So here's the first post of the year. I've been a little slow getting back on the horse, to use a farm-ism.
Late in 2010 the Farm was awarded a grant from the Illinois DNR for some site work. One of the steps we had to complete before getting the funds was to submit to an archaeological survey. With the recent break in the snow cover we set up a meeting with Dr. Kevin McGowan and his team from the University of Illinois to do some digging.It was a bit amusing when we put the drill bit to the ground and it went no where. Yes, obviously there was frost but we had hoped that the mighty Bobcat would punch right through. After a couple of experiments we finally found that running a hose with hot water from the milking parlor gave enough warmth for the drill bit to penetrate the hard ground. Ends up the frost line is at about 9".
After the holes were dug the team sifted the spoils and documented the soil levels. It ends up that our site has been disturbed greatly through the century plus of agriculture. One interesting historical fact that Kevin brought up was the fact that it is believed that Native Americans had a camp site at the southeast corner of the farm.
