What happens when I get some free time...

When school let out this summer I took Luke into the studio to write his own song. He wanted to write a rock song. He spouted off some lyrics and I wrote them down for him (I thought they were pretty good, but I'm his mom so you can't really trust me on that). I started piecing together a music track for him then had him sing his words over the music. We liked this activity and it only took about an hour to do.

A couple of weeks later we were on vacation at his grandparents' house and had an open afternoon of hanging out. Since I'm no fun and can't ever do "nothing", I asked Luke if he would want to make a music video for his song. His idols are Jimmy Page and Matthew Bellamy of Muse so of course he said YES. Filming was a good experience because he learned that a lot more goes into a video than what you see in the edited version. About 10 minutes into filming he was ready to quit, but again, I'm no fun so I told him he had to finish what he started. About 10 minutes more and we were done with the filming. It took me a few hours of the afternoon to edit this together but it was worth it because we now have this fun reminder of the summer between Kindergarten and 1st grade:

What can you find with a metal detector?

Oh all sorts of things. On our first metal detector outing, we went to the Old Zoo in Griffith Park. This is only about 5 minutes away from our house so it was a good place to start. We started off in a dry riverbed and found a lot of bottlecaps and junk. Halfway through, the Garrett Ace 250 signaled that there was a dime underground. One simple scoop of the sifter (and mind you, all that other junk had to be dug out with a huge shovel) yielded this fine treasure:

We had no idea what kind of Chinese coin this was but a Google search tells me it is a gift medallion of some kind. That was disappointing because your initial thought when you see a coin of this size (3 inches in diameter) is that because it is so big, it is worth more. Wrongo. But I believe the big mystery behind this is, how the heck does someone lose something as big as this in a dry riverbed?

We followed the stream a bit more but it was just more bottlecaps. We checked out the grassy area of the Old Zoo and didn't get many signals until we reached a little knoll overlooking the stream, under a tree. I didn't think we should be digging in this grassy area but it was a good signal. After a quick look around, we started digging. One old penny, two old pennies, three, some other kind of coin, another of that kind of coin... this was turning into some kind of stash! This was our last big find of the day so I'll move on to the part where we take our treasures home.

To us, the most interesting find was the old coin stash. After a quick Google search on how to safely clean coins without damaging them, it looked like electrolysis was the best way. And after another quick Google search, my hubby was well on his way out to the shed to find a power source to build our own electrolysis machine. That took about 5 minutes to complete. Who knew? It took many on and off cycles of the electrolysis machine to remove the corrosion from the coin, but what we uncovered was an antique subway token! I couldn't find a lot of information on this particular token or what years it was from. We still plan on electrolyzing the pennies to find out what year these were lost. I'll post a better picture of the subway token when I finish de-corroding it.



I can just imagine some young guy back in the 30's, sitting down by the stream after visiting the zoo, with all the change, and his fare home, dumping out onto the ground unbeknownst to him. It's amazing to me that these coins went from that person to us, with no other transaction in between. We felt like time travelers. That was a really special day. A great day. A day on which we didn't get arrested for digging holes in the park.

And then there was a metal detector...

Now that Luke had earned the money, he wanted that metal detector, the Garrett Ace 250. He was specifically attracted to this one because we had seen many Youtube videos of people using it to find gold. It looked easy enough to use and this was important to me. This thing is bigger than Luke so I knew I would be the one swinging this sucker around.

I hadn't told him, but I had bought a Garrett Ace 250 off of someone on Craigslist a few days prior and stored it in my trunk. Something I found out through calling on metal detector Craigslist ads is that people buy their kids these things for Christmas, then immediately start screaming at their kids to stop digging holes in their yard, then they sell it on Craigslist at a reduced price. I heard about five similar stories in a row. Too bad for their kid, but GREAT for mine!

Since my hubby thought pulling the metal detector out of the trunk would be anti-climactic and not a real-world-enough money-exchanging-hands kind of transaction, we arranged with my neighbor to pretend she was selling one. The next day we let Luke know there was one for sale across the street. He was excited and ran to put his money in an envelope. He was so excited that he didn't even want to spend time labeling the envelope "metal detector money" so he labeled it "MR MY" which was supposed to be some kind of excited 6 year old shorthand.

