The week in review

     For the third Friday in a row I went back to the same hole I had found.  It remained productive enough with little finds to keep me happy and I finally freed a big fossil I had been working on for all 3  Fridays:

     I uncovered this tire on the rock bottom of the river, buried under about 2 feet of sand and gravel.  There is a second tire next to it but I ran out of steam after finally freeing this one.  It was an interesting place to dig as the gravel is thick with broken glass, mossy plastic milk jugs, parts of old lawn chairs, etc., and this was all revealed in one small area.  My theory is that a family used to winter or vacation at that spot, up on the river bank, and they didn't understand the concept of a garbage can.

     Since my location is farther upstream, I have dug it solo with only the most basic company to keep me from feeling lonely:

     I think I am done with this site but here is the best of my haul from Friday:

     Six more megs for a total of about a dozen.  Yes, most of them are tiny but as I always say, even baby sharks need to be able to rip things to shreds.

     Love the odds and ends!  Three more turtle "puzzle piece" scutes (from the spine of their shell); I've gotten several from this one hole.  A complete ray mouth grinding plate (Lower left. My first! Woohoo!).  Two very nice dolphin periodic earbones (upper left).  A lovely little antler butt, two Florida "peace signs", a big chunk of tapir molar, and a really cool slice of vertebra, ready to be worn as a pendant.

     And lots more great shark teeth, including a lower mako.  

     All that being said, I think it's time to move on.  

     Thinking, thinking...

Nobody likes me: a short essay

     I guess nobody likes fossilers...not even other fossilers.

     I seem to gravitate towards activities that aggravate people or maybe there's a hater out there for every hobby.  I'm your hater if you walk around public gatherings carrying a creepily real-looking premie doll.

     Whenever I surf fish, there is always at least one man who feels compelled to bitch at me about something (sharks, surfers, etc).  The majority of people, thankfully, are curious and friendly and I believe the same would go for fossiling except we rarely see a varied crowd on the river.

     There is an older couple that regularly plies the river on a paddle boat, blasting country music while the woman fishes for bass.  Apparently she has felt compelled to complain to the fossilers about the holes we dig, stating that it kills the fish.  I'm no expert but I'm going to disagree.  Little fish scurry around us all day as we dig, munching on the different tidbits we stir up and as I watch them frolic, I think, perhaps, they may be more affected by the constant runoff from the phosphate mines, agricultural fields, and cattle operations that line the river.  Just sayin'.

     An old fossiler told me that a landowner sued him, and won, for digging on a stretch of river running through his land.  The judge said the landowner paid taxes on the land under the water and thus had the right to control it.  Sounds a bit thorny to me but I'm not a lawyer.  I had to consider this landowner and how I might have behaved in his shoes.  Hopefully, I'll never be so unhappy and full of bile.  

     Then there was the FWC officer making his rounds yesterday (holiday break means lots of people on the river).  He tried to be friendly to us but he doesn't understand our obsession and couldn't hide a faint tinge of contempt.  He said he hated our piles of gravel that made it hard for boats to get through.  I will accept blame where blame is due, but that, my friend, is B.S.

     Fossilers can't even start digging until the water is nearing its lowest point of the year and by the time we get back in the river, the water is already so low that we have to drag our kayaks over stretches of sand and rock, NOT over piles of gravel.

     Fossilers dig holes in underwater gravel with garden shovels.  The holes start to fill up with sand the minute we stop digging and when the water rises in the summer, the holes are completely filled in and the gravel piles are smoothed over and the whole process starts again.

     When I fossil on holiday weekends, I get to engage with a mixed crowd of people on the river: families, college students, youth groups, etc.  They are the friendly, curious counterbalance to the haters.  A large group of canoeing teenagers passed around me as I was digging during Thanksgiving break.  Beginning canoers are not always good at steering and whenever a group passes me, I spend a few minutes redirecting their canoes around me, not OVER me.  I revel in their happiness.  

     After helping straighten and relaunch a canoe that had grounded on the sand beach, one of the teens inside called back, "You get good karma for that!"

