Well, CRAP!!!

Or maybe I shouted something that started with an "f".

We've all been there:

paddling up to our honey hole only to discover that someone else has come along and dug it out.

I've been quietly working a site for over 2 years and no one else has discovered it.  It helps that it's not in an area known for great fossil hauls, so my heart sank and I cursed a bit to see that someone had finally horned in on my spot.

The reality, of course, is that it's not MY spot.  The river doesn't belong to me or anyone else; it's here for everyone to enjoy.  

All well and good, but I must ask this phantom fossil hunter,

"Why did you have to make such a mess?!"

He left visible piles of gravel slung all along the bank and gouged holes in the bank above the water line which is a big No-No.  There's no better way to invite every passing digger to your spot as well as rile up the ill will of those who would like to put an end to fossil hunting in Florida's rivers.

I wished I'd had a small board and a wax pencil.  I would've left a note saying,

"A little discretion, please!"

But then, I don't suppose he'll be back.  It takes moving a ton of gravel here to find a tiger shark tooth; not a great payout for the effort.
There ARE lots of oddities in this one tiny area, including more eyeglasses and eyeglass lens than I've found TOTAL in all other places I've dug.

This is just one day's sampling, which is kinda creepy.  I didn't start keeping track until I realized it was a trend so I don't have an exact number but it's a couple of eyeglass parts every time I'm there.

Other treasures sure to discourage:

one of the thinnest pennies ever found.

And how about this?

Clay containers for homemade candles used during the Indian festival of Diwali.

I just came back from a trip to India so I knew exactly what these were the moment I saw them.

And there's always a HUGE load of this:

I did some housekeeping that day,

filling in holes, dispersing gravel, and splashing everything with water to smooth it out.  I've been back a few times and the fossil slob has not yet returned but if he does, I hope he gets the message:

You're more than welcome to dig here, but keep it clean.

Don't be startled...

It's just a big oyster shell.

Ah, but I digress.

Weren't we talking about fossils?

Another warm holiday season in Florida makes for some extra fossiling time 

and Tom and I took advantage of it.

There was a definite theme under the Christmas Tree.

We kept the festivities going while on the river.

We started our Christmas weekend with Bloody Mary's while digging 

 and our New Year's weekend started with sushi and shovels.

Our efforts were not wasted.

For an area that doesn't yield much, I still managed to find a crocodilian tooth, several nice tigers, a meg blade, and a tapir cap (posing with an old dachshund).

Tom pulled a big chunk of mastodon out of the gravel.

I found a beautiful "stained glass" garfish scale

and an interesting tooth that might have belonged to a pre-equus horse.

If anyone has ID ideas, please comment.

I didn't know I had my own action figure.

Tom thought this reminded him of me as a Fossil Queen super hero.  

Very sweet of him and seriously, add a decade or 2 to her age and there is a resemblance.  

Now, to get out there and truly earn the title of Fossil Queen!

Meeting with the Boss

It's been a couple of dry years.

Actually, the last 2 winters have been wet so it was my fossil acquisitions that dried up.

It was good to finally have a meeting with the boss:

The Peace River.

There was still enough water in the river,

that I was able to tow not only Pam in her kayak, but Tom in his canoe, as well:

It's super slow going with my tiny trolling motor,

but being towed slowly upstream after a long day of digging

 is better than paddling slowly upstream after a long day of digging.

I was getting my feet wet after being absent from the Peace for 2 seasons,

but managed to find some odds and ends.

A couple of those fossilized twigs I'm so fond of.

A big tooth in a piece of jaw, probably from a modern cow, 

and a modern mandible from some little critter.

Tom found a fantastic bobcat canine,

and he still says he wants to switch to a 1/2" screen.

Super chunky glyptodont scute, over 1" thick.

Turtle peace sign scute.

Another sad little meg for my sad little meg collection.

A group photo of the day's curiosities.

Happy fossilers, even facing the 2 hour drive home.

I think the big Slurpee truck behind Tom says it all.

A big boss salad with General Tso closes out the meeting.

Holiday Gluttony

I was ready for a feast,

so when I was given the chance to dig in a private area over the holidays,

I jumped at it!

This post is basically going to be a photo album of my goodies from a day and a half of digging,

and I couldn't have done it without 

friends in hard-to-reach places.

This is my FIRST whale tooth.

Well, the first one that still resembles a whale tooth.

I've found several sad fragments over the years so I was super excited to find one this good.

I parked my screen under a tree on day 2 and started pulling up makos.

My friend said it was "the mako tree that keeps on giving."

These aren't the most pristine great whites but the enamel still exhibits chatoyancy and their addition to my fossil collection has more than doubled the previous number of great whites I've found

(1 little one from the beach in Ponte Vedra).

Just about the purtiest shark vertebra I ever did see!

This is a modern alligator tooth and I love the look of it.

I keep all the modern teeth I find, as long as they're past the stinky phase.

Just a perfect little shark tooth.

Fatty McFat tigers.

Gorgeous duskies galore.

Love the Hobbit look of the tree roots behind me!  

Just like in Narnia.

Wait...I'm confused...

Super cool old bottle.  I filled it with shark teeth from the dig.

Loads of fish mouth plates.

Awesome shell casts.

I keep anything that catches my eye.

An old jar lid.  It says "White House" but the first word is almost worn off.

A nice mix of gator and turtle scutes, antler butts, vertebrae, etc.

A lone hemi, snake vertebrae, giant armadillo scute, and a silver metal blob.

A plethora of very nice ray mouth plates.

I couldn't ask for more from a holiday weekend:

time spent with friends and a fossil hangover on Monday.

Making do with the rocks at hand

INDIA

Trip of a lifetime and no chance to fossil.

I would say, "Sad but true,"

but it was a great trip regardless of the dearth of fossils.

India, like most places in the world, has a rich fossil record but the laws are strict so even if I had found a fossil, I was not legally allowed to take it out of the country.

So I worked with man-made fossils.

It seems like every building in India is made of bricks and there are stacks of them everywhere.  

A brick collector could spend a lifetime here.

I didn't go to India with the goal of collecting bricks but when I spotted my quarry,  I could not be deterred until I had collected a specimen:

The elusive "INDIA" brick.

It was a happy day.

The only other brick I became fixated on bringing home was one with Hindi script.  I looked and looked and finally announced to Tom that I was giving up the search and don't you know, the very next morning I found one out back of our hotel.

It was in the tiny town of Pushkar in Rajasthan 

that we came across a group of excellent rock shops.  

Being in northwest India gives great access to minerals from that part of the world.

I didn't buy anything, mainly because I already had a suitcase full of bricks,

but I was sorely tempted.

I found my own mineral, a sweet chunk of mica, as I was walking along a gravel road.

The laws don't say anything

about taking fossils INTO India,

so I brought some goodies from Florida's Peace River

and handed them out across the breadth of the country.

The recipients seemed perplexed, perhaps because language barriers prevented me from explaining that it was a gift and no purchase was required, but they were always smiling as I walked away.

I wish I could have put a tiny GPS chip into each necklace to follow its journey on the other side of the planet.