What a nice day it was for rock collecting Saturday, January 12th…couldn`t ask for a better day in the middle of January, one of our coldest months normally, and I was feeling better after a week of a nasty cold, so Missy and I loaded up and headed south to meet up with Docia about 9 am at the secret spot. It was around 55 degrees when we started down there, and even though it didn`t warm up  much more than that, we were just fine with it…the forecast was a cold front pushing through around noon and rain developing between noon and 2 pm for that area, so we had about four hours of dry weather ahead of us. What was coming in later that evening wasn`t very good either…. it was gonna go from nice to nasty in the next twelve hours, so we would enjoy it while we had it. 

Missy and I arrived about 8:30 am, ahead of Docia, who said she would arrive nearer to 9 am, and we set about to seeing what we could find. The back side of the pile had been removed, leaving us with two new walls to inspect for pockets down near the ground floor level….

I started looking at the fractured areas of the east wall first…wanted to look at the north wall due to great success there the past few weeks, but there was too much debris to dig through down below, where the east and south walls were clear and easier to check on. It soon began to warm up and I took my jacket off and hung it on a nearby boulder, and took a closer look at the pockets to the left of my jacket…

…and about midway between you see a small hole above…as I approached it, it was obvious to me that a pocket was lurking behind it just waiting to be discovered…

…and lurking inside this pocket, was a beautiful yellow poker chip crystal, attached to bubbly gray druse…. 

…and off to the side about two feet was an exposed area of the wall, appeared to be half of a pocket, with a nice big poker chip attached to the druse bubbles of the left over pocket….real pretty but hard to remove from the wall….

…and off on the other side a couple of feet away…I found a nice pocket that contained several orange dogtooth crystals in plain sight…a good sign of things to come from inside the pocket….

Docia arrived soon after I grabbed another couple of bags from my truck. I took this next photo to show several pockets in a direct line with each other…

…and closer up, showing several crystals, combos of poker chips and druse, sitting on the front edges of each pocket, just waiting to be plucked out….

…and more waiting inside to be removed as well….

…after cleaning out each pocket, I moved to the next…this next one had a combo and cluster sitting side by side on the front edge…

…here is the cluster out of the pocket and up close….

…and the combo removed and up closer….

…and the very next one I pulled out from the mouth of the pocket was this cute little combo….

As I was working on these pockets, Docia started out way down the wall to my left looking for more pockets and then moved down to the right of my jacket and toward the south wall. After finishing up these two pockets, I moved left about three feet and discovered two more pockets in the fractured section of the east wall….

…the fractured, broken up area in the middle above, only produced a few small combos, turning out to be a very shallow pocket….

…while the pocket on the right, actually opened up into two openings and produced quite a few palm sized combos and several single poker chips….

After cleaning this one out as much as possible, I checked up and down the wall, but didnt find any more pockets to check, and moved down the wall toward the south wall, where Docia was busy pulling out beautiful dogtooth crystals from a pocket she found ten minutes prior…..

I walked down and asked her if there was room for two up there and she said sure, and pointed to a pocket she hadnt been able to get to yet and told me to feel free to check it out. I walked over toward it and as I started to climb up the loose slope, I looked down and saw this pretty piece of bubbly druse with a big yellow dogtooth crystal attached to one end of it…

It has obviously rolled down from a pocket above, but I wasnt sure if it was the pocket Docia was talking about or another one up there nearby, possibly located between that one and the one she was working on now, so I climbed up and checked the area in between but didnt find anything substantial, so I then looked up at the pocket she had pointed out to me…from her higher vantage point, she  could see some dogtooth crystals up high inside the pocket, where I could only see a few smaller orange crystals sticking out of the muck below…

…and just as I climbed up and created a spot for my bag, she yelled over and said, hey look at this….one she just pulled out of the pocket she was working on about ten feet to my right…. 

As soon as I got comfy, I began carefully working my way into the pocket, and soon began pulling some beautiful orange dogtooths out from the much, covered over and out of sight, working my way up to the higher points that she had been able to see before, that I could now see as well…

….within moments, I pulled free a couple of larger chunks of crystals with dogtooth points sticking out all around them…she called over and told me that I should give her one of them since she graciously allowed me to check out the pocket…I climbed down with this one, to my other two bags below…not wanting to merely place it in my bag above…and told her she could have it since it was the one she asked for…..

I turned around to climb back up the loose slope, and didnt take two steps and looked down to see this nice chunk of druse and yellow poker chips at my feet….picked it up and turned around to set it by my bags before climbing back up to the pocket….

