Loving a Season in Full Swing!!!

How great is it to be enjoying a full-on fossil season?

F'ing GREAT!!!

(proboscidean vertebrae, as in mammoth or mastodon)

I am, perhaps, overly proud of finding a good 

spot to dig for the season.

After 2 bum high water years where I was feeling very inferior,

I'm riding the wave.

And I'm still wondering about the wave that someone's boat rode down the Peace River at some point in the past.

So far, I think the flatware count is at 3 forks, 2 spoons, and 1 knife, 

and I was really shocked to pull this out of the water:

Seriously?!

I was nervous about taking a picture because I know this corroded  thing might still be under pressure but I couldn't pass up the photo opp.

I had my moment of joy followed quickly by despair:

3" but with some serious character flaws

(and you can make all the "that's what she said" jokes that you like).

My fossil friend, Jack, constantly pulls perfect 2-3+" megs out of the river.

Why not me?!  Whaaaa!!

Whatev's...

Look at the impressive dolphin ear bones I found:

But wait just a minute!  I started to get very curious about the piece of jaw

 on the top right of the photo.

After lots of research and assistance from knowledgeable and helpful fossilers, I now know that it is an incisor section from a smilodon: saber tooth lion!  Extremely cool!

...of course I still want that perfect 3" meg...

I, of course, feel protective of glyptodont heaven,

and the thought of anyone else digging there puts me in a bad mood,

so when I recently heard of potential encroachment, I spent a whole day skulking around the house.

NOT a good time to do prep work on a fossil, I learned.

I had found this fossilized gator tooth with an intact root and was told that the root would crumble if I didn't take precautions, so there I was, pissed off, nursing a G&T and gripping a bottle of Paleobond.

A recipe for disaster.

I ended up dropping the tooth 2 times (amazingly, it survived), gluing it to my hand, and gluing all my fingers together.  

No one to hear me cursing but the dachshunds.

Next time, I'll walk it off before operating heavy machinery or fossil prep chemicals.

I really like this camelid incisor that I found:

When perusing dentition charts of llamas and camels, I am struck by the fact that

they've got some crazy looking teeth!

Here's another probable camelid tooth:

Each individual tooth doesn't look that crazy but when you put them all together in one mouth

Cra-cra!

Here's a small serving of this-n-that,

and a large helping of turtle:

If you've made it this far, 

thank you!

Please leave a comment, any comment, but nice comments are preferred. :-)