More Red Druse at MFQ

Posted on April 10, 2015 by jwj

Two weeks ago, I had a call from a good friend who told me that there would soon be some activity going on at MFQ. I had a day off coming up so decided to drive down there and see if I could find anything nice, before my anticipated trip to Arkansas, as I wanted to get some good stuff to take with me and give to a new rockhound friend that I had found on Facebook. Missy and I got up early and drove down there on Saturday morning, spotting deer and wild turkeys along the way, always a good sign of things to come. When we arrived, we had a pleasant surprise, finding not only one recent blast pile in our favorite coved wall area, but also the original wall on the left as you enter……

I decided to check out the original section of wall first, and found one chunk of poker chips at the bottom of the pile in relatively great shape. I then drove on over to the east wall to check and see what was left of the blast pile there and see if the wall was anymore exposed than the last time I was there….and as it turned out, it was alot more exposed, one section standing out and appeared to be full of pockets….

…there was also a pile of huge boulders there and one contained a huge vug of calcite crystals…

…naturally I couldn`t just walk by without stopping to look and photograph it, but I kept on walking toward that area that appeared to have multiple pockets and boy did it. I worked that area for at least two hours, filling bag after bag full of beautiful druse plates and many of those plates had big flaky poker chip crystals attached….

starting in the pocket on the left above and then moving to that pocket on the right…..

…which just got better and better…..

..then I spotted yet another pocket and moved over to it….

…and filled yet another bag on this one alone, as it contained some nice dogtooths….

…and then I moved over to the coved wall…

…..have to say I was a bit disappointed as it did not produce very much of anything other than a few small plates of poker chips down at the ground level. However, I did climb up the pile and along the wall, found some great pockets full of BEAUTIFUL and VIBRANT red druse pieces…filled at least two bags of these beauties….

…I was very happy with the beauties I pulled out of the east wall pockets, which is where I recommended my buddy Ian collect at when he told me that he would be there on the morning I planned to be heading home from Arkansas…here are some of those beauties….

…it made for a great morning there…collected enough of those beauties to fill at least ten flats…if you have any questions or wanna say hi, give me a shout at jwjphoto7@gmail.com

Pleasant Surprise Found at MFQ Saturday…

Posted on February 12, 2015 by jwj

Missy and I arrived at MFQ mid morning Saturday, driving down to check out the clearing activity that was going on per my buddy Jim, who I called Thursday evening on my way to work. The forecast was for a very nice warm and sunny day, temps in the 70`s, but by the time we arrived at 9:30, it was still cool enough to require my blue sweatjacket. As we pulled into the upper parking area from the highway, I spotted the clearing activity on top of the hill….

…I then looked toward the back center wall, however I was unable to see the back wall due to a very high pile of rock crushed into chunks suitable for support and driveways….as we drove around this huge pile of crushed rock, I came upon a nicely sloped pile of untouched goodies blasted down from the upper bench…needless to say I was estatic because my buddy Jim was unaware of any recent activity, most likely due to his view from the roadway being blocked as mine was, by that huge pile of crushed rock. The pile was wide enough that it required four photos to show it….

…after quickly letting Missy out, I changed into my boots, grabbed my mini mattox, and made a fast walk around the front edge…it was obvious the only thing workers had done since bringing the wall down, was to clean up the front edges with the dozer. I didn`t find anything pretty out on the front edges, so I grabbed a bag and headed for the back wall, as I was able to spot some pockets from the truck. Within moments, I had spotted several nice druse pockets like this one….

…and from this one pocket came some very nice druse pieces like these two guys….

…after filling one bag full of wrapped druse plates, I moved on down the wall to the next several pockets, many of them similar but a few had some nice poker chips attached as well…as you can see from the next images, this wall was full of pockets…..look below the green line….

…and at one spot along the wall, I looked up, as I normally do, and spotted some beautiful black druse pockets way up there…about fifteen feet higher than I could possibly begin to reach….

…the next pockets I had to climb up to the top of the stepladder to access….right under that green/blue line….

…the material in front facing me, was loose, so after pulling it back with my mini mattox, it looked like this…

…I was cleaning away the loose stuff, looking for an opening to a pocket and oila !! one appeared….

…pulling a few nice plates of druse and poker chips out of this opening, resulted in finding yet another pocket right behind it….

…and pretty soon, I had yet another bag full of very pretty druse and poker chip plates. I went back to the truck to get yet another bag and to check on Missy. I no sooner returned and was down in the dip along the back wall….

….searching for yet another pocket that could possibly turn into four pockets like this one did, when my buddy Jim showed up to visit….I walked down the pile toward my truck to meet him about halfway….

…and where we both came to a stop to talk, I looked down and spotted some beautiful pieces of black druse and some black dogtooth crystals just laying all over…

…what a great meeting spot Jim selected to talk to me at…I owe him big time I would say. After we talked abit, he left to go work on cutting some more wood, and I looked around a bit more, picked up several more black and brown dogtooth crystals, and druse pieces, filling at least two bags full. I then looked to my left and spotted these two huge boulders with vugs of poker chip crystals inside each one….

…I decided to take a water break, and then returned with more wraps and another bag, as well as my hammer and chisel, and proceeded to get a good workout in, removing some nice clusters of big gray colored poker chip crystals from these vugs….

…and then I returned to the wall, where I found a few more pockets that contained those nice gemmy plates of druse and poker chips. I filled two more bags, my last ones even, of these plates. I then walked around the back side of the pile where I located some nice gemmy green poker chips, some with dogtooths, and some were small and some large yard rocks style….and set them up on a nice flat boulder….I ran out of steam about this time, and loaded them up last before heading for home….sure was a nice day.

Feb 23rd…..Due to two winter storms the last two weeks, I was unable to get out and hunt, so as promised, here are some of the dogtooths and druse pieces all cleaned up…..

