SOW: Sh*t Out of Water

Am I really saying this?!  

The river is TOO low!!  

I AM really saying this!!

There is so little water in the "river" that we spend a fair amount of time

 dragging our kayaks instead of paddling them.

And our wonderful little trolling motors?  

Fuhgeddaboudit!

On my last visit, the motor survived the out journey

 but halfway back during the return, this happened:

Even with 1 prop missing, I was still outpacing Miss Vickie, who was using my older model trolling motor, until right before I reached the boat ramp

when this happened:

WHOO-EE!!!

If this had happened early in the trip, I would've been cussing up a storm and I don't censor myself like I do in this blog.  

Low water is a mixed bag because it enables us to reach spots that normally aren't dug but it also makes it very difficult to get to those spots.

Looking at the mucky, difficult river, however, made me think of a quote

 from one of my favorite comedy movies, 

"Let's make lemonade. Let's go to work."  

If you can correctly name the movie that this quote comes from AND post your answer in the comment section at the end of this blog post, you will receive a nice big chunky Peace River horse tooth similar to the biggun' in this group of teeth I found this week:

Earlier this season, I found a small piece of jaw with the root of a canine still embedded and I was trying to get an ID.  I posted it on FaceBook and was told it was probably horse but my reply was something to the effect of, "How could a horse's big Chiclette incisors fit into that space?"  When someone then commented that horse incisors don't look like Chiclettes,

 it sent me on a mission to find Chiclettes.

Not easy.

I finally went to a Bravo where they sell off-brand Chiclettes and bought a bag

 in order to prove my point.

There were no white or black faux-Chiclettes in the bag so I went with red.

You see what I'm getting at, right?

Ok...I'll move on...

Getting toward the end of the season

My mental pain starts ratcheting up to the same level as my back pain.

It has to end but I don't want it to.  Whaaaaa!!!

Vickie and I decided to camp for a night and got a late start the first day which made for a "meh" digging experience.  A few shark teeth weren't cutting it

so we finished the day in camp with some food that I ONLY eat when camping

and a poor night's sleep (coz I just don't sleep well when I'm camping).

The next morning we decided to head back to glyptodont heaven

 and see if we could scrape up a few more scutes.

Success!

I wish I could tell if any of these scutes are associated.  

I like putting puzzles together but not that much.

I also found the requisite few giant armadillo scutes

and scads of turtle.

When I find modern bones or teeth that I would like to keep, like the deer jaw in the photo, I do a quick, cautious smell test.  So far, so good!

I also added another chunky gator scute to my collection.

I took this picture before I rinsed the sand off.

Lots of antler.

Someone's house keys.

A tiny rodent mandible that led me down a dentition rabbit hole.

Probably muskrat.

More garfish scales.

Vertebra.

A crystal shell

and a few other odds and ends redeemed the weekend.

When we finally made it back to our cars, Vickie and I both swore we couldn't go the following week.  We needed to catch up around our houses, prepare for Wyoming, 

and heal,

but I was already texting her by Monday.

"Wanna go next weekend?"

West Virginia: Fossils May Trump Arrowheads

I should have known.  

Why wouldn't there be fossils in West Virginia?

I headed up in early May for my 4th annual visit to beautiful rural West Virginia where, normally, I spend my time drinking G&T's on my friend's relaxing front porch, and combing her fields for tiny arrowheads.  

These manmade fossils are a little rough and clumsy compared to the photos I've seen of most points but in their defense, the local ancient native Americans didn't have great rock to work with.

Clumsy or not, I love finding them!

I really hauled them in this year.  The 5 in the above photo were found in less than an hour in a small area.  I told my friend I had a feeling about that corner of her field.

Another exciting manmade fossil find was a pre-Revolutionary war coin!

This was in an area of a field that has broken bits of crockery and glass so there may have been a homestead there at some point.

But it seems like there should be "fossil" fossils there...

We were driving back from a visit to a friend when I spied a dug out section of a hill next to the road.

"Might we please pull over for a few minutes so I can see why people have been digging there?"

I scouted around and quickly saw that the red colored stone was filled with brachiopods and impressions that looked like screws which I later learned were left by tentaculites.

Tentaculites, or "drywall screw fossils" (my own pet name for them) are, per Wikipedia, "an extinct genus of conical fossils of uncertain affinity."

I was in some Devonian rocks.

I like brachiopods but they're not my favorite fossil so I was about to retreat to the car

 when I saw this on the ground:

Uh...that's a piece of a BIG trilobite!

I know some trilobites were huge but the biggest ones I'd found to date were from Delta, UT and topped out at about the size of a quarter.  This West Virginia "bug" was 4" across.  In my mind, this was a discard since it was laying out in the open so I could only fantasize about the beautiful specimens fellow fossil hunters were keeping.  I scanned the area and quickly found a smaller specimen and then it was time to go.

Tom promised to return with me the next day, armed with chisels, hammers and a pry bar so that I could load up with trilobite beauties.

Alas...it wasn't that easy.

I tried and tried but couldn't find even a single specimen.

I found tantalizing fragments: single bands from large trilobites.  I also found 2 specimens that were small and crushed inside the rock.  The rock was different from anything I'd worked with, too.  It's a super soft sandstone rock that doesn't split along a clean line.  Hard to reveal fossils but extremely easy to remove in order to reveal the few brachiopods I collected.

