Shark tooth glamour shots

These things are just so beautiful.

It's a dog eat dog world in the river

     Being new to fossiling, I try to balance between helping other fossilers by sharing info on areas to dig, and being so tight-lipped about what I'm doing that anyone asking me for pointers might conclude I don't speak English.

    

     

     You have to be a little secretive when you find a good spot. In the beginning I would get excited and verbose when I found a good area and then watch in dismay as the old guys shamelessly moved in on it. I had to start containing my enthusiasm.  Jack told me that if I found a good spot, I shouldn't tell anyone and he added, laughing, "You shouldn't even tell me."

     No one owns the river; it's all fair game, and that lesson was hammered home one weekend with crushing clarity.  I was spending a Saturday working an area with Fossil Steve.  He is methodical and prefers to cover an area in a grid as opposed to "pot-holing" or digging willy nilly.  That day, I wasn't finding much at all and right before I had to pack up and leave, I gave a frustrated stab into the mucky clay at the bottom of our trench.  And I hit something.  It wasn't clay and it wasn't small gravel but it wasn't the solid rock of the river bottom either.  It was large chunks of tightly packed rock.  As I struggled to loosen them, Steve kindly moved right in to "help" me (I protested, to no avail).  Our first screens produced passable megs, horse teeth, large chunks of mammoth tooth, etc.  We began to dig frantically as we both had obligations that would force us to call it a day.

     Right about the time we had dug ourselves into a hole nearly chest deep a man comes canoeing along with his young son.  Steve and I looked at each other and our dismay was apparent.  The man said he wanted to "try" fossiling with his son but he had a boatload of gear and obviously wasn't a newbie.  We pointed to an area where we knew he would find shark teeth but he was studying us closely.  In an area of the river that wasn't even hip deep, Steve and I were stand shoulder to shoulder in a chest deep hole.  Kinda obvious.  But we had to leave, vowing to return on Monday.

     Less that 48 hours later we returned to find the whole spot dug out and a huge pile of discarded rock  poking up out of the river.  To the side of the discard pile was a castle and wall made out of rocks: the project of the young boy while his dad ROBBED US!  

     No, no, no...I know that's not how it is.  No one owns the river.  And let's be honest, I would've done the same damn thing.  

     We still worked the area for the rest of the day, finding some nice fossils including the biggest segments of mammoth tooth Jack had found to that date, but who knows what treasures our usurper took home that Saturday evening.

To Pee or Not to Pee...

     Yeah, I pee in my wet suit. 

If I'm in my wet suit in the water, you can bet I'm peeing.

     I fact, I get so relaxed about it that when I get back in my kayak I have to remind myself to stop.  

     But 2 of my wet suits were given to me and the 3rd cost me $12.99 at the thrift store so as soon as I get home, I throw them in the washing machine and then dry them in the sun.

     I hope this doesn't make you feel squeamish but you probably weren't going to ask to borrow my wet suit anyway.

Mastodon Puzzle

     It felt like a test, a rite of passage.  

     Fossil Steve (this nomenclature to distinguish him from another friend named Steve) handed me an old shoebox filled with fragments of mastodon tooth and 2 tubes of Super Glue (I added the beer later).

     Steve is 70 years old and still digging in the river every other day during the season.  He stands up on his canoe while he paddles and I cannot keep up with him in my kayak unless I'm using the trolling motor.  He is a country boy and a character and the real deal and he has a way of turning a phrase.  He once told me about a young woman who was digging downstream from him and screamed so loudly when she found a huge meg that he "run down there coz I thought she was gator bit."

     I know Steve likes me but I also know I irritate him.  It's that usual issue of men liking an independent woman...until they realize she's independent and won't do what they tell her.  We go round and round about the size of hardware mesh on my screens.  He insists that I use 1/4" so that I get all the tiny fossils.  I prefer 1/2" so that I don't get frustrated sifting through all that little gravel.  Right or wrong, I am comfortable leaving the bird claws and baby snake vertebra for someone else to find but I also realized that he was on the verge of getting truly upset about it.  So I use 1/4" when I'm digging with Fossil Steve.

     Anyway, I took the shoe box and worked myself crosseyed over that mastodon puzzle for an entire weekend. I made excruciatingly slow progress but ultimately, even that came to a grinding halt.

     I posted a photo of my project on FaceBook and a club member pointed out that there was definitely pieces of more than one tooth in the collection.  

     I had done all that I could do.  I carefully wrapped the reconstructed sections and placed them with the remaining fragments back in the shoe box.  When I handed it all to Steve, he initially looked disappointed with a tinge of "that's what I expected" until he opened the box and saw that I had been able to put together the framework of one entire tooth and parts of at least a couple others.  His whole demeanor changed and he got that excited glint in his eye.  "I gotta get back there and keep digging!"  Of course he won't tell me where "there" is but that's ok.  I can use a break from the mastodon puzzle.

Winning!

