Prospecting the Grader Ditches

[josephusminimus]

I began doing this sometime during the 1990s riding with a friend who owned a used furniture store.&nbsp; We'd be driving along at highway speed and he'd yell, "Stop!"&nbsp; He'd seen something in the ditch he thought might be worth salvaging, repairing to re-sell.<br /><br />When he loaded the back of my Mitzubishi Montero with potential stuff blown in one fell swoop from someone who'd evidently been relocating and lost half their possessions, watched him make some minor repairs and sell it for a thousand bucks and some change, it made a believer of me.&nbsp; If what he found didn't fit the mystique of his store he'd flea market it, or garage sale it.<br /><br />At the moment I'm preparing to do some serious insulating under the RV and maybe the windows with the tops of coleman and igloo coolers I've mined out of the roadsides of Texas.&nbsp; The trailer I'll be pulling to hold my goods will contain several topless igloos and coleman ice chests to separate clothing from cat food, etc.<br /><br />I've harvested tents, a rifle carrying case worth about $50, a couple of dead truck batteries for the salvage yard, a water softener for various components,&nbsp; numerous bungie cords, tarps and a drop-hitch over the years.&nbsp; Along with so much other stuff I can't remember it all.&nbsp;<br /><br />Also a few runned over snakes I skinned for hatbands or to sell.&nbsp; Got a good many feral hog tusks off roadkill carcasses, and a middling nice set of antlers now on some kitchen knives as handles.&nbsp;<br /><br />Homer Henderson and the Dalworthian Garden Boys<br /><em>Picking Up Beercans on the Highway</em><br />[video]

 

[josephusminimus]

Forgot to mention, the young man who came down to take Shiva the Cow Cat back to Kansas for his mom earns his living on a nighttime paper route.&nbsp; He prospects the ditches.&nbsp; Brought me a five gallon propane bottle, good as new except for some drippings from a barbeque grille.&nbsp; He's got a five-inch reflector telescope, he picked up in a KC ditch, and he constantly sells surprising finds through the Olathe KS auction.&nbsp;

 

[dragonflyinthesky]

<p>Regarding roadkill snakes. Fresh rattlers still can have deadly venom so be careful skinning one. I always carry a long board and a&nbsp;box of non iodized salt and thumbtacks to stretch and preserve my finds. I know Tandy used to sell some good stuff for snakes, maybe they still do. I will look for something better when I get on the road to carry with me.<br />You don't have to go buy a board, objects like that can usually be found. <br />Roadkill Javelina, otter&nbsp;and most anything else legal (know what you can have in the state you are in):<br />If you are in one place for several days and the weather is right, you can take the head and let the beetles and ants take care of the flesh. Needs secured in some way so the coyotes don't wonder off with your find.<br />If you accidentally hit and kill something, be careful, fleas&nbsp; jump off at death and find whatever else is warm and living. I do know there are some bad flea borne illnesses out west.<br />Skulls sell on ebay.<br />Birds? Do your homework, a lot are protected and you don't want to be caught proudly displaying the wrong feathersyour hatband.<br />Sorry if this offends some. <br /><span style="color: #ff0000;"><strong>Dragonfly</strong></span></p>

 

[josephusminimus]

<p>Regarding roadkill snakes. Fresh rattlers still can have deadly venom so be careful skinning one. I always carry a long board and a&nbsp;box of non iodized salt and thumbtacks to stretch and preserve my finds. I know Tandy used to sell some good stuff for snakes, maybe they still do. I will look for something better when I get on the road to carry with me.<br />You don't have to go buy a board, objects like that can usually be found. <br />Roadkill Javelina, otter&nbsp;and most anything else legal (know what you can have in the state you are in):<br />If you are in one place for several days and the weather is right, you can take the head and let the beetles and ants take care of the flesh. Needs secured in some way so the coyotes don't wonder off with your find.<br />If you accidentally hit and kill something, be careful, fleas&nbsp; jump off at death and find whatever else is warm and living. I do know there are some bad flea borne illnesses out west.<br />Skulls sell on ebay.<br />Birds? Do your homework, a lot are protected and you don't want to be caught proudly displaying the wrong feathersyour hatband.<br />Sorry if this offends some. <br /><span style="color: #ff0000;"><strong>Dragonfly</strong></span></p>

<br /><br />Good info.&nbsp; And especially so on the feather thing.&nbsp; The wrong airborne predator&nbsp;feather in possession can get a person a dozen years in the slammer.&nbsp; The right one probably won't draw a sentence of more than a couple, with a good lawyer.&nbsp;

 

[joey]

I bought an immature Red Tail Hawk at a yard sale once,not knowing it was illegal to have such birds. Years later I was doing volunteer work for the NFS.The archaeologists I was working with saw it and told me about the fines/jail time associated with possession. He suggested that I donate it to the Natural History Museum. I did and even got a thank you letter from them. I'd had it for several years hanging over my fireplace.

