How old is the axe head looks like at least a couple of hundred.
My brother had a cheap metal detector, I used it a couple of times, the first day I used it I went to a local beauty spot that had a long wall about 800 yds along it next to the road, I found loads of coins from people who would sit on the wall looking at the scenery.
The other time I went out I went to a couple of places where fair grounds had been held back to the 18 hundreds and around the big trees that surround them I found lots of coins again probably from people sitting or laying under the trees, nothing older than Victorian though. Silver 6 pences, 3 penny bits and a couple of florins but mostly pennies.
I would like to do it again but my neck problems will probably be made worse by it
The axe head, had to be, the only thing on the table I can’t guarantee what age it is.
Axe heads are a nightmare to date. The closest I can get is late 9th Century Viking Axe. Found not to far up river from where The Great Heathen Army wintered up. I didn’t know that they did winter up, so it’s not like I gone to a location expecting to find Viking stuff, as far as I knew they never went to Mid Wales. So for years I kept researching it, comparing it to other axe heads. Trying to find a match. The only matches I could find were late 9th century Viking battle axes and I wouldn’t accept that as an answer because like I said the Vikings never went to Mid Wales. Only years later did I learn that they did, once. Then it all came together,
Me wife found that anyway. I think we should talk about something I’ve found. Lol.
It’s good fun and gets you out the house with a bit of exercise thrown in.
You can get some really lightweight machines, you just need to find yourself a spade Walla
No kids or grandkids you could persuade that they’re enjoying themselves digging your holes.
I thought it looked medieval, does it have a hole for a handle to go through, it looks like a through tang, that would go through a handle and be secured on the other side. It could have been taken off a dead Viking and traded somewhere else, lots of variables, what a great find.
Historians will not say things if there is no real proof, because they dont want to look silly or get flamed for their view that goes against the majority, but that does not mean that they were not there. They say Vikings never went to the US but they were probably all over it. The Viking sagas say they were in Vineland where the vines come from, which is the US and they planted a tree in a Viking settlement on Newfoundland that only grows naturally in the US up to Main.
The bottom right tray looks like fishing weights and bullets, I know lead oxidizes white, what is the thing that looks like part of a jaw bone with teeth?
Your detector must be pretty sensitive to pick up pottery with metal oxide on. If thats what it is, just above and to the right of the welsh border battalion hat insignia.
The head has got a hole for a handle to go through. The great heathen army were wiped out on the banks of the River Seven near Welshpool by King Alfred I think, with the help of some Welsh kingdoms. I haven’t seen it but the new ish TV Drama the Vikings is based on them. Alfred laid siege to them for a couple of months, then when they had no other option because they were starving to death, the Vikings tried to break free on mass, thousands of them were killed.
You’re right about the fishing weight, its a 12 Century Net weight. The teeth I think are reeds out of an early mouth organ.
Me favourite item there is in the last photo. It’s a 1st Century Roman chariot terret ring, rein guide.
The pottery is down to the wife again, you find quite a bit in the holes you dig, she always brings it home, along with everything else she finds, I got drawers full of utter crap she keeps bringing home.
The veg rooms seems a happy place at the moment, all looks good. The 3 WW have got roots coming out of the bottom of the pots. So it looks like they’re on course to go up to the larger pots in about 2 or 3 weeks.
I need 6 UK gallons of mix to do so, A 1/3 will be clay pebbles, a 1/3 organic worm castings and a 1/3 John Innes no2 compost. I have been using no3 but can’t get any, unless I want to pay £20 on eBay. I was hoping to put some sphaguam moss in but it hasn’t arrived, if it gets here in next two weeks I’ll throw some in.
To this I’m going to add, remembering that a 1/3 of the mix is pebbles, what I believe is the correct amount of extras for a 4 gallon mix.
I’ve got some potassium sulphate and some magnesium sulphate, is it worth adding these and how much would you recommend?
I’ll throw it all in a big plassy bag, spray it with water, seal the bag, them tumble it for a while.
I’ll open the bag daily, check moisture content, seal then tumble and hopefully by the time I need it, I’ll have some nicely cooked mix for me girls
If you can see anything I’m getting wrong there, please shout out, nice one.