     Indeed.

Carve the turkey, open the presents, and get back to the river!

     I don't miss snow, ESPECIALLY during the holidays.  I'm more than content to spend my fossiling days standing in water that is well above freezing.  Check out this boss baby flounder that got caught in my fossil screen.  It suctioned on to my glove and after a quick photo, it took some convincing to make it let go.  Pam told me that the baby flounders spend some time in the river before heading into the larger bodies of salt water.

     Yeah, yeah, it's beautiful.  

     I don't normally imbibe while digging but I figured since it was the holidays, I'd keep a Ranger IPA cool in the river, just in case.  I drank it, and then felt a little sluggish while I moved my second ton of gravel for the day.  I'll save it for the campsite in the future.

     I have a friend who travels with a massive salad and noshes on it throughout the afternoon.  I have teased her in the past but after a long day digging with a minimum of uninspiring snacks, the big salad became irresistible for the 2 hour drive home.  For a mere $1.97, I purchased a plastic tub cum salad bowl that I can use in the future for Rit-dying socks or washing dishes when camping.

     And, thankfully, there was a reward for a long day of digging: a beautiful carnassial or meat shearing molar from an ancient carnivore...a BIG carnivore!  I posted it on the Fossil Forum for help with the identification and got a lot of feedback that made me feel even more excited about my find, including an offer to purchase it!  No, I didn't ask how much but I figure the guys I dig with can give me an idea of the going rate, just for my own curiosity;  I'm NOT SELLING!

     Unfortunately, the hole where I found this carnassial and where I found the bear canine a week before, seems played out; by the end of the day I wasn't even finding small shark teeth.  Friday is fast approaching and it looks like I'll be back to prospecting.  

       

New digs

     Last Friday morning I headed upstream alone.  I feel fairly brave as long as the sun is fully up and I'm on a stretch of the river that I am familiar with.
     I felt like prospecting which usually means a lot of poking around but very little discovery.  I decided to start by digging underneath someone else's discard pile because I'm mostly hoping to find what other fossilers have missed but my screen kept filling up with broken beer bottles, more than I've ever dug up in one small hole.  HOWEVER, I was finding very nice shark teeth:  fat tigers, lemons, and clean hemis.  I began to wonder if the past diggers had been screening with chicken wire, letting everything but the biggest fossils fall back into the river.
     Still, I was discouraged and packed up to move downstream and eventually meet up with Jack.
     I was about 60 feet along my way when I realized I had forgotten one of my probes in the river.  I stood in the water, hanging onto the tow rope of my kayak, debating going back for it since it is just a thrift store golf club with the head cut off, but waste not want not; back I went!
     As I levered the probe out of the sand and gravel, I surveyed the same area again.  It seemed a waste to give up when I was finding so many good shark teeth so I decided to try again in a different spot.  I started digging about 6 feet away from my original hole and was rewarded for sticking with it.

     The new hole, so close to the old one, didn't have any glass in it and yielded a nice variety of small fossils, the best of which are in the above photo.  Lots of beautiful shark teeth and ray and fish mouth fossils, as well as meg material (inc 1 complete small meg with just a chip off one side of the root), a modern jaw bone (fox? racoon?  Need more research), horse tooth, big camelid tooth, and a large canine, probably bear.

     I'm super excited about that!  I put a pic on the Fossil Forum and they agreed it was most probably bear.  I'm always nervous posting on the Fossil Forum because they are very serious guys and don't take kindly to newbies who might waste their time but they seriously know their stuff.

     The above photo is a top view of the bear canine.  Beauty!  I have to show it off to a few more people then it goes into the curio cabinet.

     And to top off a pretty good day, I wandered into a gas station I hadn't visited before and found they had a well-stocked survival section.  Good to know on weekends when I am camping in the area.

Into the wild

   

     A kayaking friend in JAX, Stephanie, called to say she had arranged for us to camp on her friend's property on the Peace River in Arcadia.

