Never one to come inside

When I was a kid growing up in Egypt Mills, an afternoon rarely went by when my mother didn’t have to yell at me to come inside. Playing with my Tonka toys in the dirt beside the chicken house was more important than doing my homework. Probably not the most prudent decisions on my part, but that’s life.

Fast forward 35-plus years and it’s still difficult to get me to come inside when the day is done. No matter the weather or time of year, I spend the majority of my free time hunting, fishing, trapping or, in more recent years, looking for arrowheads.

This past spring my 5-year-old chocolate Labrador, Abbie, and I were out looking for arrowheads in some recently disturbed dirt not far from home. Abbie gets to roam freely for one, two or six hours sometimes when we’re out looking for artifacts, so she never stays behind.

As we walked around the woods’ edge, a piece of metal caught my eye. Laying there on top of the ground wasn’t an Indian artifact, but rather a bird leg band. Apparently, the dirt work exposed the band, and a recent heavy rain washed it clean.

The next day I called the Avise Bird Band folks in Laurel, Maryland, and gave them the band information. I told the girl on the phone she should record the band as “recovered” because there was no bird (or bone) with it.

A few weeks passed and I finally got a certificate of appreciation from the U.S. Geological Survey. Given that I found the band beside a seasonal pond that holds transient wood ducks, I wasn’t surprised when I learned the bird species was a wood duck. The bird had been banded on Aug. 21, 1987, at Prior Lake, Minnesota, but when and how it died will never be known. Neither will the age of the bird, but knowing the species and where it was banded was satisfaction enough.

Abbie and I found a number of Indian artifacts this summer — some intact and others just pieces, and one piece was as exciting as our finding the bird band.

A couple hills over from the bird band recovery field, I found the midsection of a Dalton projectile point, just as I was about to give up for the day. The tip and the base were both broken off, missing, and even though the elliptical midsection looked its age (between 8,000 and 10,000 years old), there was still enough left to see remnants of the resharpened edge serrations. There was even the characteristic beveling that occurs from resharpening. Even in rough shape, it was still a keeper.

So long as there’s fresh air outdoors, I’ll find time to take it in. Maybe all those hours playing in the dirt as a child were preparation for things that matter equally as much in my adult years: giving my dog exercise, finding ancient artifacts and enjoying nature. And to think, we can do it all again tomorrow.

Email Steven at sbender1878@gmail.com.