…and I no sooner got back up there, then I started pulling one dogtooth after another out of the pocket…didnt take long before I had one bag completely full. Docia climbed down to take one of her bags back to her suv, and on her return, handed me another bag to fill as well. She also wrapped up the one I gave her and then climbed back up to see if she could find more pockets. Soon after, it began to rain on us, a light sprinkle at first, that turned into a light steady rain, a little after 1 pm. Since we were finding some nice pockets now, we decided to stick it out a bit longer. 

Not long after the rain started, she told me that she had found yet another nice pocket, and pretty soon I could hear Docia talking to herself…a few minutes later, she  let out a loud whoop……she had found a very nice chunk of calcite covered on at least three sides by big beautiful orange dogtooth crystals….

…I looked over and she was so excited by it, she was actually shaking…she said later it may have been a combination of excitement from the crystals and cold from the rain and cooling temperatures. She decided she had enough excitement for the day and began wrapping up her goodies and preparing to leave. I decided to stick it out a little longer and see what else I could find. I moved over to her pocket and pulled a few goodies out while she was still there, and then after she left, I pulled even more out. I will get some photos taken of them as soon as I get them cleaned up later this week. 

Well it`s Wednesday and I was finally able to get those pretty dogtooth crystals all cleaned up and photographed…I first had to do a little re-organizing and clearing out some room in my kitchen floor and sunroom, before I could even get to the sink to wash off the dust and dirt….here is the before photos….

…of the kitchen floor above, and the sunroom below is the before….

….and now there is much more room in the sunroom as shown below, Missy has much more suntannin room now to stretch out during the sunny days….

…and the kitchen floor is still a work in progress, we`ll just say. I did clean out the shelves on both sides of the sink before I started, giving me more drying off room for the dogtooths…speaking of which, here is what I now have cleaned up from last weekend….. 

…a mess of dogtooth singles above, this is just a few of the many singles I pulled from that last pocket that Docia turned over to me, below are a few more….

I actually pulled a few singles out the first few times, but then while feeling around the edges, I snagged a much larger treasure and this is what I pulled out next….

…and here is the other side of this beautiful dogtooth combo that I pulled from the pocket….

…so I stuck my hand back inside and I`m moving around the edges again, and pulled out several more singles, and then latched on to a larger piece that was in the middle…could feel the one end and it felt like bubbles of druse on the one end I had ahold of… and once I worked it loose, this is what came out….

 ….and below is the view from the other side of it….

…Docia was still there when I pulled these out, but she was wrapping up hers and trying to get out of there before she got soaked, so not sure if she saw them good or not. Plus they were covered with a fine coating of dust, too. I really like the colors in the druse as well as the dogtooth crystals attached. After pulling two nice sized pieces from the pocket, the next couple of combos that came out, were quite a bit smaller, but very, VERY nice…like this nice little chunk of bubbly druse with attached twin, double terminated dogtooth crystals attached to each other and attached to one end of the druse bubbles….

…and then to top it all off, wouldnt you know…the NEXT one that came out felt like a single crystal all by itself, but when I got it out in the light,  IT was DOUBLE TERMINATED also !!!!

So here they are side by side….

….I was like WHOA…..and stopped to do some wrapping before  I placed either one in the bag…and grabbed a few more bags too…then reached into the grab bag once again and came out with this little guy…..

…well by this time, Docia was driving off and I reached back into the pocket and rummaging around inside, snagged up on another large one, could feel several points and after working it loose from the middle once again, pulled this one out of the pocket…

……and another view of it below….

…I pulled alot more singles out again and then snagged yet another larger one inside the pocket and pulled this fourth combo out….

…and the other side of it here….

…I was having a hard time getting them out, scratching my arm up a bit on the boulder, and catching my sleeve by this time on a dogtooth attached to a plate on the left wall at the entrance to the pocket, so I started wiggling the front end of this plate and finally worked it loose…it turned out to be L shaped, which meant I was going to have to twist it a bit to get it out, and then wound up having to chip a bit of rock out of the way to make it easier, and then finally got it out of the pocket, and essentially, out of my way as well…

…and by this time, I was becoming wetter due to the rain picking up once again, and the temps were still falling, so I was getting a bit chilled. I decided I would reach into the grab bag one more time and see if I could find a good sized chunk, and that would be that…and after rummaging around inside for a few seconds, I located a loose one and pulled this last combo out….