Whaaat?!!!

     I had my truck loaded before she stopped talking.

     We arranged to meet him at his house so he could show us the area that was best for primitive camping.  He drove us in his Jeep through orange groves and woods and fields, on paths that ranged from slippery sand to slippery mud to slippery weeds.  I finally had to swallow my pride and mention that my back tires were...well...bald.

     "Oh, you'll have no problem getting down and I can pull you back up when it's time to go."

     Good enough for me!  I retraced the path in my Ford Ranger from the highway to the banks of the Peace River and I didn't get stuck until I got to the "campsite".  No problem!  I had 2 days  until I had to worry about that.

     The primitive camping I've done has always been on a broad sandy river bank or long sandy beach or open rocky areas in the desert.  This was my first time confronting knee high weeds on soggy muddy ground but once we trampled some of the weeds flat, it created a nice little area to colonize.

     Food and fire always helps.  The first night I grilled steaks over hardwood charcoal and served with fried potatoes and various other sides.

     It didn't take Stephanie's dad, Gordon, long to start hauling in the bass so the second night, Stephanie cooked the fish and served it with fresh asparagus and blue cheese crumbles.

We might be primitive but we don't mess around.

     It was a fossiling dream come true to be able to walk from my tent right into the river and start digging in gravel.  There wasn't a lot of big rock there but plenty of little shark teeth and Pam found a tooth from a type of llama that roamed Florida during the Pleistocene epoch.

     After a few hours of digging, we stepped right back into our campsite and settled in for dinner.

Sweet!

     Friday I dug all day.  I dug until Jack had to leave in the early afternoon and I dug until Pam had to leave in the late afternoon and I was still digging when Stephanie brought me life sustaining chardonnay that got me through until dusk.

     Note the severely pruned hands as I display my usual "Heartbreak Half."

     Stephanie may not be a convert due to time and distance constraints but she acknowledged the addictive quality of the hobby and now has a good start to a fossil collection.

     I convinced her to sit back and be towed to the campsite and she said, "I guess I should troll since you're towing me with a trolling motor." No sooner did her lure hit the water than she had a bass on.

     By the second morning, the honeymoon has worn off.  Everything is gritty and grimey but we enjoyed a last breakfast of eggs from my hens, the leftover potatoes, and venison sausage from the landowner.

     Time to tow the Ranger back to the highway but we have an open invitation to camp there so I'll be investing in some new tires STAT!

     As usual, I was fairly clueless about where to dig so after some exploration, I returned to the area where I had my very first Peace River visit and success almost exactly one year ago and found lots of little tidbits.  I'm still waiting for my season to kick into gear but it's a good start.

     Turtle scutes, horse tooth, 3-toed horse tooth, giant armadillo scute, gator teeth, stingray dermal scutes, bull shark, hemi, lemon, and mako teeth, etc.  The bottom tiger shark tooth is one of the nicest I've found.

"Crazy"...it's in the eyes

That title is just an excuse to post a photo of my old lady dachshund, Schotzie.

     My 2 dachshunds are used to riding in the car and see it as another opportunity to do what they are best at: sleeping.  That's a good thing because every so often, I have to drive them an hour or 2 down the interstate to hand them off to Mike so that I can follow my fossil passion with abandon.  Thank you, Mike!

    

     This was my second Thanksgiving weekend in the Peace River and that's also a good thing.  Just when stuffing my face with delicious food and watching football starts to get boring, I change it up for something COMPLETELY different: standing in a river digging through gravel with a shovel for hours.  Rock on!

     I'm calling the above photo "When in Rome".  Fossil Steve likes to do things a certain way and since we were digging in a spot he started, I had to do it his way.  He builds a stand out of PVC pipe that can be broken down to facilitate moving it in his canoe.  Then he builds a large screen using 1/4" hardware mesh that sits on top of the stand.  This set-up is placed on the edge of the river in an area that doesn't have any diggable gravel, thus becoming the dump zone.  He takes 5 gallon buckets that he has laboriously drilled full of holes (I know it's laborious coz I made one for myself...never again!), fills them with gravel, then pours them out on his screen in the dump zone to sort for fossils.

     I'm easily frustrated (hence our arguments over 1/4" screen vs 1/2" screen) and I hate wasting time putting the stands together so I went out to my shed the day before Thanksgiving and using scraps, built a short stand with 12" legs and a lean profile: it fits inside the large screen Steve gave me last season.  It doesn't need putting together or taking apart and I don't mind sitting in the water to sort the gravel.  Initially it feels a little wobbly in the muck near the banks but a few buckets of discarded gravel quickly create a more solid base.

     Every time I pour a bucket of gravel onto my screen, I expect to see a gold nugget right on top.

Not gonna happen!

     That's ok, I'll take a perfect meg or bison tooth or any number of others possibilities.

     

     It wasn't a stellar day but there were items of interest.  Clockwise from upper left: giant armadillo scute, shell casts, vertebra, turtle scutes, foot pads, and spurs, mammoth/mastodon scraps, deer antler, etc. and in the middle, 3 worn glytodon scutes, camel TOOTH, and a broken bison tooth.

I found 2  chunks of crystalized oyster shell that I am determined to learn how to cut and polish.  Someday.

     The best find of the day for me was a very big hemi tooth.  There is some root damage but the serrations on the blade are pristine and look at the size!  Almost 2"!  

     Fine...almost 1 and 3/4 inches but I'm telling the story MY way.

     And just in case you're wondering about the towing capacity of a 30lb thrust trolling motor from WalMart, I added Steve and his canoe to the lineup.   Steering was more involved and I could never have done this going upstream but it sure made a nice return trip for everyone after digging all day.

     Fingers crossed!  I hope to find the 55lb thrust trolling motor from WalMart under my Christmas tree  in the same spot where I found the 30lb thrust trolling motor last year!

The dark side of fossiling: Etiquette

Whoo, lawdy!

 Did I ever get caught in the middle of a Peace River blow out!!!

     Let me see if I can explain without going into too much needless detail...

     Fossiler #1 found a good digging location and for a week, the fossiling friends (minus me) dug together there in perfect harmony.

     Finally, it's Friday and fossiler #2 tells me to just meet them there for the day since it's been a good spot.

     Keep in mind that I have fossiled several times with fossiler #1 and was looking forward to digging with him for the first time this season.  I arrived at the location with fossiler #2 and when fossiler #1 arrived by kayak, I immediately ascertained that he wasn't waving and calling out a greeting; he was gesticulating angrily and cursing...at me and about me!!!

     The gist of the situation was that #2 hadn't called #1 to ask if I could dig there and the tempers FLARED.  I was confounded by the cursing (and I admit to throwing out an F-bomb of my own although no one remembered that, after the fact) and started to get in my kayak and leave but fossiling is supposed to be fun so I turned back into the war zone and attempted to smooth ruffled feathers.  I'm not a diplomat, I'm notorious for putting my foot in my mouth but I did my best.

    Once everyone calmed down, #1 assured me that it wasn't about me; of course I was always welcome, but it was a breech of river etiquette for someone else to bring me to a location without an invitation.

     There were also a few other issues simmering under the surface so perhaps it was some much needed venting among old friends who spend 2-5 days in the river every week during the season but #1 pointed out to me that I had also broken the unwritten rules by not inviting him personally to my honey hole (no double entendres, please! lol).  I profusely apologized for my oversight.  

     Lots of lessons learned that day.

     With all the commotion going on around me, the main thought in my head was, "I've only got today.  I want to find something!!!"

     I found a few large megalodon fragments which I always keep because I love imagining them in the mouth of a 2 million year old monster.  It's hard to find big megs in the Peace River anymore because it's been dug for so long.  For people who can scuba dive, there apparently are still plenty of big beautiful megs off Venice Beach, Florida.  Here's a photo of a recent find:

     I don't scuba but when I see photos like this, I consider it...for a minute.