       Did I mention how heavy my gear is?

    My kayak, alone, weighs 68 lbs.  I have a slightly lighter 14' kayak but it is older with no storage wells and the hull is too flimsy to handle the trolling motor...the trolling motor which weighs 17 lbs and its battery which weighs 25 lbs.

      I am a fairly strong woman but let's get down to brass tacks:  I only have so much upper body strength and I am 48 years old and I am an intrinsically lazy person.

     Many of the places I launch the kayak from do not come with a boat ramp and some areas include steep sand banks.  Dragging a laden kayak down to the river is relatively easy but getting that same load back up the hill at the end of the day is a different story.  The old guys would help me lug gear which, while appreciated, grated on my independent sensibilities but when I would fossil alone...forget about it!  I needed several miserable trips.  That got my little brain working.  There must be a better way...

    That's right, bitches!  The mother of invention rules again!

     A trip to the hardware store allowed me to puzzle out this simple rig.  There is another carabiner on the other end of the rope and I attached a U bolt to the bow of my kayak for the connection.  I back my truck to the edge of the slope, uncoil the rope down to my yak, hook it up, and then slowly drive forward until I see all my gear pop over the edge of the bank onto the flat land.  Works like a charm!

     Pam immediately recognized the value of this system as I would drag her gear up at the same time, simply keeping our kayaks tethered since I had usually towed her back with the trolling motor.  She hauls everything in a car so is still trying to figure out the best way to accomplish this setup for herself.

     The men were a different story.  The word I most commonly hear when men see me motor past them in my kayak or pull my gear up from the river with a rope is "Cheater!"  That makes me laugh.

     Cheating?  I'm winning! 

      And I have been gratified to spy some other fossilers I know emulating my idea.  Makes me feel warm and glow-y inside.

     Mike, alway alert to my needs, just hooked me up with this luxurious coil of rope for next season.  Might as well do it with style.

     And what would a Zookeeper Fossil post be without a pic of a fossil?

     One of the first times I went on the river by myself I found this perfect tapir tooth.  No one to shout it out to.  Dang!

It's not the size of your screen but how you use it...

     My first screens were made with 1/4" hardware mesh which means you will find all but the tiniest fossils but you will also have to dig through a lot of little gravel to get to the good stuff.  Since success is measured in how often you can fill and sort a screen of gravel, the smaller mesh can eat up time.
     Initially, I was trying to figure out why the guys did so much better than me.  I was digging almost as hard so shouldn't I be calling out, "Tapir tooth!  Meg!" and so forth, just like they were?  I saw that some of them were using screens with 1/2" hardware mesh and that seemed to be the answer.  Clear out that gravel faster, get the big stuff!  In truth, fossiling success is measured in many ways with experience and luck at the top of the list, but I prefer the larger hardware mesh.  When I am sifting through so much small gravel, I get bogged down and frustrated.  I've got to keep moving!

     I run the risk of missing fossils like this beautiful molar (peccary, I think) but I clear out a lot more gravel and have more success finding a wider variety of larger fossils.

     The photo above was from one of my better days as I gained experience on the river.  From the top, a complete tapir molar with intact root, a camel tooth with intact root, a couple of serviceable megs, and to the right, my first horse teeth.  

     At this point, I digress long enough to say, I CANNOT STAND THE STUPID CAMEL TOE JOKE!  I posted a photo of a beautiful camel tooth I found and every one of my intelligent, adult friends made a stupid camel toe reference.  Believe me, I have a sense of humor, but it's time to nail the lid down on that one.

     Whew!  Glad I got that out!  

     Back to the point I was making, I know I am missing a lot of tiny shark teeth and bird bones, etc. but being new to this hobby and coming into it long after the huge mammoth leg bones and intact land tortoise shells have all been found and cleared out, I want the biggest fossils I can get!

Necessity is the mother, and all that...

     The old guys kept telling me I should call "Pam" and go fossiling with her.  Well, maybe I didn't like that very much.  It had that feeling of my brothers telling me to go play with the girls and really, what other woman was going to dig like I dig?  I definitely wasn't holding the guys back, if, for no other reason, I am completely independent with my kayak and don't require an escort or assistance.
     But Pam is an officer of my fossil club and I wanted to get to know the other members so I arranged to go fossiling with her.

     Pam, please forgive me for ever doubting you!

     One of our first times fossiling together, she called, after we were both over an hour into our commutes, to tell me she had forgotten her paddle; not unheard of when you are wrangling a truckload of gear in the predawn hours.  I've heard stories of guys paddling with their shovel for the same reason.

     I was just passing the small WalMart in Wauchula so I told her I would come up with something.  I ran into the store and all they had were 2 expandable plastic emergency paddles.  I grabbed those and a roll of duct tape and we cobbled together a temporary kayak paddle.

     With this flimsy device Pam paddled a total of 5 miles, faster and stronger than me, and dug all day to boot.

You go, girl!