Texas History Stays in Texas

I felt very good about the dividing of the metal detector finds. I was relieved that Stan and Sally said I could keep whatever I wanted and that I could give Johnny anything I wanted to give him, and they would be grateful to take whatever was left.  Johnny is the horse trainer for the Ranch he trains all of their cutting horses. He treated all the animals on the ranch with love and became our best human friend.

 He always had a smile and kind words. He was intrigued by the things I found in the ground so I always showed him my finds. He even knew what some of the stuff was and that was a bonus for me! LOL

When I showed him that heart shaped stirrup I saw his eyes  light up, I knew from that second
 that I wanted him to have it. The next day he asked me what I was going to do with it, and
offered to buy it from me.  I wanted to surprise him with it  as a parting gift so I tried to lower  his hopes as far as it being for sale.

  

I left Johnny most of the horse related things like the other Stirrups, bridal bits, D and other rings, buckles, the single tree, horse shoes and etc. 

  I had a lot of duplicate horse related things so I was able to leave plenty of those kind of things to Stan and Sally as well. 

 and I was very happy to give him the horse related items and some of the other things as well.
Johnny plans to hang his stuff in the cutting horse barn, where his office is so he (and others can enjoy it on a regular basis).

For Stan and Sally I left them just about everything else, War buttons and other buttons, utensils, tools, bullets, house hold items, car and tractor parts, stove parts a bunch of what-cha-ma-call-its and everything in between!.

I gave Stan both the Shield Nickel and the Seated Liberty coins that I found. He collects coins and they seemed to value EVERY thing that I found even the bucket of nails. They saw it all as part of the history of the ranch. So I figured if they thought that was cool, then those coins must be out of this world! I found a very old 18 kt yellow gold ring that I gave to Sally, I figured she could put it on a chain and wear it around her neck and have a part of the ranch history with her anytime she wanted to.

I told them about the boxes and bags of additional things that were in the shed by the white jeep.

 

These boxes contained many of the unknown things, or things that were heavy and or awkward. I photographed everything I found so if you look in the photo album, it would be in there somewhere!

            
                   Stan and Sally were stopping
                   by in the morning to say good byes.
                   I had to get this stuff   ready!

                  I literally stayed up all night making
                  index cards explaining what some
                  of the items were and putting them
                  in baggies and boxes so it was all
                  organized for them when they came
                  by to say their good byes.
                  They were   pleasantly surprised.


                          The index card says,
                  " Domed Eagle Button: Military Issue
                              First used in 1875". ...

If we do come back here for the next winter, I can check and see if any of it is on display or if it will have to wait until they can build a little building for those things and the old equipment over by Cedar Loft.




The only thing I really care about being displayed is that old bent up Civil war era British-made Enfield model-1853 rifle's butt-plate. I wrote about it a while back. It has numbers etched into it which indicate  that it was imported by the confederate through the naval blockade across the Atlantic ocean to America during the civil war years. (Basically what the index card below says on it.


If that is still sitting in the box, maybe they would consider loaning it to the Franklin County Historical Society until their little museum building could be built. 

For me, I took home a the not so old coins that I found, the pieces of that bowl or pot that I found in the honey hole the jack knives and a whole lot of satisfaction knowing the ranch history was being preserved. I would be so unbelievably proud if they did display the other items I found. What an honor that would be!

We had a great time on the ranch, I hope we go back for another winter. I will cry on and off all the way back to Wisconsin every time I think about Shiner.

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