The journey into the abyss of no return

[Ridgetop]

Seeing your idea of a tractor puts me in mind of Crocodile Dundee and his idea of a knife!

 

[SageHill]

Went poking and prodding for water a week ago and never found anything. Well this weekend I seen some soil that is wet 4' down in one of the 20' holes I dug after a few days which is odd. So I went over and dug, about 6' down still wet in one spot, but I ended up hitting something else and now all digging has to stop till I figure out what these belonged to.
Dinosaur bones anyone or what are these? It's common for dinosaur bones to be found here they say. Going to poke and prod slowly tomorrow to find more with a shovel.
View attachment 105615View attachment 105616

Holy moly! What a cool find!!!! Have fun poking and prodding this could be interesting.

 

[Ridgetop]

Hopefully they are dinosaur bones of an entirely new species. Then you could sell digging rights to a group of archeologists as well as selling the skeleton to a museum. $$$$$$ If they are real dinosaur bones rake in the cash and enjoy the fun of a dig on your property!

Unfortunately, they don't look like they have turned to rock yet which you would expect with dinosaur bones. And don't those 4 small parallel scratches on the first picture- top bone - look like tooth marks? Maybe an old buffalo bone? You can take them to the vet and ask him if they look like cattle bones or to the museum or university and ask.

If they turn out not to be dinosaur bones, I would clean them, apply a coat of varnish, mount them in a frame, hang them up, and label them "Possible dinosaur bones found on 3/9/24 by . . . ." Assuming you don't have a lot of archeologically trained dinosaur people coming by your house every day, you can enjoy them. lol

Either way, keep digging. Or scatter a little corn in the area and turn those bacon seeds in. They will dig up anything.

 

[Ridgetop]

Ancient bison bones may be worth something too. If nothing else, they are fun for you - maybe you could reconstruct the entire skeleton. That would be so cool!

 

[SageHill]

Well so far found a whole femur, a rib and a shard of what looks to be femur. Appears the bones were scattered a bit from what I have seen. Looks to be bison, just a bison hundreds or thousands of years ago under 4 to 6 feet of soil. Sure isn't cattle as no one buries anything out here.
https://www.willamettevalleypleistocene.com/whs/bison-antiquus
I measured the distal and proximal end and they measure up to that link of bison.

So cool!! Haven't found anything here other than a coyote skull and a coyote pelvis. Oh and a I think gopher skull.

 

[SageHill]

I will look for the rest later, but first now I'm past where those are at, I'm onto going deeper

More power to you sticking to the real task. I would’ve done the “oh lookie shiny object” on those old bones and sidetracked to finding the rest!

 

[Ridgetop]

Watching you work that big machine with the bad track was scary. I almost turned it off then realized that you didn't roll off the cliff because obviously you posted it! LOL Dangerous!

 

[SageHill]

Well dang off track. Nothing like limping along . Were you able to get the track reset? Hoping it’s nothing worse than opening the tread and resetting it.
taking the time out to look for more dino bones would’ve been more “fun”.

 

[farmerjan]

You are very talented with that machine. Reminds me of my father in some ways... He ran a Bucyrus Erie dragline for years... perfected dredging out ponds and such... he could grade the bank around a pond with the bucket on the cables... he was in great demand for many years for cleaning out or digging new ponds and lakes .... high end landowners wanting a lake on their "mini-estate"..... and did alot of ponds on golf courses in CT where he was based...takes some real knowledge of the balance and capabilities of the machine... I applaud your skill...

 

[Mini Horses]

Good job! That's some challenging terrain