One of my favorite places to go
is West Virginia where I visit with my friend, Anne,
and we walk the local fields looking for little arrowheads.
When we arrived all the fields had been freshly plowed which is ideal BUT we needed rain to rinse the dust from the treasures.
Anne had secured permission for us to hunt in a new field that looked promising but we didn't find much in the dry soil. Rain was forecast for our entire visit but didn't happen until the night before our departure. We didn't have to leave for the airport until 3 pm so immediately upon waking I said to Tom, "Wanna go back to that first field?"
Oh, hell yeah!
It was wicked messy slogging around in soupy mud but we scored in the artifact department.
These were the best of my finds (I also found several other fragments and crude small tools) from about an hour in the field, including a German "plaid" marble from the 1800's, and Tom did equally well. This is my new favorite field!
Here's my riker tray for 2019.
This represents the best finds from 9 fields.
That's a LOT of slow walking, staring at the ground.
I had to unfold each evening with gentle yoga stretches and mojitos made with Anne's stash of Cuban rum. So glad we all made that trip before the tight travel restrictions went back into place.
Some other sights from our trip...
Anne found this killer quartz crystal. The photos don't do it justice.
I found an unusual chalcedony replacement of a brachiopod.
Fossil material in the fields is rare.
Tom found this sweet snake while we were helping Anne weed her garden and one of her flower beds. She has shoe boxes full of arrowheads from working her gardens over the years and I was excited to find a small stone tool while I was pulling weeds.
I found another killdeer nest while walking a field. I've found a nest for the last 3 years. The corn is already planted in this field so the eggs should be able to hatch and the babies fledge before the tractor comes through again. Just seems like such a precarious place to start a family.
In other Zookeeperfossils news...
Earlier this year we went on a Suwannee River kayak camping trip and collected some nice echinoids.
This is easy going fossil hunting as they are lodged in soft clay or crumbly stone so hammers are not necessary.
The end of another era...
The spot I've been digging on the Alafia River for 3 years has finally stopped producing.
I had a lot of peaceful hours there, on a beautiful river, finding beautiful things but nothing lasts forever. Tom snagged a coral head for his yard.
It may not look like much in the kayak but the mechanics of getting this 150+ lb rock from the river bed into the yak, from the yak onto the dock, up the dock stairs, and into the bed of the truck are tricky. I've had some experience in this field so I choreographed the move from the river into the yak and when we got to the dock there was a young, strong college-age man just waiting to show off for his girlfriend by helping Tom move the beast into the bed of the truck. Nice!
2018-2019 was a very short river season for me.
I saw many of the usual posts from the "Peace River" during the season but I suspect a lot of those finds were actually from surrounding creeks where the water levels were more forgiving or from people using masks and snorkels or tanks. Those devices are not in my wheelhouse so I'll have to wait until next season and as usual, pray for a dry winter.