 

[josephusminimus]

I bought an immature Red Tail Hawk at a yard sale once,not knowing it was illegal to have such birds. Years later I was doing volunteer work for the NFS.The archaeologists I was working with saw it and told me about the fines/jail time associated with possession. He suggested that I donate it to the Natural History Museum. I did and even got a thank you letter from them. I'd had it for several years hanging over my fireplace.

<br /><br />The protected species lists have made it a mine-field for anything involving falcons, hawks, owls and various parts of them [even when they're collected with a shovel from the pavement].&nbsp; Over the years I've gradually become a lot more discerning about knowing what species the feather I wear sticking out of my hatband is, and what it isn't.

 

[josephusminimus]

The discerning grader-ditch prospector will soon learn the quality of items likely to be found in an area varies wildly with the economic status of the folks living nearby.&nbsp; The exception being the Interstate Highway system, where all sorts of folks pass through with loads not tied down properly.&nbsp; Or where the law enforcement folks decided to search a UHaul, unloaded it beside the highway, and arrested the folks driving it.&nbsp; When they do that they haul off the vehicle, but frequently don't bother reloading the non-drug related items once carefully packed inside.<br /><br />Outside Socorro, New Mexico on the Interstate a tractor-trailer carrying baled hay caught fire and the firemen dragged off all the unburned hay trying to contain the fire.&nbsp; Left it in the ditch.&nbsp; My old friend, Mel, and I loaded up several trailer-loads of good hay out of the ditch a week later.<br /><br />Something similar happened a few miles down the road when a hay load contained some drugs sniffed out by dogs.&nbsp; They pulled out all the hay getting to it and left it in the ditch.&nbsp; But by the time I got around to getting down there with a trailer someone else had snagged it.<br /><br />But generally speaking, discarded items in areas affluent people deliberately dump things into the ditch have a higher probability of being worth salvaging than areas where the residents just throw out their whiskey bottles and beer cans as they drive along.<br /><br />Areas where hunters go and pay wealthy ranchers to shoot deer and exotics off their land provide a nice mix.&nbsp; During game seasons there tend to be all manner of things blow off their trucks by accident between the bottles cans and fast food containers those hunters throw out in route.

 

[crazybill]

&nbsp; Every now and then I pick up trash on the mountain road into my neighborhood. A 13 mile stretch the locals call "lion's trail". It's a pretty road but very narrow and winding. I'll just park and walk along the road with my 5 gallon orange bucket and pick-up stick. Gotta be extra careful of the cars but there aren't a lot of them. Maybe two and hour. Anyway......I was surprised at the stuff I have found off the road. Stacks of CDs, cell phones, even a floor mat. Of course i find the expected trash, bottles, cans, toilet paper, etc. But who would throw out an expensive floor mat? (notice I don't question throwing out the cell phone) I have even found real money. Not a lot but a dollar bill now and then. Not gonna get rich but the walk is good and the scenery nice.<br />&nbsp; I was also surprised at the LARGE booze bottles. Vodka, etc. I hate the fact I am sharing that winding road with someone just finishing off a quart of Smirnoff. <br />-Bill-

 

[Guest]

I worked for the USFWS for some years and in fact, retired from them. I know full well the law enforcement branch is busy all the time busting poachers and illicit importers of live and dead endangered species and parts.<br /><br />At the same time I was a jeweler and lover of natural stuff and my sons lived with their mom right on the shore of Lutak Inlet in Haines, AK. I used to pay them a buck a feather for Bald Eagle feathers they found in the water and on the beach....It is an area where eagles winter and there are hundreds there every year. Some die and some shed feathers and they float up on the beach. When I realized that it was an extremely serious offense for a white guy like me to own them I finally gave them all to some Native American friends who are Sun Dancers and are wrapped up in getting back to their roots and oral traditions...they were very grateful and happy with them as they are not allowed to hunt them and it is hard to get them...all is well on the frontier!<br /><br />Bri

 

[Seraphim]

Interesting information on bird feathers. Never occured to me there were laws against the possession of illegal feathers.

 

[josephusminimus]

Interesting information on bird feathers. Never occured to me there were laws against the possession of illegal feathers.

<br /><br />The scope of items illegal to possess in the brave new world broadens constantly.&nbsp; An artifact more than a century old picked up on public land, fossils collected on public land in a lot of places, even various minerals can get a person into a peck of trouble.&nbsp; Identifiable body parts from protected species are in there with the rest.<br /><br />A person&nbsp;possessing anything unusual, especially&nbsp;for sale or trade, concurrently visiting public land, would be well advised to have kept a diary recording where the artifact, object, was acquired by some legal method.&nbsp; It won't protect 100%, but at least it would provide a platform for discussion if the enforcement official isn't dead-set on ruining someone's day.&nbsp;