Images

Details: Written by: Rod Boyle; Category: Images; Published: 03 April 2021; Hits: 1064

A short walk on the beach, looking for arrowheads or flakes. Nothing. Then, just leaving the beach and the daughter's calling and I spot this:

An inch long, napped on both edges, point broken off but you can see the percussion marks (divots in the chert - where it was pressed to flake and shape)

I have every suspicion this is going to be a great prospecting year.

Details: Written by: Rod Boyle; Category: Images; Published: 29 March 2021; Hits: 1193

A few days of back-to-work cleaning up and resetting up the restaurant.

I'm less than enthused. It keeps me busy, but serves as well to remind me of all the ways I'd prefer to spend my summer.

Yesterday, a trip with Chris up to Johnson's Landing, hike into the granites of Fry Creek. The right geology, but no great finds. I'll need to try this again and complete the hike.

On the road back, stop to explore a few mines, the road is dotted with adits:

Looked like a mine, got out, yep, sure enough...notice the great yellowing seams of quartz. Very coarse and granular, on the verge of becoming crystals if only there were a pocket...

Inside, hundreds of gnats (Why?), and of course, the masses of cave spiders:

in the cracks on the ceiling some bigger, juicier ones who's species eludes me. There are some small transparent crystals in a ceiling pocket - quartz, but the positioning in the ceiling doesn't recommend collecting...

You can see the quartz becoming crystals in the limestone outside...

A couple of other stops, more "Close, but no cigar" type situations, big, blocky massive quartz seams, crystals lacking in pockets. The terrain is right, but needs more exploring. And then home, the pitter patter of rain on a tin roof....

Details: Written by: Rod Boyle; Category: Images; Published: 06 March 2021; Hits: 793

The last couple of days a record 10 degrees above zero. The snow is gone, time to get out there.

A sunny morning, a spiderling drops from the eavestrough, blue-bottle fly on the glass of the deck. Chris and I head out to a few spots.

Nothing new, places we've been before, some still too deep in snow. But, digging up by a mine where we'd found some good quartz and silver ore he finds some amber. Not amber, precisely, but glassy resin in the dirt. Looking around I spot the bark it's dripped from, tear it down, when:

It begins an awful hissing and takes me a moment to figure out what it is. I would have thought - given the abundance of mines, that hibernation would take place a little deeper in the mountain, but maybe (hopefully!!!) this guy was an early riser.

Anyways, tuck him back near a hollow on the tree - hopefully he can resume his hibernation, not enough bugs out yet. And a reminder to be a little more careful traipsing about the woods, wouldn't want to prematurely wake up anything else.