A very expensive handle

     Towards the end of the fossiling season I received an invitation to meet one of the old timer river diggers and spend a day digging in one of his favorite spots.  I know there's no such thing as a secret spot on the Peace River but having found a genuine "undug" location, I know that some areas are better than others and there's always the chance of finding one little picket that everybody else missed, like a Peace River lottery win.
     I was told that the water at this location was deeper and I would need a shovel with a long handle and since I am very gung ho regarding my hobby I ran to the hardware stores and started checking out shovels.  None of them had a handle any longer than normal BUT I spied a long, strong handle on a Kobalt mortar hoe and figured I could lose the hoe and replace it with a shovel head.

    When I saw the price tag, I hesitated.  $24.95 is quite a chunk of change for a wooden handle.

Sold!!!

     Mike saw the mortar hoe in my truck and when I admitted I had just bought it for the handle he asked, slightly bewildered, "Kobalt? How much did you pay for it? For the handle?!"  But he's a good sport, removing the hoe and welding on a shovel head for me.  Hindsight being 20/20, I probably should have chosen an equally expensive shovel head but I did find out that the Kobalt handle is the one to use so I felt vindicated regarding the cost.

Here's a little helper demonstrating the length of the handle, well-used when this photo was taken.

     And having that extra handle length made a big difference.  I now know that digging in deeper water is not for me;  it's physically exhausting and not as productive since I work so my slower.  Fossil Steve likes to fill a 5 gallon bucket, drilled full of holes, with sand and gravel, bounce the bucket until most of the sand sifts out, then dump the bucket on a screen supported by a stand  on the bank.  This method has lots of merit because you don't keep refilling the areas you are working on with debris, but I'm not strong enough to do this all day long and even filling a floating screen in deeper water takes its toll.

     Currently, it's a moot point.  I was out with Pam, probing a shallow, well-dug area of the river and managed to find a fissure in the rock; potentially very exciting.  I dug and dug, pulling up all manner of odd things including 2 old brown glass whiskey bottles and a 3' long aluminum probe, but not a single fossil.  I continued to pry large stones out of the way until I bent my shovel head!  Then the prying stopped.  I admitted defeat.

     Mike, bless his heart, was doing his best to knock the bent shovel head loose and broke the handle.  Oh well...it's not the most expensive hobby but between $25 shovel handles, lost prescription sunglasses, trolling motor batteries, and gas to get there, it ain't cheap, either!