A Pleasant Surprise at the Secret Spot

Posted on December 19, 2014 by jwj

I decided I should return to the secret spot since I hadn`t been there for several weeks, last time being when I found the big and deep dogtooth pocket. Missy and I didn`t get up til mid morning and by the time we got started in that direction, it was late morning…it slipped my mind that it now gets dark sooner, so by the time we arrived, I had about four hours of light left..in my favor, it was cloudy so I knew that the evening light would linger longer, kind of like that one night there when I found that small cavern full of dogtooth crystals and needed as much time as I could get to clean it out…another prayer answered that evening. We arrived to find to our dismay, a large pool of water on two sides of the secret spot…the last time we were there, it was dry all the way across in there, and while it was due to be much warmer than it had been lately, I had been dealing with a lot of congestion and didn`t feel like taking a chance on making it worse. I changed into my boots, grabbed my mini mattox and walked down to the end of the pool of water and crossed over by climbing up the hill and then sliding down to the other side…walking along the wall looking for potential pockets. After about an hour, I got down to the spot where I located a large and deep pocket chock full of beautiful dogtooth crystals and clusters in September, many attached to bubbly druse pieces….

…so I started on down the wall and within about five minutes, began finding some single dogtooth crystals loose in the dirt again…which is exactly the way I found the pocket in September…so I began digging in and sure enough, a small hole opened up. I was standing on a ledge, that measured about four inches wide, two feet up off the gravel sloped floor above the water…you can see it in the photo below, at a forty five degree angle left and below my mini mattox….

…and here in relation to the September pocket, which is that large squareish hole on the left side of the photo below….

…at any rate, I reached into the small opening of the pocket and started pulling single bright orange dogtooth crystals out and within five minutes, had my sweatshirt pocket full, so I reached over and scraped clean a nearby ledge about seven inches long by five inches wide…and soon enough, I had it completely full as well. I then started pulling out some larger clusters of dogtooths attached to some beautiful bubbley druse…these I set up inside an older pocket located a few feet below that was within easy reach, seen here to the left of my mattox…..

….and in no time at all, I had it filled up as well….

…leaving me no choice but to step down off that narrow ledge and start filling the bag…which didn`t take long with all the goodies I had stored up by that time. I set the large clusters down on the dirt next to the bag, then climbed back up and pulled even more out. Soon I had the bag filled and knew I was going to have to return to the truck to get more bags…I was not looking forward to the long trip around the water hole to the truck, carrying a heavy bag, but I did it…and once I made it back to the truck, after taking a short water bottle break, I decided to switch to my old fireman`s boots and wade back across the water hole to the pocket with more bags, as well as my hammer and chisel. The only bad thing about this switch, was that while the rubber boots kept my feet dry and warm, they were not good for climbing back up on that narrow ledge…since I had to make several more trips across the water to the truck, carrying larger clusters and bags of wrapped crystals, I put up with the extra work and pain. I was up and down that wall pulling crystals out of that pocket, which I kept having to expand the opening, because the crystals kept going to the left…pretty soon I was also pulling down the roof plates, which were beautiful bubbley druse plates, some with dogtooths attached and some with just poker chips attached. This roof plate remained in the deep pocket when I finished for the evening…

and the pocket keeps going to the left where it`s dark…it was every bit of 30 inches from right to left in area that I had cleared out in three hours time and probably about fifteen inches across from front to back wall.

By the time I finished that evening, light was slowly fading and the opening of the pocket looked like this….

…but by the end of the day, my calf muscles and my feet were very sore, felt like I had been running up hill all day long. I returned the next afternoon to see about cleaning out the pocket, not having enough time the day before to do so. This time, I took a short step ladder with me so that I would have something wider to step on…

…and since it was much warmer today, 70 degrees to be exact…I decided to put my old hiking boots on and wade across in them….

…and another wise decision that afternoon was to widen out the mouth of the pocket once again, in order to reach the remaining crystals on the far left side of the pocket, so I started from this point…..

…and took out that big chunk just inside the gray outside rock, as well as some of the roof rock and that gray outside rock on the left side above….resulting in this size below….

..removing about another foot of rock, so that I didn`t have to use my hand rake and drag crystals and clusters across the pocket to my waiting hand…possibly resulting in more damage to the crystals, possibly even breaking off tips. The last thing I did after cleaning out the last elements inside the pocket to the very left side, was to remove that huge roof plate I left in there the night before…I had to jam my chisel in and wedge it out, first putting my hand rake under it to soften the blow…by this time, I was out of wrapping cloths and extra bags to do that with. When it came down, it landed on the rake handle, which did soften the blow as planned, and it was all I could do, mustering all of my remaining strength to roll that huge roof plate over and then think about muscling it down that ladder. I decided not to try that part, instead dropping it to the ground, where it immediately stuck into the soft dirt, again as planned. Later when I took one of my breaks, I picked it up, with my legs and not my back, and muscled it across the water hole to the truck….

…it had a lot of base dolomite rock on it…am guessing it weighed in about 100 lbs at least. I filled two more bags and wrapped up several roof plates that were smaller than this one, thankfully, and took to the truck, along with my tools and the ladder. The sun was beginning to set as I left, and I decided to drive down and see a good friend who is a mineral dealer in Doe Run specimens, before heading home. Here is how the sunset looked as I left….

Darkness fell while I was visiting with Dave and on the way home, I nearly struck a big doe, probably the closest I have come to hitting one in my life…I came around a corner on the highway and spotted a deer on the right side just up on the bank inside the woods, and then with my peripheral vision, caught motion on my left and I looked around just in time to see this big doe jump out into the roadway and skid across toward my pickup…instead of hitting the brakes, I hit the gas as this doe was fast approaching my mirror…never felt a bump and saw it still skidding across the road in my tail lights as I kept going. Luckily the rest of my trip home was just fine. I cleaned up the crystals yesterday and today on my days off and photographed them as well…enjoy….

…this next one is an enigma to me…looks like a small druse piece on top, but look closely at the edge….

…cause when you turn it over, there is a dogtooth inside a poker chip calcite formation, inside the shell of the small druse piece…..never seen one like that….

All in all, a pretty good weekend and beautiful weather for December too…hope everyone has a great and Merry Christmas, safe travels for anyone on the road as well.

