houses were built by my great grandfather and gg-grandfather, starting in 1928, with cash money raised from boarding in the oil boom. After the houses were completed all older structures were torn down. It's unclear if the old barn was torn down at that time, or if it was torn down at some later date. It is also unclear when the barn that remains was built - so I can't work from that even if I assumed one was torn down with the other completed.
The items I've unearthed from the soil on the property mostly appear to me to be consistent with farming. I'll grab some pictures tomorrow, but the list includes hillers, breaking plows, splitting wedges, hand cuffs?, horse shoes, hammers, metal rings of various sizes from 2" to 12" in diameter, single tree, and such.
I have a very rough idea where a barnyard was located based on the soil conditions. The objects I continue to find are in the immediate area of the distinct soil conditions. I suspect distinct soil conditions = lots of very old poop.
That 555 is by no means a gardening tractor :) - although it did come in very handy last year harvesting muscadines and scupinines from 25-30' up. I have a 3610 I use for the heavy garden work until I can get this Farmall back in one piece. However, I now all together avoid that area with any heavy equipment.....only the rear-tine shall go there for a while. I have, to my own dismay, done a good bit of dozer work in that general area over the last year.....so there is no telling what I've done to myself here.
I'm trying to get my hands on a metal detector and survey that area a little better.
