For all those who are under the impression that tree hugging is a bad thing, I beg to differ. On a summer prospecting trip with my good friend Mike, we went metal detecting for nuggies in a small hydraulic pit. The pit had been heavily hunted for many years by almost every detector made, and I had been told that pounds of gold had been found there. Now sadly, I was not part of this early fun, so we were just hoping for a few crumbs, which would make my day. But for many hours, no luck! Then it dawned on me, that I hadn’t gotten up close and personal with the trees in this pit. When I say “up close and personal”, I mean, literally, hugging the trunk and putting my coil as close as humanly possible to the trunk and roots! Sometimes this is difficult with all the branches that want to poke you in all the places you would rather not get poked. After about the third tree, my luck with the nuggies changed. In the next few hours, I had 1/4 ounce of nice, chunky bits! Mike had been teasing me about being a tree hugger, but when he saw the growing collection of nuggies, he started getting “up close and personal” with our woody friends, as well! -Miner John