…I was quite happy with what all we had found, but after a week of cabin fever, ingesting all the zirtec and cough syrup, and not getting my workouts and exercising in, I was a bit tired and was ready for a little nap. Once home, I postponed dinner and jumped in the hot tub to warm up, then took a nice little nap, which helped the recovery process alot. Tomorrow I hope to clean up a few more crystals. 🙂

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

I`ve been down with a bad cold for the past five days, courtesy of one of my co-workers at work, who decided to come to work sick and share it with everyone there. I relieve him on fire dispatch at work and the least he could have done was let me know to wipe everything down due  to it, but he didnt even have enough common courtesy to do that, so as a result, I didnt get to go rockhunting on Sunday, which I had taken off just for that reason, using a holiday that I was in jeopardy of losing if I didnt use it…therefore, I`m not too happy with my co-worker since he violated two major pet peeves of mine about the workplace. 

I really love my job, but my workplace could use some improvements…I`m sure most fall under that as well, but since we are provided with good sick leave benefits, I think it should be mandatory that we as employees, should place the welfare of others, like our co-workers for one, above our own discomfort and stay home when sick, in order to recover without affecting others in close proximity. One would think COMMON SENSE would prevail here and it wouldnt have to be a rule, but apparently some people just dont have the ability to think clearly sometimes and think about the welfare of others. My second peeve closely follows the first…if you are too STUPID to stay home when sick, then by gosh have the COMMON COURTESY to at the very least, inform your co-workers, as well as anyone else you come into close contact with, that you are not feeling well and suggest that they wipe everything down that you came into contact with…once again, common sense should prevail, but if you are so stupid that you come to work sick, then its obviously apparent to me that you have NO common sense at all. Nuff said. 

Now I know what people mean when they say they have a ” stupid cold “….it`s a cold they got from stupid people….while home recovering, I did get some of my larger plates of crystals cleaned up from the pocket I worked on Christmas Day, so I`m adding those photos below…some were covered in clay mud so after a thorough cleaning, I uncovered some very pretty yellow dogtooth crystals on a few of the larger plates. 

This is the first one I worked on cleaning up…its a solid chunk of druse at the base, with alot of calcite crystals on top, many of them a honey brown color of dogtooth crystals, and the rest are frosted over in lighter shades of brown and dark yellow…the honey brown dogtooths are more yellow at the tips of the crystals…there are even smaller yellow/orange dogtooth crystals embedded in the druse bubbles near the base….

…and here is a photo of the other side, showing the druse base with embedded dogtooth crystals…. I have rolled it over a bit more to show more of the druse base, and you can see it has black hematite balls all over the druse as well….

I also pulled a large plate out of the pocket that day that was coated on one side with the multicolored bubbles of druse, with a few large honey brown dogtooth crystals encased in the frosted poker chip formation with the tips of the crystals exposed, nestled on top of the druse bubbles…

….and the entire other side of the thick plate was coated with a pretty whitish gray colored druse that has tiny little needles all over the druse….

….very pretty when it sparkles in the sunlight, which we have had little of the last few days.

I also found several large plates of bubbly druse in different colors inside the pocket and brought a few of them home with me, two are shown here….

And another nice surprise was this chunk of calcite crowned by several yellow and orange dogtooth crystals….

A few days after Ian was here, I took the day off from work and returned to the secret spot to see if anything was left. Docia was out of state visiting and when I arrived, I could see a drilling rig set up on the bluff above, so it was obvious that more material was about to be blasted down soon. I figured I had better check the east wall for more pockets on this trip cause it was likely that wall would be gone by the time I returned. Since there was only a little bit of rock material left in the pile, it seemed logical to me that they may be blasting within the next week.

I didn`t waste any time after arriving…switched to my boots and grabbed a couple of bags and tools, and walked over to the east wall and started looking around. In no time at all, I discovered what appeared to be a pocket full of gray druse chunks…but have discovered that poker chips like to lurk inside druse pockets alot…

….and vice versa as well…often we find druse in poker chip pockets too….I began clearing away the clutter and loose stuff and quickly found out this was not going to be an ordinary gray druse….it was gray bubbly druse with alot of different colors added to it….

…and there was so much dust covering many of the druse chunks, that I really had no idea until after I got home and began cleaning them off a few days later, what I really had found inside that pocket. Lets just say I`m examining things I pull out of pockets, a little closer these days…

…and after clearing away alot of the loose stuff up front, and looking closer into the pocket that was stuffed with chunks of druse, in between I could see what appeared to be some frosted poker chips...

