Another Dandy Dogtooth Pocket Day

Earlier this week I decided I was going to drive back down to MFQ and see if I could find anything good, after checking out both of the most recent blast piles last Sunday, and finding some nice yard rocks. I figured after they stirred up both piles a bit, if they decided to work both piles evenly that is, that more material could be uncovered…little did I know what lay in store for me.

I had talked to Nathaniel and he decided to ride down with me and on the way down, he told me that he sure would like to find one of those chocolate brown colored dogtooth crystals….little did he know what lay in store for him. I always pray for a few things before I make each trip…I pray for a safe trip for Onyx and I, pray for no flat tires, and I pray that I will find some pretty crystals and minerals. Sometimes when I get where I am going and there is some rock overhanging a pocket in front of me, I will say a quick prayer to keep me out of harms way and when I find nice stuff, I thank God for that as well. On really hot days, when the wind stirs up and brings us a nice cool breeze, I thank God for turning on the fan, too…and I usually thank him for nice weather as well….I realize he is super busy, but I believe in keeping the lines of communication open.

We didn`t get a real early start yesterday morning, but as I told Nathaniel, it wasn`t gonna get light til about 7:30 am, and it was gonna be cooler than what we were used to so far, so if we arrived around 9 am, with full sun, that would give it time to warm up a bit. We loaded up the truck as the sun was rising prettily…..

On the way down there, we spotted two bald eagles in a tree top next to the highway…..as soon as we passed them and confirmed it, I turned around and returned so we could both photograph them, pulling off the side of the highway to do so…..as I turned around, one took flight and passed overhead, leaving one in the tree for us….

…we had to approach from the side so as not to spook him, and after a few seconds of snapping images, he took flight…we just kept shooting images….

…a local farmer stopped by to make sure we were okay and told us that there were alot more eagles that could be seen along the river at Houston. Nathaniel used his phone camera and I was shooting with my Nikon D200 and zoom lens. I wasn`t sure what I had in my images until I got home last night and looked at them after loading them into my computer, sometimes my autofocus doesn`t work as well as I would like it to…needless to say, I was pretty happy with my images of the eagle. As I told Nathaniel, I have never seen two eagles in a treetop like that, so I took that as a good sign for our day ahead.

We stopped shortly after that at Alley Spring Mill to see how it looked with the fall colors…, only finding one small maple tree in color nearby….

We got on the road again and when we arrived at the quarry, we found the pile on the left side to be quite a bit less than when I was there the week before. The pile was steeper so there would be no climbing to the top, and we could see stuff sliding down so we both donned our hard hats and grabbed tools and bags….

….setting out to check for signs of pockets. Nathaniel went to the right from the middle…..

…..and I went to the left from the middle, stopping at a big boulder 20 feet from the middle, where it appeared that a few pockets were located, one under the boulder, and one or two on the left side of it……

…pretty soon, Nathaniel went past me to the left and set up camp about ten feet from me, finding some openings in what appeared to be a vuggy wall….

…and pretty soon after that, he was telling me that he had some nice dogtooth crystals inside…

…..I had walked back to the truck to get my flashlight to look inside my pocket at the base of the boulder, and I grabbed my camera as well. When I returned to the wall to see what he had found, he was pretty excited and I saw that he had good reason to be excited…..

JACKPOT !!! I was excited for him and told him to get his phone out and photograph them before and after, then told him how to remove the ones that were anchored in there, after carefully removing the ones that were loose, and to go ahead and wrap them up soon after removing them if possible…yes Virgil, I told him to wrap them up, just as I wrap mine up as soon as I can after removing them from the pockets…and yes I told Nathaniel all about you, Virgil….lol….

….I then returned to my pocket and said a quick prayer, that while I was glad Nathaniel had found a great pocket of dogtooth crystals, I would sure like to find something similar as well…

…..and what do you know…the next thing you know, I am pulling dogtooths out of my pocket soon after too….Nathaniel took some photos of me with my finds, every time I pulled a nice one out…

….he said I was killing him pulling one after another out…as he was chipping that huge plate of his out of his pocket….

…and in no time at all, we had been working those pockets for about three hours, opening the mouths of the pockets pretty big from the small openings we started with. Nathaniel had to open his up big time to remove that huge plate that he was chipping out, that alone took him about thirty minutes to do. When I was finally able to open mine up more, I shined my flashlight inside to see what all I had yet to pull out, turned out to be about fifteen inches deep inside and almost two feet across, with a massive base of chocolate colored calcite latched on to the top of the boulder and pointing down, those were the singles I had pulled out before, having broke off the base and were just laying there when I started reaching into the vug.

When that pocket ran out on me, I moved a few inches to the left and right and found a few more and then another pocket under the boulder on the left side of it, opened up….

…as I was checking it out, pulling a few plates of black and brown sparkly druse out, Nathaniel finally liberated that huge plate of dogtooth calcite crystals from his pocket, he turned around with it in his hands and a big smile on his face, and I snapped this photo of him holding it….

…and here is another photo of another nice one he pulled out of there as well….

….after a short water break, we loaded Onyx up and drove over to the other side and checked out the wall over there, and found some more nice pockets of dogtooth crystals once again, spending about 90 minutes before heading for home. I stopped off at Rocky Falls to see if there was any fall color there, and found some nice color and some kids there…..Nathaniel remembered swimming there as a kid growing up in the Ellington area….

…on our way home, we saw several deer including a doe and two fawns, both fawns were as big or bigger than their mama….sure was nice to see so much wildlife, made for an even better day. Here are a few of my crystals from my pockets Saturday…..