My Coozie Runneth Over

Memorial Day weekend emboldened me

to spend 2 days on the river.

In reality, I should've done the opposite.

     Friday's digging, with Pam and Jack was wonderful:  warm and breezy and not a soul passed us all day long.

     But the vibe changed drastically on Saturday

Don't get me wrong, everyone was very happy and friendly...

But how many times can I answer the question, "Have you found anything?"...

(My new reply is, "I found a skull but it still had a lot of skin on it so I threw it back.")

...or laugh good naturedly when people say my trolling motor is "cheating!"?

Apparently, I can answer those questions hundreds of times.

Hindsight is 20/20 because I should've accepted all the beers that were offered to me, then cruised up and down the river that evening, selling them back.  I never think of these things until it's too late!

All in all, it was a good weekend.

The friendliest campground in central Florida, Highland Hammocks in Sebring, 

had a tent space for me.

Saturday morning I treated myself to a town meal for breakfast.  The Pioneer Restaurant was everything I'd hoped it would be: run-down, homey, table of old men regulars in the corner, and a cheap tasty plate of eggs.

Friday's digging was great!

I found a jaw fragment from a giant ground sloth.  How cool is that?!

Here's a pic from a reference book showing the unique S-shape of the tooth that would've fit into this socket:

I found my first ever manatee tooth.  Excited!

Some big pieces of manatee/dugong rib.

These are so abundant, most people throw them back but when I find big chunks, like these, I bring them home.

Best gator tooth yet!

And a good selection of other fossils including 2 horse teeth and a very good meg.

     Then it was Saturday...

     Day 2 saw significantly reduced enthusiasm for the exhausting digging needed to find a single good fossil in this location.

     After 4 half-hearted hours of dredging heavy chunks of clay like this:

...I decided to pack it in.

     I still have the monster 40lb battery for my new lightweight trolling motor and I found it rides better if I put it up front with me.  The benefit of this arrangement is it makes a very nice footrest for the relaxed cruise back to the boat ramp.

     When I looked at my "haul" for the 4 hours of poking around on Saturday, I am torn about whether to return to this spot or not.

     It's not a lot but it's not "nothing" either.  Jack told me, at the beginning of this season, "I don't stop going back until I find nothing."  

     Maybe after a few more good nights' rest and some yoga to unkink my back, I'll be able to wrap my mind around 6 more hours of dredging clay...maybe!

The Eleventh Hour

    I'm getting that freaked out, end-of-the-season, feeling.

     An "eleventh hour" decision had me leading Pam and Steve to some gravel I stumbled across over a month ago and I was having trouble finding my location.  The warm weather is bringing afternoon rain and the high water levels left everything looking alien.  I'm not a tech wiz so the GPS on my phone is only so helpful in taking me back to a hole and I swear, everything in Florida looks the same!  Palm, oak, willow, cypress, palm, oak, willow, cypress... Add to that an overnight low of 57º and I was out of my very narrow comfort zone.  

      Finally, I found the area we were going to dig and Jack met up with us as we were getting situated.  I spend a fair amount of time on the river alone because even when you are digging with a partner, they tend to drift off, usually out of easy conversation distance (but still within "GATOR!" shouting distance), so it was enjoyable to dig as a group.  

     The first half of our day, the temperature was in the low 70's with a bracing wind that left us all wishing we hadn't abandoned our wetsuits back in March (very unusual for mid-May in south-central Florida) but we persevered.

     I was originally attracted to this digging site because I felt it was my best chance to find a good sized chunk of mammoth or mastodon tooth this season.  It's still possible, although relatively rare, to find whole mammoth teeth as evidenced by this pair of associated teeth (from the same animal) found by Pam and Jack's friend, Kim, only a week ago.  

     This photo is used with her permission and the teeth, for a modern-day newbie hunter like myself, defy description.  I truly can't imagine what it would be like to find these.  

     I certainly wouldn't snub whole mammoth teeth but my goals are more modest: I wanted a chunk of tooth bigger than any I had previously found...

...and I did it!

     Six heavy, glossy plates (segments of the tooth) from an adult mammoth.  I can't expain it, maybe I'm worn out from all the digging, but this instantly enabled me to deem the day, and even the season a success.  Yay!!!  I took this beauty home and set it on a plate and have been staring at it ever since.  I put the plate in my salon to show a client and when I picked it up, she was startled because, she told me, she thought it was a piece of cake.  I've been giggling about that all afternoon.   And the best part of my mammoth find was that Pam and Steve also found large chunks of mammoth tooth; everybody was happy.  

