Quiet Please!!!

The Peace River is my "happy place,"

but when high waters keep me from digging in the Peace, 

I go to a different river known as my "OK place."

There's not a lot to find there, but it satisfies the craving to move a ton of gravel
 with a garden shovel.

(some of the curious rocks to be found)

After 4 years of indulging in this hobby,

I am, unfortunately, even less patient

with the weekend canoe enthusiasts who want to know, 

"What are you looking for?"

It would be ok if they chose a spokesperson for their flotilla who would then disseminate the information to the rest of the crew, but that's not how it works.

Someone in each and every canoe

asks the question, and sometimes, BOTH people in the canoe ask.

On the particular Saturday in question (which is why I always try to avoid digging on weekends) 

I kept my spirits up the first 20 times I answered the question, providing tidbits of fossil info to willing listeners, but by the 40th time I answered the question, my replies were terse and mumbled.

"Fossils, dammit. What does it look like I'm doing?" 

So I'm working on a new strategy.

I don't think many people would grasp the Buddhist concept of practicing silence

but a clearly lettered sign, staked in the river about 50 yards upstream of me that says,

"Shhh!  Paleontologist at work"

with a QR code directing them to my blog (so they can see that I'm not finding much at all!)

and perhaps an Anne-Geddes-style portrait of me asleep in a pumpkin shell,

would do the trick.

I'll post when I get it all sorted out.

Still, all my digging wasn't in vain, or maybe I'm just easily entertained.

Shell casings are common finds in the rivers but this was my first in this area and I was really hoping to find a beat up old gun to go with my Bear Grylls survival knife.  

No such luck...yet.

 
A really cool fossilized oyster shell that, when cut on the slab saw,

revealed an interesting agatized interior.

And then there was this little nut.

I briefly entertained the idea that it was a fossilized pecan but that didn't really seem feasible.

And then, the following week in a river far, far away, I found this:

Eerily similar in appearance and definitely coral so I concluded

 that my "pecan" is probably the same thing.

Nuts!

Friends with Talents

It's so good to have friends with talents.

I can't brag enough on Roger Hostetler,

my favorite knapper.

He makes such pretty things out of the coral I find.

But his talents are not limited to knapping.

Remember the Bear Grylls WalMart survival knife found in the river?

I felt certain that Roger could breath new life into it.

Check it out now!

Your eyes do not deceive you:  that is the same knife with a...wait for it...

ELK ANTLER HANDLE!

In exchange, he requested a little of my time with my lapidary saw.

Glad to do it!

Now, what kind of scabbard do I want...?

Another good kind of friend to have on your side

is a friend who lives in heaven or almost heaven.

I went to visit my friend in West Virginia and hunt for weapons of an older sort in her fields.

Lots  of interesting rocks to be found,

as well as a fossil or two.

West Virginia isn't that far from Florida but the difficulties with flights in and out of her rural area might make you think you were traveling to Papua New Guinea.  On the way there, the airline tried to land us in the fog then turned around, went back, and drove us there on a bus instead.  On the way out of there, the airline had all 4 passengers (FOUR) racing to the plane to beat a lightening storm.

My next trip will be back to Salt Lake City and I'm thinking the journey will be a 4 hour, non-stop, fog-less pleasure.

There I'll meet up with another great friend to have:

A friend with 4 wheel drive.

Arizona Geode Tour 2016

It's springtime and the scent of fossils is in the air.

Time to head back to Arizona and meet up with Jim and Vickie

for more wacky rockhounding adventures.

I spent about 8 hours in transit getting to Phoenix where they picked me up in their trusty old 4WD Chevy truck for a 4 hour drive to the New Mexico border. 

The things we do for rocks...

The trusty Chevy blew a wheel bearing about 2 hours into the drive but luckily it happened in Globe, AZ and miraculously we were 2 miles from a tire shop that was not only open, but said they could get us back on the road in about 30 minutes.  Factor in a 15 minute argument with Jim wanting to plot out the variables before we surrendered to the tender mercies of the repairmen and Vickie and I yelling at him to, "JUST GO!!!!"

It all worked out in the end.

As you can see in the above photo, there was a hillside of rocks behind the tire shop and before Vickie and I knew it, Jim was blowing the horn to get us back in the truck and back on the road.

Time's a-wastin'!

It's all well and good to look up a rock hunting area in a book but finding the location in real time can be a crap shoot and when you're running out of daylight, the pressure is on!  

Finding the Round Mountain sign was surprisingly straight forward considering it is pretty much in the middle of nowhere but immediately after the sign, there is an unmarked fork in the gravel road.  We went to the right which was wrong but before we had gone too far, we passed a vehicle and they set us straight.

Our goal was fire agate but one of the rock guides said we could find "geodes" also.  It didn't specify what kind of geodes and we didn't have time to split hairs so we set off to scour the ground.

Vickie's a good sport and a successful rock hound so she didn't mind when I razzed her about her collection bucket.  She thought it was very inventive to rig a 5 gallon bucket to a lightweight luggage roller and then put water in the bucket so that while she was on the move, her rocks were automatically being washed.  I understood the concept but as I watched her struggle up a rocky slope I had to point out that the water was sure to eventually skew her overall power to weight ratio.

In other words, lose the water!

She went back to a fast-and-light canvas bag.  Rock washing would have to wait.

We all found good selections of chalcedony and crystals by the time we had to pack it in.

My favorite find was this big chalcedony geode.

Just look at it!

Now look at it some more!

Fabulous!  I found several of these in various sizes but this was the biggest.  I cut one on the slab saw and it had nice crystals inside but I don't think I'll cut this big one.

I also collected several chunks of quartz crystals on lava matrix.  They look much better in person and I'm experimenting with ways to clean them up.

The sun set on a successful first day in Arizona but I had to suck it up when I learned that the condo where we would be staying was still 4 more hours drive away.

I fondly refer to those hours as my "zombie hours" when I was able to say, "I've now been up for more than 24 hours." 

You'd think I'd sleep late the next morning.

WRONG!

More rocks to hunt...

Unexpected fossils

A rolling stone gathers no moss,

so when I can't hunt the rivers, 

I find other ways to occupy my time.

I just took a weekend trip to Savanah, Georgia and lo and behold...

I spied an unexpected fossil built into one of the walls in the old part of the city.

A piece of fossil coral; one of my favorite things.

But wait, there's more!

I'm not exactly sure what this rock is,

but I know a fossiliferous rock when I see one.

Pam and I managed one visit to the Peace River

in between downpours.

I would give this batch of finds a sad emoji face but there were a couple of interesting mammal scutes and a piece of jaw with a couple of teeth, something I always like to find. I'm thinking it's raccoon or opossum.

And yet another modern human fossil:

I'd almost rather lose my glasses or Rambo-style survival knife instead of my coffee mug!

I must bid the river adieu for the month of April.

I'll be trying my rockhounding luck in Arizona and West Virginia in the coming few weeks.

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.

¡Ve te, El Niño!

Dang weather patterns!!!

I feel like I haven't fossiled in forever...

because I haven't!

Another year of heavy winter rains and high river water levels but I have been meditating on it and visualizing even better fossils being washed out of the river banks, ready for me to find next season.

This is all I've got

from my last trip to Horse Creek

over a month ago.  It was supposed to be a 2-day weekend but it rained overnight and by the 2nd day, we were shut out completely.

Turtle scutes...yawn...

Tortoise spurs and foot pads...sigh...

Horse incisor, ray barb fragment, gator scute, and antler butt...hmmm...

And a handful of gator teeth (with a stray deer/lama tooth).

I don't mean to sound jaded or ungrateful but

I want to hunt!!!