Your soil recipe looks decent. I would hold out for the sphagnum peat moss. Using that much compost will make for quite a dense soil. I would also use pumice, rice hulls, or perlite over clay pebbles. The clay pebbles dont do much for aeration, in my experience, unless you plan on crushing them up.
You can use as much magnesium sulphate as you like, you can’t overdose them with it, no idea about the potassium sulphate, but you should have plenty of K from the kelp meal.
It would have to be perlite, the other two are far too expensive over here.
What I’ll do, as there’s a group of three plants, is have a little experiment. One with clay pebbles and one with perlite. Not sure about the third yet. Maybe wait for the moss to arrive and add that to a mixture containing the other two as well, just for the hell of it and so I don’t have to make a decision, lol
I’ve never been to convinced by perlite, not that im saying its a bad thing but when I’ve used it side by side with pots that haven’t got any in. There’s never been that much difference between the plants in the pots that have it in and the ones that don’t.
When you empty the pots at the end. The soil always appears just as compressed. I suppose water retention is the big thing, so I’ll keep an eye on the one in pebbles.
I was a little slow to covert to perlite but it works, you will see! For me the amendment ‘trinity’ is coir, EWC, perlite. Get the ratios right and great drainage etc. Next on the ‘to play with’ list is going to be rice hulls & malted barley
Cheers G mate.
I’d like to try something along the lines of the rice hulls but they’re £7.50 A litre over here, that would be £30 A pot. Pumice is no cheaper.
We will see how the pebbles do against perlite in a couple of months and go from there.
Bloody batteries have gone in me PH meter.
The WW needed watering, as luck would have it or maybe not, I still had some left over from watering the AK yesterday, hopefully the PH won’t have risen too much over night.
So they’ve had that and new batteries are o route. Going to be 4 or 5 days before they get here. The flower room will need watering before then. Should I guess or wait?
Oh the pain.
Back to the veg room, I’ve repotted the 5 AKs into the same ratio mix the three WWs are in. The widows, well 2 of them anyway are getting a bit lanky, so I’m going to take a cutting from each and shorten them, leave 8 branches on each.
I’ve been cooking thier next mix for a couple of days now. Decided to go with what I said originally, 1/3 OWC 1/3 Compost and a 1/3 Clay Pebbles.
I know, there’s none so blind as those that will not see but jib it, it feels right and apart from that the moss and perlite are stuck in transit somewhere, if they turn up in time, they might still get added.
In the flower room, after the arrival of me Hygro meter and after I’d learnt were it should be placed to take readings, I discovered my flower room was very, very warm, 35’ / 37 deg and very very dry 28 RH. The girls were heat stressed out to fuck, poor things. It wasn’t lack of nitrogen. They were baking.
I always thought 600w was to intense for such a small room. I’ve knocked the power down to 400w, which has dropped the temp down to 24.5 ish and I also sprayed the room with water and added a few trays of water between the girls. RH is on around 60 at the mo.
You can see the difference in the girls, they look far more relaxed and are getting a bit of colour back.
The veg room today
All 8 are now in thier final pots, The 3 WW have been in flower for just under a week. I put the largest AK into the flower room yesterday. It’s still probably a bit young but needs must.
A good sized back garden you got there, what you got growing in the raised bed? still to cold here to put anything in the ground, got double figure temps this weekend wohoo 10C on Sat and 11C on Sun.
We don’t plant most things out here till end of May but climates changing, it’s been glorious. Still I’ve only planted out, early versions of Onions and shallots in that bed, also got carrots, peas, spuds on the go.
Try tobacco this year for first time, seems a slow starter.
Tobacco eh, it should pick up when it gets warmer, they grow it here in Canada so it must be able to grow in cooler climates, might be strain dependant. When I lived in the UK the last few years there we always had a mini heatwave in May then it would cool off a bit and start to get warmer again.
We’re in the middle of one now, 19C here today, been lovely for about 3 weeks.
They used to grow thier own tobacco here in WWII, it grows better under glass but will grow outdoors.
Thought I’d give it a go, nothing to lose.
