Back in the Saddle Again

"Saddle" in this context means "kayak"

I had the gall to feel disappointed that my first day back on the Peace River was dreary,

but I'll give myself a break because it was really dreary.

The chill was a shock and it drizzled on us all day and I had forgotten a stocking hat and even a sweatshirt.  Still, my excitement at being able to dig again got me through, and it wasn't until I glanced in the rearview mirror after loading my truck that I noticed my lips were blue.  

I'm declaring the day a success!

I'm not certain but I believe this is a big honking ballast bone from a fish.  I'm taking it to the next club meeting to get some more opinions.

Tiny perfect molar.

Horse teeth.

Shell encased in crystal.

This was kind of hard to capture in a photograph but it is a shell encased in crystal. 

Very cool!

The odds and ends photo.

Some fun stuff including 2 more ballast bones, mastodon enamel, whale ear bone fragments, glyptodon scute, turtle shell, ray and fish mouth plates, a meg with no enamel (alas!), and an unfossilized pig tooth.  Oh, and check out the vintage marble.  Love.

I made it to the Orlando fossil show.

Florida Fossil Hunters...hear me roar!

(trying to add a little panache to the hobby)

It's fun to see so many great fossils lined up on tables.

More megs than you can shake a shovel at.

Mammal teeth set out like strange gemstones.

And discoveries that I have to admit are better than my vintage marble.

But not by much.

I was ridiculously excited to see a drug ad that features fossil hunters.

There is a TV version, too.  

It just seems so random to pick paleontology as a backdrop for a pharmaceutical but I suppose it's no  more random than two 50 year olds holding hands across individual claw foot tubs en plein air (and I use that incorrectly).

SolOpsArt fossil jewelry.

Help a fossil sistah out: Tweet about me.

Ha! That's officially the first time I've used that term!

I've probably used it incorrectly as well, but I would appreciate fossil fans letting other fossil fans know about my Etsy shop SolOpsArt.

I'm used to drilling holes in my megs...

...but I was sweating bullets drilling a hole in someone else's meg.

I've been commissioned to reconfigure someone's meg necklace and they requested the drilled mounting as opposed to the wire wrap.  I'm, of course, a fan of drilling, as I prefer the look but I took this project sloooooow...

I'm saving up my shop proceeds because

I can't stand lugging a 40 lb battery around!

I give in!  I'm going back to something in the 27 lb range to power my trolling motor and if it doesn't last as long, so be it!