Multiple Dogtooth Pockets 2 Weeks In a Row…MFQ

Posted on October 23, 2014 by jwj

Well I am slightly behind again, but it has been a very long couple of weeks, but it`s looking like we will be busy soon at work, so it is prob best I get this caught up before that happens, or there is no telling how long it will be then. I received a call from my buddy a few weeks ago, and so I have made two trips down there, and let me tell you, both trips produced quite a few filled bags full of dogtooth crystals. On the way down there, I stopped off briefly at Alley Spring Mill and photographed the Mill with fall foliage in the background, and there was a fine mist of fog rising up off the spring waters as well. It was beautiful in the early morning light…

We then drove on, and as I approached the entrance, I came around a curve and upon three deer in the middle of the road, a doe and two young ones with her…and they just came to a stop in the middle of the road as Missy and I slowed to a stop and prayed no one came over the hill from the other direction…they were absolutely beautiful framed in the light of the rising sun…I wish now I had been holding my camera in my hands as I came upon them…however I was so transfixed by the beauty of the entire situation, I`m still not sure I would have been able to follow through and photograph them even then….I do know that we must have sat there for at least twenty seconds before they vamoosed on into the brush on the other side of the roadway. We arrived at the quarry a few seconds later and found we had the place to ourselves.

We were there 90 minutes before several vehicles pulled in and parked not too far from the pile. I decided to go get a water bottle and take a break…as I did, Missy was over near a group of folks checking everyone out. I walked over and introduced myself and they told me they were with the Spring River Gem and Mineral Club out of Cherokee Village, Arkansas. I talked with a few of them as several of the others grabbed their tools and buckets and headed for the pile. I pointed out an area of the pile where I had found several chunks of calcite druse the week before, and many of them headed to that area to look for more. I stayed and continued to talk to Jean and Bud Green, and John Holder, and we discussed rockhunting in general there at the quarry and what could be found there. They had been there before, a few years before, and things had changed a bit since then.

After my break, I walked back up to the wall where I was digging into some druse pockets, and some of the plates I was pulling out had poker chips attached…..

I soon had two bags full of them, this pocket was quite extensive and deep. I then walked on down the wall, and soon found a few more druse pockets and even a couple of pockets with dogtooths all over the place. A couple of guys pulled up a few minutes later from the West Plains area, and after walking around the pile looking around, started chipping off some frosted crystals they found in some vugs on boulders. I stopped and talked to them for a bit as well. After about an hour of working on the vugs and liberating the crystals from the vugs, they got in their car and moved on down the wall to the coved wall to see if they could find anything else worthwhile. I was working on the wall on the west side of the pile and began finding a few pockets of dogtooth crystals here and there as I moved up the hill toward the top of the pile. It was no time at all, before I had to return to the truck and get another bag, so this time, I stuffed even more wrapping cloths into the new bag…as it was, I didn`t stuff enough, cause the next pocket contained even more dogtooths than the previous two pockets combined…this time they were brown frosted dogtooth crystals with a black exterior poker chip formation.

BTW, I learned something new from the Spring River Group….it seems they call the poker chip calcite crystals something completely different….Christmas Trees are what they refer to the poker chips…I told Jean Harris, that in the southwest area of the US, they call them nailheads. I told her what some of the poker chips and dogtooths look like that we have found there in the past, and what colors we have found them in as well….she had no idea they were in that many colors. By this time, they had all moved over to the original west wall of the quarry and were searching there for more pretty stuff…I`m guessing they found quite a bit of stuff there cause they were def over there for some time before leaving about mid afternoon. By that time I had climbed up to the top of the pile….

and discovered two more pockets of black and brown dogtooth crystals and filled two more bags before leaving. Needless to say, I was quite happy and quite tired, but I would venture to say that Missy was likely a bit more wore out than I was…she stretched out in the backseat and was promptly asleep and snoring as I drove home. The Jacks Fork River sure was pretty when I crossed over….

if you have any questions or wanna say hi, give me a shout at jwjphoto7@gmail.com

Horsefly Weekend

Posted on September 4, 2014 by jwj

Nearly two weeks ago I drove back down to MFQ, after getting word that there was a little bit of new activity. Missy and I arrived about 6:30 am and it was just getting good and light on a cloudy morning…by the time I had my boots laced up and grabbed my gloves, mini mattox, and bags, I was able to see pretty good. I found a small pile of new material to climb up and around on and while I found a few shallow pockets along the wall, as I started down the steep, short pile, I discovered a few crystals teetering on the edge of the wall and was able to pop them out without too much trouble. By this time the sun had made an appearance and yet we still had some good shade to work in. It was due to be a scorcher temp wise by noon, so after filling half a bag with the crystals from the shallow pockets, I decided to move on down to the other wall and see if I could locate anything there. I loaded up everything, including Missy`s water bowl and Missy, and drove to the east side of the quarry floor.

Once there, I found that the gravel pile with the graded driveway up to the bench, was actually a short bench with the pile camouflaging it on three sides. The drilling rig had been up on it and holes drilled into the short walls, so I decided to stay on the ground floor and see what I could find. I was walking around the edge of the short walls and finding shallow druse pockets once again, when I dropped a nice druse piece…as I bent down to pick it up, I noticed a nice black crystal sticking out of the dirt at my feet. I reached down and pulled out a beautiful palm sized cluster of dogtooth crystals in a chocolate brown color mixed with black calcite druse. I wasted no time in kneeling down and pulling out several more, enough to wrap up and fill one bag. I returned to the truck for two more bags full of wrapping cloths and a bottle of water. Within two hours, I had filled both of those bags and was quite happy with what I had found. It was really starting to get hot by this time, so I took yet another water bottle break, loading Missy into the truck and turning on the ac for her, and then decided to check out one other place along the wall.

Within a few minutes, I had found yet another pocket, this time in an older section of the wall further east. Out of this pocket, I found two more druse pockets and filled one more bag before giving in to the heat. By this time, I was drenched and my shirt felt more like canvas. We headed home and rested up the remainder of the hot weekend. I cleaned those crystals up this week and filled at least five flats full of some beautiful clusters of poker chips and druse, many with dogtooth crystals.

I received another call last Thursday and advised that more activity occurred at the quarry, this time on the east wall…I was excited to return and see what could be found, but at the same time, had been having thoughts of returning to see if more of those clusters with dogtooths could be found near the other pockets…guess that will have to wait til the newest pile is cleaned up some more. I took off Sunday, the 31st, and comped out of work about 4 am…drove home and picked up Missy, changing into rockhunting jeans and grabbed half a case of water, and then headed out. We arrived about 8 am and found a nice sized pile on the east side of the quarry floor waiting for us. After getting my boots laced up, I grabbed a mini mattox and climbed up on the rock pile to see if anything obvious stood out…it was a cloudy morning to start and really didn`t look like I was going to have any sunlight for quite some time that morning…that was fine with me, cause the cool temps were just perfect. As I walked around on top, I started spotting a few crystals here and there, and then on the way down to the truck to retrieve a bag, I came upon a nice pocket of druse, some of it with poker chips attached and even a few dogtooths. I was able to dig down and liberate a full bag of them, then checked along the wall and found some more nice druse pieces in a chocolate color that shined even in the muted light. I returned that bag to the truck and the sun started to pop out of the clouds about that time…in addition to the heat with the sunlight, several horseflies also showed up and started to annoy me. I don`t mind, and can actually tolerate flies, flying around me and buzzing me and landing on me to check me out, but let me tell you, when they start biting me, they are going to pay the price Karma is, after all, a b…..ear. 🙂

By the time I left, I believe I had killed at least ten of them…now I know how horses feel when they are getting buzzed by them…they can sure bite and leave a welp on ya….not fun at all. I seriously wonder what good they are to mankind.

Well I have to say, I filled five bags full of some beautiful crystals and nice combos of druse and poker chip clusters. Even found a nice beach ball sized chunk covered with poker chips all over one side…made a great yard rock. I was exhausted and drenched once again, and had to fight to stay awake on the drive home…as I age, it gets harder to do this type of thing on just a few hours of sleep. Needless to say, once home, Missy and I took a nice four hour nap in the ac and I slept well that night as well.

The next morning, we had intended to get up and head down to the druse spot, however the weather did not want to cooperate…it had started raining about 11 pm the night before…I didn`t hear it, read that the next day…I didn`t hear a thing after 10 pm, slept like a log…and the rain was forecast to clear off by 8 am, however it was at least 11 am before the skies cleared and then we headed out once again. I decided to drive on down to the new secret spot to start, and see if I could locate some more dogtooth pockets. There are a few waterholes there that seem to stay full of water all the time, spring fed I always thought, but when I got there, I found them all to be dry as a bone, which was great, cause one of them had what I suspected to be a dogtooth pocket inside one wall of it, and now I would have the perfect opportunity to check for sure. I drove over to that area and didn`t even take the time to change into my boots, just grabbed my gloves and mini mattox and walked to the spot and began digging down…within seconds, I had pulled half a dozen single dogtooth crystals out of a shallow pocket and followed the trail of the crystals popping up out of the loose matrix, around a big knobby dolomite dome to the other side and then around a smaller dome and moving the other way…within an hour I was drenched in sweat and had uncovered several crystals in a fifteen foot long swath….dealing once again with horseflies…they must have followed me from the day before…they were all over the place. Before this would have been impossible without scuba gear due to the depth of the water in this one waterhole alone. I took a water break, grabbed a bag of cloths and had it filled in ten minutes. I decided to walk along the walls and see if I could spot anything new…and no sooner walked about thirty feet down the wall when I came across a few nice clusters of poker chips and druse. Due to the heat build up, Missy and I took off and headed to the druse spot shortly after. I didn`t last long there either…it had been a while since I had been there last, most likely back in the springtime before things got to growing, cause the weeds were waist high and it was hard to see where you were walking. I did manage to find some beautiful smokey quartz druse plates within a short time tho, and then we headed home.

Earlier today, I rolled up my shirt sleeves and decided to sort out all my flats of crystals that I had stored away in the corner of my basement, something I had been putting off for some time. I actually started on it Tuesday afternoon, worked on it for six more hours Wed morning, and will prob finish it up by Friday evening, with any luck. I had completely forgotten about some beautiful crystals that I had found earlier this year, uncovering many of them this morning, dogtooth clusters and singles in many colors, and some great calcite druse pieces too. No horseflies to deal with tho. 🙂

Great Pocket On My Way Home From Black Rock

Posted on June 10, 2014 by jwj

I decided to stop by MFQ on my way home from Black Rock, Arkansas on May 31st. I had driven down to Black Rock early that morning for a MAGS sponsored trip to the Vulcan Quarry to look for pink dolomite and calcite crystals and maybe some chalcopyrite., however, if I want good chalcopyrite, I def know where I can go to find some big crystals of it. I took the scenic route getting there from Black Rock.

I spotted some pretty Jersey cows in a field off to the right of the highway and stopped to photograph them on this beautiful cloudy blue sky day….

…then I spotted this lone pine tree against the big fluffy white clouds and blue skies….

I stopped off ten miles south of Winona at Falling Spring Mill, to photograph it…neat little water grist mill with a waterfall right next to it and a big millpond in front of it, accessed by a wooden footbridge….

…it has been several years since I last photographed it, good to see that it is still being well taken care of by the Forest Service.

I then continued on, eventually arriving to find that another short wall had been blasted down, with rocks strewn everywhere from it…

…and I mean everywhere, in all directions, all over the floor of the quarry….

I drove around to the east side and parked…..

….then walked around the edge of the pile, looking for any signs of crystals or druse, finding some nice larger pieces of druse on the west side and set them out on the floor to pick up later before I left. I then decided to climb up along the wall to the top of the pile to check for wall pockets…

…finding one very nice pocket that expanded to the size of a beach ball at the entrance and was chock full of little caverns off on each side and up above it, stuffed full of plates of dolomite and calcite druse, with poker chips attached to them. It was soon very apparent to me that one bag was not going to be enough, because every plate I was pulling out was so delicate and gorgeous, that I needed to wrap each one to protect them. I returned to the truck and grabbed a couple more bags, full of wrapping cloths and grabbed a bottle of water as well…it had been cool and breezy down at Black Rock, but now, after only an hour here, it was getting very hot and the clouds had rolled away to leave blue skies and full sun. In the hour I had been there, my arms had already darkened from the intense sunlight and I could feel the beginnings of a mild sunburn starting on the back of my neck. An hour later, and I had filled both of these bags and I carried them back to the truck…there was only one easy way down to the truck and back up to the pocket…hugging the wall to the east and then sliding down the slope like a slalom course…but I made it without any spills each time. I grabbed two more bags filled with wrapping cloths and another bottle of water and an hour later, I had the pocket cleaned out completely. I`ll get some photos taken of those gems soon…took a few down to Tina at the Clement Mineral Museum this past weekend and everyone down there just oohhed and ahhhed over them, just as I did when I was pulling them out of the pocket. The wall I was working actually had several small vugs in addition to the pocket I found….

I made one more sashay around the other side, carefully checking for more pockets, then drove around and loaded up the larger druse pieces I had found earlier, and then I headed home, tired but happy as well. All in all, though, a very good trip and day.

James 🙂

jwjphoto@fidnet.com

Deep Pocket at Secret Spot

Posted on June 10, 2014 by jwj

Missy and I loaded up mid May and headed to the secret spot…it was a gorgeous cloudy sky day and the temps were perfect for rock collecting. We arrived mid morning and as soon as I parked, I noticed something moving in the pools of water nearby…I walked over and found thousands of tiny black tadpoles swimming around in clusters….

…everywhere I looked they were just all over the place, never seen so many in one area like that.

We made our way over to an area in the lower area that I had been finding alot of floor pockets in, and within minutes, had located a promising area and began digging down. Within a few minutes, I had a nice L shaped pocket going….

..and it seemed to have ended on the bottom side but kept going a bit further at the top of the photo, so I naturally followed that end of the pocket…and acquired a pretty hefty stack of goodies in short order as well….

…and soon after was finding more pockets under a layer of druse plates, with crystals sparkling in the matrix, waiting to be plucked out of the gravel mix….

…I kept on digging deeper and further toward that end of the L shaped pocket as it kept expanding and pretty soon my goodie stack was getting higher and longer as well….

funny how you lose all track of time when pursuing a pocket like this one, think nothing of taking a break or getting up to stretch your legs, all focus is on the pocket at hand. Well pretty soon, the pocket expansion came to an abrupt end…sometimes you run into a wall and sometimes you can see what appears to be an opening back behind that wall, which in this case I did…it was going to be too risky to try and pursue it because I would have to hammer my way in and too many nice crystals would be destroyed if I did that, so I backed off and decided to scratch around with the mini mattox and see if I could find another pocket on down a bit or a back way into what appeared to be another pocket behind that wall….

…little did I know what lay in store for me….

…within a couple of feet from the end of that pocket, I hit paydirt…hit a soft spot that started descending into the clay colored gravel….

…it kept going and going until the bottom just literally dropped out on me….

…and then I started pulling first druse plates and combos out of the bottom of this huge pocket….

…after pulling about half a dozen plates out, I looked into the bottom of the pocket and just saw poker chip crystals laying all over the place, several large ones even…talk about Christmas in May….

…including this nice combo plate….

…well by this time, I had the pocket dug down about eighteen inches deep and had filled three bags full of crystals, many doubles and triples and singles about six to eight inches long…and I was exhausted. I decided to come back the next afternoon and clean it out.

So I returned the next day, early afternoon, and proceeded to see if I could clean this puppy out…

…it measured about eighteen inches deep and two feet long, from my viewpoint above and ten inches wide, but when I stuck the camera down inside it and turned the flash on, you can easily see that it goes back to the left pretty far and has crystals inside it as well….

…but in order to get to that point, I had to knock some of the top roof plates out so I grabbed my four pound sledge hammer and started pounding for a few minutes to break them up…let me tell you, that took quite a few minutes because the rock above that pocket going that direction just became thicker and thicker, giving me quite a workout in about twenty minutes…but I pulled a few nice roof plates out as a result of it…

…and some nice crystals as well…

…and pretty soon, the pocket was expanding in all directions…and wound up being an all afternoon pocket….

by four pm, I was done in and had the pocket cleaned out as far as I could reach back in there…I had brought my flashlight with me this time and looking in, could see the pocket went back in there at least four feet, much farther than I could reach and no way to even get a rake or anything in there to pull anything else out. At any rate, I had two more bags full of crystals and plates and I was happy. Missy and I saw some nice sunbeams on the way home…made my day even more…

If anyone wants to contact me and talk about rockhunting or my blog stories, you can reach me at jwjphoto@fidnet.com

Black and Blue Dogtooth Crystal Weekend

Posted on May 7, 2014 by jwj

Earlier in the week, my chances of going rockhunting even one day during the first weekend in May, were looking pretty dismal for me…as I had scheduled a shoot on Saturday the 3rd, in the middle of the day and that meant I was going to have to stick around all morning…and I was going to an event on Sunday early afternoon to commemorate the lives of two firefighter friends that had achieved milestones in their lives, celebrating fifty years of service to the Sullivan Fire Department and District. Both men are good friends of our family and after attending the same event for my Dad the year before, and knowing it required a couple of hours time, I wasn`t sure I was going to have any time afterward to go hunting that day either.

By midweek tho, my schedule cleared up so that I could not only drive down to MFQ on Saturday morning early, but I was able to squeeze in a few hours of hunting on Sunday after the event as well. I made a call to my buddy Jim on Friday evening and he told me that the new blast pile was nearly gone and he was seeing some streaks of black as well, so Missy and I got up early Saturday morning and were on the road by 7 am. under mostly cloudy skies, with a hint of clearing skies by mid morning.

We soon rolled into the quarry and found a much smaller pile of rocks and evidence that the huge hydraulic jack had been used recently on some of the larger boulders with a line of the busted boulders skirting the edge of the reduced pile from one side to the other.

I pulled just past the back of the reduced pile and parked, and after switching to my boots, grabbed a bag, my gloves, and my mini mattox and decided to do a surface hunt first around the edge of reduced boulders on the east side of the pile. I found a few smaller pieces right off the bat and then made a closer inspection of the walls of the pile. I found a few small pockets of dark gray colored poker chips and some calcite druse as well. I walked down the wall to the east and found a few small pockets of druse as well as one nice poker chip cluster, a small one….

…..enough to fill one bag with some interesting looking shaped druse pieces. I returned that bag to the truck bed and then grabbed another one and headed around the skirt of rocks to the west side….

….and immediately started seeing some nice cobbed down chunks of calcite druse all over the place, sparkling and glittering in the strong sunlight. I sat my bag and mattox down and began selecting some of the nicer chunks and carrying them over to the parking area and creating a grouping of them to pick up later before I left. They would make some great yard rocks. I was up in the middle of them making more selections, when my buddy Jim drove up in his pickup with his wife and daughter. They were on their way to town for some festivities…I told him I had been hearing sirens and parade preparation sounds in the past hour and he said the parade would likely start soon downtown. Soon after they took off, I did hear the start of the parade and then later on, live music and what sounded like a drag race or tractor pull as well. They definitely had some beautiful weather for a celebration.

Soon Missy was back from her explorations and parked under the back of my truck in the shade…I put a bowl of cool water out for her and headed back to the pile to see if I could cobb some crystals out of a large boulder. I took my four pound hammer and chisels with me and soon came up on the huge boulder laying on its side on one side of the pile. I liked the looks of the crystals embedded in one end of the boulder, dark grey and black colored. I was able to free a couple of nice crystals from the boulder and was working on some others when a bumble bee starting flying around close by and even buzzing right by me a few times. I decided to give him some room and took a short water bottle break about thirty feet away to see if he was trying to get into a wall hole nearby…however, he didn`t settle down, even followed me over to my break area and buzzed by me some more. I walked back to the truck and retrieved my spray bottle of bee and wasp killer, however by the time I got back over there, he had apparently found a hole and ducked inside. I was glad, cause I was neither interested in killing it nor in being stung trying.

I tried to free a few more crystals and clusters, but was unable to do so, and decided to move to the back side of the pile and see if I could climb up to the top of the pile to see what more could be found. I got around to the back side and determined this was going to be no easy feat in getting up to the top of the reduced pile, as the dirt and rock material was extremely loose under my feet and for every step I took up the pile, I was either sliding back down or losing two steps down. I left the bag at the bottom…a mistake I later almost regretted…and used the mini mattox to carve out steps so I could get to the top, going up switchback fashion even. Eventually I made it to the top, after having to stop and knock down some of the top rocks to make things easier, dragging myself up and over the top edge finally. Once up there, I checked the walls for new pockets, finding a few pockets here and there. I decided to check out the huge boulder that had supplied me with many black dogtooth crystals the last trip down there, and to my surprise, started finding small clusters of crystals all around the bottom of the boulder once again. I even found some laying in the loose dirt at the base of the boulder as well as a few large ones that were nice too, and after digging down thru some of the loose material, I was able to recover some very pretty twin dogtooths…here they are cleaned up….

It appeared someone had chipped off a few of the remaining clusters and crystals I had left behind and I`m glad that whoever was there, left behind a lot of pretty crystals for me to find and take home. One that was in the shallow area of dirt, was a spectacular twin black dogtooth crystal, in the shape of a V, each one about two inches in length. After chipping off several nice clusters from the huge boulder a few weeks ago, I was delighted to find a few more perfectly shaped small ones this trip too….

I dug down around three sides of the boulder and found enough small crystals to fill two bags full…however since I had left my bag below and didn`t want to slide down and grab the bag, and then make the arduous climb back up with the bag in tow, I decided to take my long sleeve shirt off and wrap up the crystals in it and then carry the whole thing back down the pile. I also grabbed two or three nice large chunks with lots of black dogtooths on them, and then slid down the loose talus pile on my butt…this was much easier. After wrapping them all up separately on the tailgate in my wrapping cloths, I decided I had enough goodies for the day and headed home. By this time, I had four bags completely full of wrapped goodies.

However, after getting them all wrapped up and bagged, I decided to drive over to the cove area and check that wall as well. By this time it was pretty hot outside so I turned on the ac and left Missy in the ac while I worked the wall. I started at the east end and worked my way back west and pretty soon was finding crystals, poker chips and dogtooth crystals, laying in the loose matrix at the base of the wall. I followed a trail of poker chips up the small ramped pile and pretty soon, discovered a pocket buried in the loose matrix that had apparently fallen from above and became buried. I pulled enough crystals out of it to fill half a bag and by this time, I was approaching exhaustion fast, and still had a two hour drive home. I`ll get some of these crystals photographed and loaded up here soon.

Soon, Missy and I were headed home, stopping off briefly for a short hike to Alley Spring Mill and after finding only one dogwood tree in bloom near the mill pond…..

Only to find this as the view….

…and told that apparently this huge sycamore tree…

….which has been there many years and frames the mill beautifully in photos, is the root cause of the construction project now…the roots of the huge tree have penetrated the basement walls of the old mill and there is talk from the US Forest Service, of cutting down the beautiful tree instead of trying to find a way around it to save the mill…they say the roots are lifting the mill building up somewhat. I`m not sure I completely believe everything the USFS says in regards to this or anything else for that matter.

….we headed back to the truck and ac, and drove home. Missy was as tired as I was, carrying ten pounds of fur in the heat…I thought I was going to have to carry her to the truck…luckily she gets her hair cut on Wednesday.

Sunday morning, I decided Missy and I would drive down to a neat spot where I have always been able to find some neat druse pieces….my Mom had asked me for some holie rocks that she could plant ground cover in for her rock and flower gardens. I had seen some holie rocks there that I thought would be perfect, and as it worked out, we had a few hours of daylight left after the event on Sunday afternoon. It was as hot Sunday as it had been the day before, and I was prepared to leave Missy in the truck if need be with the ac on full blast. We arrived about 4 pm and I was able to locate about half a dozen nice large druse chunks with some holes in them, tho the holes were not nearly as big as I thought they were going to be. I also found some really pretty soda straw plates nearby as well, some of the straws were about two to three inches in length and very sparkly in the sunlight.

After loading the holie rocks and druse plates up, I drove over to the secret spot to check it out and decided to putter around a bit and see if I could locate any new pockets there. The shade had stretched out about thirty feet from the west wall by that time in the day, so I drove over and parked in the edge of it, enough to cover the cab in case Missy would need to get in the truck in the ac again.

As it turned out, there was a great breeze blowing from the northwest and came right across the shaded area very nicely. I scratched around a few times until I found a nice area that had great potential…I was ten feet under the huge pocket I found back in the spring time last year, the pocket that had apparently vibrated open after a blast seventy feet away from it…the pocket that was three feet in diameter…the pocket that was chock full of dogtooth crystals, some of them were a big as beach balls….and about ten feet below it, I found a very nice pocket. Missy by this time, had made a few forays to the edge of the parking area and then wandered back and laid down about fifty feet from me on a ledge in the shaded area.

I walked back to the truck and grabbed my camera to document the pocket after I had decided that it was indeed going to open up into some poker chip crystals…

….the first one I pulled out was about four inches high and had a beautiful blue tint to it with a black dogtooth center…

….and once the pocket really opened up, I started pulling several nice large single crystals out as well as a few clusters, some with some beautiful druse attached to them….

…I could see several on the edge and just inside the loose mix of matrix at the bottom of the pocket…I really get excited when I see those, cause I start wondering what all is inside and how deep is the pocket going to wind up being…the thrill of the hunt I guess….

What was really strange, was that after I had pulled out several blue tinted crsytals with black dogtooth centers, I also found a small pocket off to the side, with a few small orange dogtooth crystals inside it. I have never found the two colors that close together in different pockets, usually they are at least ten feet apart. I`m always thrilled when I find the blue tinted crystals tho, since they seem to be a rare color to find. Here are some of the initial crystals from the blue pocket….

The pocket kept expanding to the left, so naturally I kept digging in that direction and it continued to open up along the way….

The top section of matrix around the roof plates was very thin and loose, so everytime I started digging in that area, things started falling down and had to be cleared out gently….

…and pretty soon I was pulling some beautiful roof plates out too….

…then I set the camera down in front of the pocket and here is what was inside…

..and then the pocket started going deeper, when it went as far to the left as possible…

here are some more of the crystals and roofplates from the pocket….

I filled two bags completely full and then Missy and I took off and headed home. Sure made for a nice weekend.

Here are some of my goodies found at the secret spot Sunday….

James 🙂

jwjphoto@fidnet.com

Dandy Black Dogtooth Crystal Day

Posted on April 15, 2014 by jwj

I received a phone call from my buddy Jim regarding recent activity at MFQ about mid week, and since I had already arranged to take Saturday off to go rockhunting, it made perfect sense to drive down there Saturday morning and see what could be found. After a relatively calm night at work Friday night, I drove home and changed from my uniform into comfortable jeans, picked up Missy, and headed out. Jim was right, it was a short wall that came down…the smallest and shortest wall there yet.

The last time I had seen activity in this area, you could walk from the parking lot up the slope of the pile and come out on top of the upper bench, but one look at this pile, and I knew that wasn`t gonna happen, it didn`t even go halfway up. It was evident they had already removed some material in the past few days and were working on some boulders, reducing them down with the hydraulic hammer. Missy and I drove around to the back side of the new pile and began looking around back there first….

…walking around the front of the pile along the edges and then walked up the pile next to the back wall….

…well I didn`t find much, other than a few shallow pockets, so I drove back around to the other side and decided to check out the pile where they had been taking some material out….and soon discovered a huge boulder with some pockets at the base of it chock full of light green colored poker chips….

I decided to wait til later to see if could liberate them and walked up into the center of the pile and made my way toward the back wall, looking from side to side to see if I could spot any crystals. I found a couple of calcite druse pieces until I got close to the back of the pile…then I started seeing small black poker chips with black center dogtooths laying all over the pile…I finally looked up and around for the source and spotted a HUGE boulder, half the size of my truck, with many pockets of huge black poker chip crystals with the black dogtooth centers, many of the dogtooths exposed even….

..including this pocket that was located at the bottom of this huge boulder, containing several black dogtooth crystals, many that appeared to be four or five inches in diameter and about six inches long….

…and this one next to it, with a bit of damage, most likely from the blast or the fall afterwards….

…and this next one was underneath and to the side of both of the other pockets, a single large dogtooth crystal in this vug….

…well needless to say, I was stunned and happy at the same time…and after picking up a few more loose crystals in the pile below, many of which were unblemished and just plain beautiful, I walked back down to my truck to retrieve another bag of wrapping cloths, a bottle of water, and my hammer and chisels. After drinking half a bottle of water, I walked back up and started filling one bag with all the loose crystals around the base of this boulder that I could locate, some were even down below in a few drop holes, and I pulled them out and wrapped them up and bagged them as well. Within moments, I had one bag filled and was working on the other and still hadn`t even touched the boulder vugs. It was about this time that my buddy Jim drove down to visit a bit. He was enjoying the weather on his day off and waiting for his wife to get home from work.

I soon returned to the boulder and began to see what I could successfully chip out of the vugs. Luckily for me, everything was coming out just fine and pristine, and soon I had two more bags full of goodies…here are a few….

here is the cluster that I chipped out of the bottom of the HUGE boulder at the back side of the pile….

….and the last thing I did after cleaning all those black beauties out, was try to liberate some of the green poker chips in the boulder on the front side of the pile…but like most green poker chips, that tend to shatter much easier than other colors, I was only able to get these two out somewhat intact….

I did manage to find a few pockets on the back wall that were full of calcite druse, some with poker chips attached and liberated some of them as well, however I have no photos of them, maybe I can add some later. It sure was a Dandy Dogtooth Crystal Day.

James 🙂

jwjphoto@fidnet.com

MAGS Missouri Field Trips 2014

Posted on April 15, 2014 by jwj

I was really looking forward to the visit by members of MAGS the weekend of April 5th and 6th, their members are some of the best people you would ever want to meet and rock hunt with, one of the best clubs I have ever had the pleasure of joining. My scouting trip the last week of March turned up a couple of new locations, one which needed further exploration and one that sounded too good to be true. I was able to contact the property owner of the quarry and it turned out he was into metal detecting, so we shared a common interest and he gave me permission to check out the quarry on his property. I then contacted my good friend Virgil Richards, who lives in the Tulsa area, to let him know what I had found out and he indicated that he would be back up on Friday night to go with me to the new druse spot and check out the other location for the first time as well. He also wanted to rejoin the MAGS Club in order to get in on some other field trips throughout the rest of the year, too. I also updated my friend Ray from St Louis County and he indicated he would be out early Saturday morning as well. I had all my grab bag material separated and ready to hand over to MAGS Club for grab bag material at their end of April Show and I coordinated with WC on when and where to meet up with them Saturday late morning.

After a late supper with Virgil at Cracker Barrel, soon after he arrived in my town, I retired early to bed on Friday night, but then woke up around 4 am for some reason, so when the fire department was paged for a house fire about six blocks from my house at 5:30 am, I quickly dressed and headed that way to photograph it for the local paper. I was on the scene until nearly 7 am, when I headed home so I would be ready when Virgil and Ray showed up at my place at 7:30. Virgil arrived soon after and I gave him the grand tour, heading out soon after Ray showed up. We stopped at Steelville to gas up, where Virgil grabbed some ice and goodies for later, and then headed on south to check out the abandoned quarry.