…and before too long, I was also seeing some orange dogtooth crystals, small ones…like the ones Docia uses to create gemstone Christmas trees with…she uses them as ornaments on the trees….and this is usually a good sign that you have found a dogtooth crystal pocket and sometimes the small ones lead to bigger ones….

….if you scroll back up and look at that big chunk in the front of the pocket at the base of it, this is it up above, turned over and covered with bigger dogtooth crystal points….and here are some of the smaller ones I found before I found this one….

…and here is a close up of the larger one that was anchoring the front base of the pocket once again….

I pulled alot of little dogtooths out as well as a lot of druse plates and chunks…never seen so much druse that was twisty and turned and bubbled up like this stuff was…and lots of different colors all over…one side would be completely gray and bubbley and the other side might be yellow or orange or red or a combination of all three colors on gray….def pretty and different.

As I got closer to the back of the pocket, I found more plates waiting on me…

…and some more crystals lurking inside and between the plates and chunks as well….

…here is a photo of some of the crystals I pulled out of there…I was laying them down on these white cloths as I removed them from the pocket…

…and here is another plate that I pulled out of the back of the pocket that had frosted poker chips attached to it as well….

…and a couple of the pretty druse pieces that I pulled from this pocket full of druse and poker chips…

…and soon the pocket was all cleaned out….it took much of my afternoon hours to clean out though.

Docia emailed me earlier in the week and asked if I was doing anything the morning of Thanksgiving. I told her no, my family wasnt celebrating til supper and I was free til then, so we decided to meet at the secret spot about 10 am and see if we could harvest some more dogtooth crystals from the Holie Cow pocket and see what else we could find there. We arrived to find a huge trackhoe sitting there, signs that more material had likely been removed since Missy and I had been there a few days before. No matter though, that just means more material could be readily found.

Docia was up on top when Missy and I arrived,  looking for rainbow druse plates she had found up there before…she came walking down the hill with a long face on and I knew that could only mean bad news for the rainbow plates..she confirmed it saying apparently the last blast had penetrated that pocket and there were no more to be found. After I handed her some clusters of Arkansas Quartz Crystals, she grabbed another bag and some tools and we headed up to the Holie Cow Pocket…

…and found that it had weathered the storm just fine, was still there…

…. Docia decided she really didnt want to climb up to where the dogtooth crystals were located in the pocket to dig them out, so she walked on up above me and sat down on a big rock and started looking for another pocket…finding one within about thirty minutes…

…being a vuggy looking wall, it was soon apparent to us that there were small pockets of druse and calcite all over it…even seams of calcite in some areas…soon she was pulling some nice stuff from this pocket…

…and there was even evidence of a pocket or two above this one in the wall….

..…I returned to the Holie Cow pocket and began liberating a few clusters on the sides of the pocket and even found a few up above it in another pocket….here are some of the goodies I found in the first hour there….

….deciding to leave the back wall as intact as I could for Ian`s visit this week, some of them were just too complicated looking to try and remove….

…I moved over to the right and found a few small pockets of gray druse and poker chips….and some sparkly gold colored stuff, too….

…..they would have looked alot better had the sun been shining so they could sparkle though….

…and here is a nice poker chip combo from one of those pockets….

I had to pry this big piece out of the way to access this next pocket

and as I did…. …this beautiful small poker chip was just perched there, waiting for me to come along and find it….

..I had just removed this plate, covering up yet another small pocket…covered in druse on the interior side in two colors….

…when Docia yelled at me to come see what she had just found on the opposite side…we had been working on the north wall and she had walked over to the south wall to look around...so I grabbed my camera and walked over to see what she had found….

…spotting her canvas bag full of poker chip crystals first…some of them very big ones…and then this pocket of soda straw druse plates hanging from the ceiling….she was going to try and remove them without breaking them next….

…even prettier up close….

…and one of the plates she had already removed….

…and sitting there holding one as well….

…and several she had already pulled out of the pocket….

 …including these large single crystals, that we rarely see in one pocket…come across them occasionally, but not much. I began looking around the pocket she had pulled them out of, and saw several vuggy pockets nearby, including this one full of yellow colored druse….

…I decided to walk back over and clean out what I could from the pockets I was working on and then come back up here, climb up and see what I could find in this pocket as well. As I was walking back across to the north wall, I looked up and saw Docia even higher up, pecking away at another possible pocket….