You can just view the pics below to see how happy the boy was to buy his first real treasure hunting tool:

Please no comments on my thermal blanket-covered couch, we were fostering kittens at the time and thermal blankets are one thing cats do not like to put their claws into. <- helpful information possibly? I try to be helpful.

As we were walking home across the street, the boy was trying to detect metal anywhere he could:

...and finally found some at home. After a few huge holes in the backyard, we found some rusty parts and some pennies. Score!

Pay no attention to the background. All we see is a sweet boy who is proud of his treasure. La la la....


All I have to say is, how my hubby can fall asleep outside, with a towel on his face, after a cup of coffee is beyond me, but it happens.

Ok, where were we in this story?

So after Luke's first sale, he was pretty jazzed. He was ready to take on the world and wanted to immediately go out and sell plants in the neighborhood. We packed up the wagon, made a sign and set the course. For some reason, this was a week he was stuttering quite a bit so he had to repeat a lot but still made many sales. I had prepared him mentally for people saying "no thanks" and I kept waiting, waiting, waiting for that response. Apparently everyone is a sucker for a 6 year old with an entrepreneurial streak.

The one thing that surprised me about all of this is how much he loved making that sale. During these trips, he never, ever got tired. In fact, I had to tell him that he must go home for a snack and rest because he was unstoppable. Every sale brought more excitement for him. Most days afterwards I got asked if we could go out and do more plant sales. I still get asked this months later though it's much harder to schedule now that school is back in session.

After selling a bunch of his toys on Craigslist for $20 and a second day out selling, Luke finally reached his tipping point of $90. He earned his half of the metal detector. Now I had to pony up the other $90 like I had promised, but I was so proud of him for meeting his goal that I certainly didn't mind. Here are some pics of Luke selling like a real pro around our neighborhood.

Luke's Plants

After Luke's plants starting finding their feet, a friend of mine came over to check out his store. He gave his sales pitch, which we made him practice over and over - I know that sounds like a crazy parent but if he was going to DO this then we didn't want him to embarrass himself by stumbling over his words. The sales pitch:

"Hi, my name is Luke. I am selling plants to buy a metal detector. Would you like to buy some plants?"

The result:



The expression:



PRICELESS!

In the beginning...

I basically created this blog to tell the story of how my 5 year old son, Luke, became the owner of a $250 metal detector because many people have asked me about it. Now I can just send them here! So easy! Here's the beginning of that story.

Back in June (2010), we were watching random Youtube videos and somehow stumbled upon Treasure Hunting America. It's a show where (usually older) men go out with their (expensive) metal detectors and find amazing treasures from wars past or gold in the hills of Utah and California.

Soon, all Luke could think about was finding gold and treasure. He would sit on the couch and whine about how he needed a metal detector and he needed gold now. I mean, the TEARS, people! Of course we're not talking about a typical go ride your bike and jump off of tall things kind of boy here. He's always been more into quiet activities, ones where you don't have to chase a ball along with 20 other kids. But still, even though he is different, this was weird to witness. This obsession with finding gold was increasing every day and the drama with it.

Soon I became weary of the daily "But I need to find gold!" and I said, "Well if you need this metal detector, then you better start thinking about how to get it". That really got his attention. I think, for the first time, he realized he had control and the dramatics ceased. Now it was a mission. Find out how to make the money to get that metal detector.

Hubby suggested a lemonade stand. I didn't quite see how that was going to make much money and I had no interest in sitting out in the sun with him peddling something I don't even let him drink. Maybe clean up around the house? No way. No one pays ME to clean the house so I'm not paying anyone in this family to help around here. One thing that Luke had always enjoyed helping with and knew a lot about was plants. He was always good with the names, details and rooting the cuttings. I suggested he sell plants around the neighborhood. His eyes lit up so we began "Luke's Plants" the next day. Here is a picture from his first round of planting: