Man Muscle

I'm strong,

but sometimes you need "man muscle".

One last visit to the "coral hole" (before I hopefully spend the rest of this short fossil season in the Peace River) and this time I was able to convince my boyfriend to paddle upstream against a swift current and help me bring home a couple of large fossil coral heads I've had my eye on.  The 2 heads in the above photo weigh upwards of 80 lbs each and I never could've gotten them home on my own.
It's not just getting them into a canoe.  They also have to travel back to the launch site after navigating a swift current in an overloaded boat. Typical!
Then these stone monsters have to get up into my truck and ride for a couple hours, then get into my backyard.
It's a process.

Here's my pride and joy.

I don't have the exact weight yet but it measures approximately 10" x 15" x 23" and it's SOLID.

I still managed to find a couple of interesting things mixed into the gravel.

It's beat up but it's still cool.

I'm guessing it's a mammoth or mastodon vertebra.   Surprising and frustrating to find such a big piece of fossilized bone...AND NOTHING ELSE!

That makes a baker's dozen for perfect horse teeth and I also came across 2 shark teeth and a turtle scute.

The best find of all, however,

was this excellent Rambo knife.  

I could not stop laughing about this artifact.  I'm talking with my knapper to see if he can replace the handle with a piece of antler or horn.  I'll be the coolest (or weirdest) woman on the river with my big, custom bowie knife.  

But then, we are talking about Florida.  I really can only hope to crack the top 10.

More Madness Than Method

There is no method to my madness.

Any of you who know me know it's true: 

When it's time to dig, I just start digging

 and dig until my arms give out.

I've heard lot of opinions on the proper way to dig for fossils in the rivers.

The best and most thorough way to do it would probably be to work in a grid pattern like a true paleontologist but that seems to be reserved for more mature fossil hunters who are retired and can visit a location several days a week, thus enabling them to work their grid in an orderly fashion without interruption.

But try this method if you can only get to the river once a week and you'll find your orderly grid will be trashed by the bane of the organized fossil hunter's existence:

the "pot-holer"

I'm here to confess, my name is Aimee and I'm a pot-holer. 

The simple fact is, I ain't got the time to dilly-dally and rest on convention! 

I've got holes to dig!

Even the pot-holer has a sort of method.  Some people like to dig in a line, creating a trough, which also gives them the chance to survey the gravel in any given area at the same time they are screening for fossils. I've had people tell me they only dig north to south or east to west.  Some people dig until they find a promising "seam" of fossil material and just keep digging in that direction.

I dig a big hole.

I keep digging and digging, as a way of hedging my bets, in all directions.

I finally got back on the river, albeit in an area where there is very little fossil material, and found a few tidbits (shown in the included photos) while flexing my digging muscles.

And what day on the river would be complete if I didn't find the relic of the Florida redneck:

I gotta take my madness where I can find it.