     But back to me!

     I don't keep as much fossilized turtle material as I used to but if I find a scute in good condition or a nicely textured piece of shell, I'll throw it in my bucket.  I also found a very nice giant armadillo scute (right side of the photo).

   

     I collected a couple of nice, fat, tiger shark teeth, one of which I immediately turned into a necklace for my Etsy store.  Beauty!

    Projects in progress

     Meanwhile, Jack and I continue the quest for the tiniest megalodon tooth.

     Here's Jack's entry:

     Here's my entry:

     Hmmm...width vs length?

     AGAIN!

No double entendres, please!  ;-)

Back in the saddle

'Tis the season...

     The water level in the Peace River has dropped so I pointed the old Ranger south and started driving.  Even though my truck was made in 1995, gadgets are still being produced that allow people like me to enjoy all the modern conveniences without the convenience of a modern car.

     These cassette deck adapters are easy to find and enable me to listen to iTunes, Pandora, audio books, etc. through my car speakers.  Makes those hours driving back and forth to the river fly by.

And since I planned to start my season with 2 full days of frenzied digging, I invested in this sweet little number...

     I can plug it in to a power converter that is, in turn, plugged in to the cigarette lighter.  I've had hamstring issues (whatever that means) for years and the heating pad minimized the stabbing pains I get after fossiling all day.  Now if I can find a way to plug this thing in to my kayak.

     My weekend began with a visit to the Fossil Club of Lee County which was great because one of the members fed us loads of Italian food and regaled us with amazing stories of sneaking into the phosphate mines pre-9/11.  Security is a bit tighter these days.

     When I drive to Ft. Myers for a fossil club meeting, I get a cheap hotel room for the night and set out  before dawn the next morning towards the Peace River.  Unfortunately, I spilled my instant oatmeal this time and it made a horrendous mess that closely resembled vomit except that it smelled deliciously of cinnamon and brown sugar.  

     Karma is a bitch, right? So I tried to set things straight by cleaning what I could and leaving a tip for the housekeeper who had to deal with the rest.

     I met up with Pam and towed her to the honey hole from last season.  The returns had diminished sharply in proportion to the difficulty in getting to the spot.

     I took this picture just as we started out but an hour later, dealing with an underpowered trolling motor battery, my smile turned upside down.  Shoulda listened to the guy at Batteries Plus.  I'll be visiting him sometime this week.

     After an uneventful day, we headed over to Highland Hammocks State Park for the night.  I love this campground!  I've never been to any other campground where my campfires are so routinely praised.  This time it was a 6 year old girl on a pink scooter ("Great fire!!!") and later, an older woman walking her little dog.  

     I considered this campfire adulation and surmised that since this campground caters mostly to RV's, the campers don't usually have fires and when they do, don't spend much time gazing at them before they hightail it back inside to watch satellite TV.

     Pam and I both clocked 10 solid hours of sleep then headed to Arcadia to do it again.  On the way, we stopped at a diner for a "town meal."

     Yes, I ordered the peanut butter pie for breakfast but I'm not a fan.  Maybe it's a southern thing?  The bacon and eggs were yummy, though!  I didn't realize this product still existed...

     The location we went to for our fossiling on Saturday is always referred to as a "walk-in" site.  After wading for a mile through black water, feeling around in front of me with my shovel, I think the only reason it's called that is because there's no boat ramp.  If I go back, I will lower my 8' kayak down on a rope and haul it back up with my truck when I'm done.

     Wow.  Could this get any more unattractive, lol?  At least Pam, on the right, keeps its sporty with the slacks.  I routinely covered my hair in that buff all last season but for some reason, on this day, my hair was one big frightful dreadlock when I took the buff off at the end of the day.  

     Slim pickin's for 2 full days of digging.  My standards are a lot higher than when I started out last year.  I also found several fragments of things that aren't in the photo.  The best fossils I found this weekend are a very nice tooth from a 3-toed horse and a perfect little mako.

     Friday can't get here soon enough!  I want to try again!