We arrived there around 9 am and after changing to my boots and grabbing a bag and my mini mattox, we started climbing up to the rock walls to check for pockets….

…it was obvious, once we got close enough to inspect the walls, that we were in a quarry that had been abandoned for years, the walls were heavily discolored and weathered….

….and it was a steep climb to get up to those walls as well, slippery slope as it were. We found some beautiful druse quartz on the way up there as well, some intense sparkles and colors….

…and I was working a small pocket near the entrance, while Virgil and Ray were taking a short break down below me…I was pulling some wild looking clusters out of the pocket that had some druse that was def wired differently and poker chips attached to them, looked like a knarly mess to me, but they were def different than anything I had seen, so I pulled about a dozen out and then decided to turn the pocket over to Virgil, since he had made a five hour drive up there and hadn`t found anything good yet. I had already filled another bag on a pocket I had found up above, where I pulled this pretty druse plate out that had this poker chip attached to it….

We began to get a bit worried that we hadn`t seen the MAGS members drive up on our location when 11 am rolled around, so we decided to load up and head toward their Washington County location that they were slated to go to early that morning. We drove down to where I had been told they would be located and found no one there except some workers preparing a cemetery plot for a service, and after they told us that no one else had been down there in that area, we turned around and headed to Viburnum, to see if they had gone on to the site without us. We kept trying to call but as it is in most of those valleys in south central Missouri, there are few times you can pick up a signal. Not until we were deep within the heart of Viburnum did we finally get a signal and make contact with WC, and then as it turned out, they were about half a mile behind us and followed us to the druse spot from there. It seems they had gone to a different location than where they originally thought they were going to, and we had prob driven by the turn off to that location and missed them by mere minutes. I was just glad that we were able to meet up and that everyone was okay, and that they had good luck finding some big pieces of druse at the other location.

After directing them into the parking area and helping them get situated, I noticed one of the trucks had Blue Springs Marina on the side of it as well as a KC phone number, and pleasantly discovered there were now a few more members from Missouri in the club now. I knew most of the member from the year before and it was great seeing Bebe again, as I met her the first time down at Marion, Kentucky at a fluorite dig. I talk to WC and Matthew online all the time, WC is the Field Trip Director and Matthew is the Newsletter Editor, both very accomplished in their respective duties and great to talk to. After getting to visit with everyone and explaining to them that I had left Missy at home so she wouldn`t get so muddy, I pointed out the boundaries of the druse spot and what they could expect to find, and soon after everyone spread out in search of beautiful druse. Some had been there the year before and were looking forward to this spot once again, its a great place to bring kids, too.

After I saw that everyone was finding some nice stuff, I started looking specifically for some more smokey colored druse bubbles for my own collection.

Virgil had run up to the Caseys in Viburnum to get some more goodies and when he returned, he started checking out the ditches and gullies on the north side while most of the rest of us were on the south side.

We had been there about 90 minutes when a guy pulled up in the road and stopped to check us out…he wasn`t sure what we were collecting and his curiousity got the best of him, so he stopped and started asking questions…turned out he was Cindy`s husband Bob, and he invited us on up to his property to look for druse there. We continued on down the road to their farm about an hour later…they have fifty acres there of mostly cleared forest land, but as it turned out, the only druse we found there were contained in very small vugs, not the type of stuff we were looking for and used to finding. From here, everyone was pretty tired and decided to head back to Park Hills to get some supper and rest up for the dig tomorrow, so I pointed out how they could return to Hwy C from where they were located to make the return trip. I told WC that Missy and I would meet them at the quarry entrance the next morning at My Favorite Quarry. Ray, Virgil, and I headed up to the Caseys store to get a few slices of pizza and decided the day had been long enough for us as well. Virgil decided to head on home from there, since we hadn`t gotten the word about any new blasting at MFQ, so we all split up at Cuba and headed home.

The next morning, Missy and I headed south by 7 am, arriving a little early and on pulling into the entrance to the quarry, discovered we were the first ones there. I had enough time to get out and make some needed adjustments to one side of my tonneau cover to make it more secure when closed…I honestly think the wind has slapped it around enough this year to make it hard to open and shut. Soon after changing to my boots, we saw the convoy of vehicles headed down the hill toward us, with WC leading the way….

…and as soon as everyone was in the lot off the highway, we drove on down to the newer cove area and parked. Missy jumped out and everyone wanted to say hi to her…she was a bit easier to pet this year, easier to catch up to I should say…she is getting older and doesn`t run around as much these days, comes back to where I am hunting at and lays down to watch and rest, so it`s easier to catch up to her and pet her these days. She has been a very good and constant travel companion in my life these past fourteen years and a great buddy girl to have around….she absolutely loves to go rock collecting with me.

On driving in, I had noticed a couple of new areas of activity, and pointed them out to everyone, and soon after, most headed to those new areas to check them out. Even though I grabbed my tools and bags, I mainly helped everyone get started finding stuff, specially the two kids there, Bentley and ” D ” who were part of the Kansas City group.

I checked out a pile to the east for a bit and then returned to the west side of the coved wall, after Matthew`s wife Carolyn called me over to check out some finds. I began picking up dark colored poker chips all over and we all began digging in and finding even more laying around all over the place. Soon after, my buddy Jim Bay drove down to visit with us and I introduced him to everyone there too. We continued to look around and even though we didn`t find any major pockets, I`m pretty sure everyone went home happy with what they found there. We had hoped they would blast before they arrived, cause then there would be even more material laying around to go thru, but alas for some reason that didn`t happen. By 2 pm, it was just Missy and me, and we looked around in another area before heading home an hour later. I look forward to seeing everyone at some of the other field trips later this year.

if you have any questions or wanna say hi, give me a shout at jwjphoto7@gmail.com

JWJ Rocks

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Category Archives: Dolomite Druse and Poker Chips

More Red Druse at MFQ

Pleasant Surprise Found at MFQ Saturday…

A Pleasant Surprise at the Secret Spot

Multiple Dogtooth Pockets 2 Weeks In a Row…MFQ

Horsefly Weekend

Great Pocket On My Way Home From Black Rock

Deep Pocket at Secret Spot

Black and Blue Dogtooth Crystal Weekend

Dandy Black Dogtooth Crystal Day

MAGS Missouri Field Trips 2014