I got a text from Julie, who explained that her husband had lost his rings. Rings plural? She explained that there were two rings that had been lost – one 5 1/2 years ago and a replacement ring that was lost a few days ago (more on that in a minute). It was the replacement ring that she had texted me about. They had searched for the original ring and been unable to find it.. I made the hour’s drive to her house and she explained the situation a little further. The newly lost ring (the replacement) had been tossed (long story) and Julie showed me the area of the woods where she thought it would have landed.
Julie then explained that right after they moved into this house 5 1/2 years earlier, their two dogs stumbled onto a yellow jacket nest in the woods. Julie grabbed one of the dogs and started to address that problem while her husband went after the other dog. The yellow jackets attacked him as well and in the process of swatting them away as he ran toward the house, his ring came off. They had looked for it at the time, but were unable to locate it. So, first ring lost 5 1/2 years earlier and replacement ring lost two days ago.
I spent probably two hours scouring the woods where she had pointed me, but no ring. Nails, bottle caps, pop tops, and other common things, but no ring. After talking with Julie again, we decided that moving the search closer to the house (into the yard) would be a good strategy. I turned my machine back on and almost immediately Julie yelled that she had found the replacement ring. I was disappointed that I hadn’t found it, but since the main thing is to get the owner and the lost item back together, it was still a great outcome. With the replacement ring found, I started looking for the « original ». I was only able to spend about 30 min that day, but promised to come back and try again.
On my return visit, I started where the yellow jacket nest had been and slowly worked my way toward the house. After about an hour of searching, I got a solid signal and uncovered the original ring. During the time between loss and recovery, it had sunk 3 or so inches down into the dirt and was additionally covered by leaf litter. The picture shows the ring and an excited Julie. Another happy ending!
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