Digging For Treasure

In the old days families buried their trash on their properties. I am lucky enough to live on the old family property and it is just  short walk up the hill to a place where I can spend hours digging for the past one sliver of glass at a time.

I like to go hunting after a good rain storm. It tends to wash up stuff and send it down the hill a ways. After the latest storm I took a walk on a brisk afternoon just to take a look. I saw various pieces of broken bits of clear glass and found an odd little blue flattened piece sliced in half, needless to say this went into my pocket. Next I found an old snap; pocket. A sliver of an old glass marble, this was exciting because I loved finding marbles. It always leads me to think of which one of the ancestors once rolled that marble between their fingers as a kid. I saw an orange piece buried partially in the dirt, with an oyster shell as my shovel I dug up a whole marble, YAY! Found a green sliver of glass, it would be nice in my jar of glass pieces; pocket. I was getting cold and was about to head back when I spotted a piece of buried metal. I sat and dug and it broke into all kinds of pieces, finally producing a nondescript hunk of something.This went into the heap of stuff on the side for later. Getting ready to leave I ran my hand across the fine clay sand once more and as I did so something popped up. I pulled it out and saw a heart shape. Automatically I realized it was a rabies tag. Thinking it was my own dog's lost tag, I put it in my pocket.
 As I was walking back to the house I took out the heart and realized it was very thin compared to modern rabies tags, could it be very old? Did they have heart shaped rabies tags in the past? I hurried inside to clean it up and see. I was so excited to see as I washed the dirt and grime off, that I could make out engraving. So a little baking soda and vinegar were applied, and now I could make out the date 1953! Awesome!! So some ancestor's dog possibly a hunting dog lost his tag all those years ago and here I find it all these years later. After much cleaning with lemon and salt it is now back to it's copper color, and can be read fully. It will be used in a craft project with a vintage glass bottle for show. Can't wait to get started.
     To me this kind of treasure is better than finding gold!