I'm glad that you guys enjoyed the videos too.
Ernst, I also appreciate hearing your stories. While I grew up long after you, we do share many similarities. While I was hunting by the time I was 10 (that was about when I started), it was about 13 by the time I was hunting by myself.
It was not uncommon to see a lot of us neighborhood boys walking down the tracks with loaded shotguns hoping to scare up a rabbit or when squirrel season opened, you could hear the freedom ring all across the woods from the crack of day to about 10AM. Then again from about 3PM to 7PM once it was nearing dark and they were going to their nests.
Another thing, nobody had gun safes when I was growing up. But, everyone did have gun racks. In their trucks and in their bedrooms.
I'm very thankful and blessed to have been born and raised when and where I was.
I know this is not on topic of finding old shotgun shell brass, but I have been able to find several old homesteads that was near my old stomping grounds. I always enjoyed seeing what I could find.
I think one of the most unusual was what I believe was a weeding hoe. It was hand forged. The handle was long rotted away. The head of the tool was just laying on top of the old rock wall like someone had laid it up there that morning. The old rock wall and the small portion of the chimney that is still standing, is about the only physical sign that you would know that a person had ever stepped foot there. Otherwise, you'd never know it now.