I feel like there is a secret to finding the trilobites and I just need to know what it is.  I have a year before my next visit so I'll research the problem before then.

This area would be a dream for brachiopod enthusiasts.  The specimens were varied and many still had nacre,

and as mentioned, they are super easy to chip out of the rock.  It's not even chipping;

 I used an old X-acto knife blade to scrape the rock away from the shells.

Tom found a couple of gastropods.

This had an extremely delicate tip on the small end of the curl that chipped off while I was handling it and then I couldn't find it to glue it back on.  Bummed!  Next year, if I find another, I'll stabilize it before I do any prep work.

So, while disappointed by my first West Virginia trilobite hunt,

I still have this boss mid-section,

and the determination to research the why's and how's so that next year, I have

SUCCESS!

I'm now going to add, in order to increase my word volume, a verse of a country song Tom and I wrote while weaving through the precarious West Virginia mountains on Hwy 33.

Anyone wishing to record it, we will be easily bought out for a pittance.

"The night my brakes went out on 33,

I had a little talk between God and me,

I said, "Lord, if you'll just tap my brakes,

I'll repent for all my past mistakes."

The night my brakes went out on 33."

Angel Trumpets and Devil Trombones

With the blessing of low water

comes the curse of dragging your kayak up and down the river.

I'm starting to feel less like I'm guiding a gentle pack animal along the water way and more like I'm pulling a mule across the desert.  

I have a winner to my little contest which was the first person to correctly identify which movie the title of this week's blog comes from, AND post the answer in the "comments" section of my blog.  Tracy will receive a glyptodont scute in a riker box and it won't be a sad chipped up scute.  Glyptodont heaven has been good to me so I will pay a good scute forward.
I'll think of more easy contest ideas because I love sharing good fossil feelings.

Sooo, we have reached the time of the year where every ounce in the kayak counts

 and that's when Tom finds a big ol' leg bone:

This hunk of proboscidean is more exciting to me than many of my finds but

not more exciting than finding...

a whole freaking dire wolf carnassial!!!!

Yes, boys and girls, I've been hoping and praying to finally find a complete predator molar and not only did my dream come true, it's even in a bit of jaw bone.  Seeing it in my screen was like an electric shock and the day held other surprises.

I also found this beautiful mystery fossil.  I posted it on The Fossil Forum and 45 replies later, I am no closer to knowing what it is although I know it is not a dugong tusk per the reply to a query I sent to Dr. Daryl Domning, a sirenia specialist.  I am waiting to hear back from Dr. Richard Hulbert from the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville, FL.  I know how busy these people are and how many requests they must get to ID fossils so I also plan to make an appointment during office hours once we start hunting coral up north this summer.

The mystery fossil may end up being the tooth of a ground sloth

but I found a fragment of a tooth that is definitely from a ground sloth:

Not much in the glyptodont (or giant armadillo) department this trip:

but several fragments of mammoth tooth turned up:

Antler pieces:

Deer jaw, modern and fossilized in case I want to compare:

Horse, of course (and maybe a camelid):

A graduated bottle:

Surprisingly, I found 2 that day but the second one had a broken top and went into the trash bag.

And then there's turtle:

So much turtle that I'm well on the way to filling my decorative jar of nuchal scutes; 

so much more interesting than potpourri.

A few pretty shark teeth:

Odds and ends:

And lots and lots of bones:

This is my 5th season hunting the Peace River for fossils and for the first time, I wondering if I'll need to put wheels on my kayak?

Weather Shifting Affects Sifting

I just made that shite up

and I think it's pretty good.

I can rock out some haiku, too.

Of course I've got an IPA under my belt so the world is glow-y and warm.

The point is, it's starting to rain.

YES, I KNOW WE NEED IT. 

(blah, blah, blah...)

The coming of Florida's rainy season signals the end of digging for fossils in the Peace River as well as the close to a wonderful year of finds for me.  I am grateful that I am able to engage in this hobby, both physically and geographically, and I won't forget how much fun this season was.

But it ain't over yet!!!

A few more boss scutes.

A tiny dasypus scute.

Yet another big ass gator tooth.

Yet another HALF of a carnivore tooth.

Someday...I'll find a whole one. 

You guessed it!  10 more pounds of turtle scutes.

I've found several mammal ear bones this season

 but this one came with a tiny embedded shark tooth.

A couple of rough horse and bison teeth.

Deer antler.

Never a lot of shark teeth but always a few nice semis.

A couple of big bones.

A cool old medicine bottle.

And finally, the yucky part of every visit to the river...

Trash.

I really hated digging up this nasty Medusa coil of old wire.

Tom thinks it was from an old TV antenna.  It was so stiff I could hardly get it under control enough to take back on my kayak.  I also bagged several pounds of glass bottles and aluminum cans.  This might not seem like a big deal but right now the river is so low, every ounce counts:  the more weight in my kayak, the more times I have to get out and drag it over sand bars.  

I am, however, trying to be a better steward of the river

 so I will continue to collect other people's trash.

Sigh...

Here's what I can't wrap my mind around: when you bring all your beer to the river it's in boxes or bags or coolers and it's heavy.  After you drink the beer, you still have the boxes or bags or coolers and it's much lighter.  Pack it out!  I've had people say to me, as if in defense, 

"Well, when people get drunk..." 

Hey, I've been drunk, once or twice, and I picked up my crap and threw it away!

End of rant.

Have a great week and I'll post more finds next time.  Thanks!