     I also scored this large vertebra:

     It might be manatee or dugong but the jury is still out.

     The site is not very productive but, as I pointed out to Jack who found a large bear canine, when it does produce, it's good stuff.

     Nothing new for the curio cabinet on my odds and ends plate but everything is so glossy and pretty. 

Good enough to eat!

     The new trolling motor/kayak combo worked like a dream and the ride back downstream in the warm afternoon sun was so peaceful, I almost dozed off...

I'm not kidding.

Every day left on the river this season is icing on the cake.

Introducing...my new kayak!!!

Feast your eyes!

     Lots of shopping and financial shuffling took place, including selling 2 of my old kayaks, but I finally pulled the trigger on this sweet setup at Auburndale Action Watersports.  Now I can hit the river with a kayak that's 20 lbs lighter and a trolling motor that is 10 lbs lighter.  That's a huge saving in effort for my tired old muscles.

     The guys at the shop added a couple of instructional decals and just for fun...

...they tacked "Turbo" onto the name of the kayak.

Can't wait to get this baby on the water!

     Driving through Auburndale was a new experience.

     I was reminded of the "30 Rock" episode where Liz Lemon ponders how, once you leave the city, every product you encounter has a slightly off-brand name.   

Circle P?

That's different, but they sold much the same items as elsewhere down here.

     Back in the Wauchula area, I was able to finish my photo montage of the Wauchula Super Market mural. 

The Last Supper and...

The Lone Ranger

Why not, right?

     The water level on the Peace River was still waaay too high to go where I wanted so I went to an area that's normally very shallow and heavily dug.  I had low expectations but anything was better than missing one of the last digging weekends of the season.

     I ended up having a fun day finding lots of cool little things.

Some awesome tiger shark teeth.

One of the biggest tortoise foot pads I've found.

Petite versions of a turtle spur, "peace sign" scute, glyptodon scute, and "puzzle piece" scute.

Crystalized auger shell.  Look at the perfect point!

And this piece of white mastodon enamel.

     The approaching summer will give me time to work on fossil jewelry creations and do some organizing of my growing collection.  Lest anyone tease me about the constant sorting and labeling of things, know that I can't help it!  It's in the genes.  Here's a pic of my nephew sorting the shark teeth I gave him on his last visit:

     Maybe I'll make a license plate for the front of my truck that reads, 

"It's a fossil thing. You wouldn't understand."

Desperate times and desperate measures

The rains have started!

     The end of the Peace River fossil season is fast approaching and my reaction has been to push the envelope with the usual results: jacked-up back and wasted trips.  The lesson here is You can't force it.

     Pam was kind enough to escort me to a very interesting locale and we had to do some Indiana Jones moves to get there.

     Clambering down an embankment, I snagged my ancient, beloved North Face shorts.  

Dang!

     I've already tried and rejected 2 pairs of replacement shorts from WalMart.  If I didn't have to try everything on, I could just order some shorts and be done with it.  Oh well...it was worth it to get to the digging area.

     One of Pam's friends found the site and they had pretty much dug it out but I was grateful for the dregs and what beautiful dregs they were.

     Due to the clay surrounding these fossils, they had very different colors from the usual gray/black of Peace River fossils.  The tiger shark tooth at the top of this photo measures a meaty 1.25" across.

     I was told that the site quickly yielded dozens of horse teeth but luckily, they missed a couple!

     Quite a quantity of my favorite turtle scute.  The fossils lack the high gloss I'm used to but the variety of colors more than makes up for it.

Giant armadillo scutes.

Great colors on these odds and ends.

These shark teeth will get their own spot in the curio cabinet.

     I missed out on the large makos with amazing colors but still snagged these 2 delicate makos, each measuring about an inch in length.

     In my "spare" time, frantic to beat the rains, I dug in my usual haunts.  I didn't find much, but what I found was really nice.

Another near-perfect megalodon tooth.  I only have about 3 that are this good.

     Look at this beautiful chunk of mammoth tooth.  You can see the high gloss finish of the Peace River and the translucence in the layers of enamel.  Nice!

Some kind of toe bone.

Ancient, worn piece of coral.  I might try to polish this and bring out that pattern.

Molar from a 3-toed horse.

     I feel like I just started this season and now it's on the wane.  The river was so high from a weekend of heavy rain that a family of manatees cruised past my kayak (startled me!) and I came across one of the biggest gators I've personally seen in the Peace; it was Cape-Canaveral-National-Seashore big!

Heading home, this guy's truck made me laugh:

     I might think a wrecker is sexy if I'm stranded somewhere but, regardless, the message got me out of my rainy day funk.