I walked back up to the spot where Docia had last worked on a pocket, that started extending upward inside the wall….

…and set my camera inside the pocket looking upward toward that extension so you could see what all was inside that she was unable to reach…..

…pay close attention to the knobby looking rock on your left in that photo above…its going to look a whole lot better in a couple of seconds…I decided to try and remove it to get better access to this pocket, so I was hammering on the back of it, the side facing me, with my four pound hammer, when I heard something detach inside the pocket…I reached inside and pulled this beautiful cluster out of the pocket that had been attached to this knobby chunk as the facepiece….

…I carefully wrapped it up and the others as well, and took them to my truck…it required a couple of trips, I had so many of them…and then grabbed two more bags with wrapping cloths inside and headed over to the south wall….this was the view from up there…

…I then climbed up to the druse pocket I had seen up above Docia`s last pocket and pulled out the druse pieces I could see from below…

…when I finished cleaning out what I could, Docia called to me from above and told me to come up and look at yet another pocket she found, this one filled with druse and large fat poker chip crystals….so I climbed up another twenty feet and found the pocket she had been working on while I was climbing around on the wall….

….and I bent down to see these crystals and druse plates in the entrance to that pocket opening on the right side above….

…..she was walking away and down the top of the pile to see if she could find some plates of druse and tells me, you can have anything there that you want….so I set down and started pulling more crystals and druse plates out of this pocket, and soon had both of my bags completely full….she came back with a very long plate of druse soda straws in her hand, turned upside down and two smaller plates sitting on top of the back of that very big plate in her hands…said it was one of those plates she has been looking for all her life…and where was Floyd or Ed when she needed them to carry those down to the truck for her….told her to take her time and lots of rest stops in order to get it down there safely…which she did…and then I started carrying my two bags down as well, and I had to make a few rest stops along the way as well…coming upon a couple of nice druse plates along the way down and setting my bag next to them, then carrying the one bag and tools on over to the truck, and returning four times for the druse plates I found and the other bag….no one said rockhounding is easy all the time….and some of my rockhound friends have told me if you dont sweat or bleed, its not worth it….I was doing both at the moment, so guess it was totally worth it.

Here is a photo showing Docia with her thirty inch long plate of druse soda straws that she found up on top.

Saturday I didn`t have anything better to do and after sleeping in til 8 am and having getting some fruit loops and frosted flakes down, Missy and I packed up and headed to the SSQ to do some digging and collecting. I had originally thought about going to MFQ again, but for some reason decided we were on the road too late for that trip, so we headed to the new druse spot and then the secret spot. I was sooooo glad later on, lol.

We turned the corner on one of the county roads and all of a sudden fifteen wild turkeys were crossing the road in front of me…before I could grab my camera, they were using the road like an airport runway and taking flight over the marsh ponds…

It had rained a few days before, so I wanted to see if any new bubble pieces had washed out.

I parked and left Missy in the truck, rolling the windows down so she had good natural air conditioning…she had dived into the mud the last time we were there and it took me thirty minutes just to wipe as much mud off her as I could before letting her back into my truck…another reason I take alot of towels with me, but it wasn`t gonna happen this time if I could prevent it. I switched to my boots, grabbed a bag, gloves, and my mattox and set out to checking the usual areas…within minutes I was spotting small bubbles all over the place. Within about ten minutes, the first bag was full and I was starting to see football and softball sized pieces of bubbles all over the place on up ahead. I returned to the truck and grabbed two more bags, with some wrapping cloths. It was another good move on my part. I didn`t get any farther than a hundred feet from the truck and within the hour, I had four bags full of bubbles of druse and had even walked a few beach ball sized chunks with bubbles all over three sides, back to the truck. It was at this time, that I decided to stop and head over to the secret spot.

We arrived there an hour later, and found things laid out quite differently than the last time I had been there two weeks earlier, actually alot smoother entrance to it and easier to walk around now…the path up to the blast pile was even ramped up and made for much easier walking around. I could see right away that I would be able to access at least two of the walls better, so I grabbed tools and a bag and headed to the cornered wall on the left side….

…it was obvious that they had removed alot of rock in the past two weeks, to where I don`t know yet…and deposited alot of Streeter boulders over on the right side where I normally park….

As I walked up to this new wall, I started seeing signs of calcite and pockets all over the place, so I returned to the truck and grabbed two more bags and my hammer and chisel, for just in case….

…within minutes, I had found some pretty druse pieces and a few with calcite attached to them on that lower bench area above where you see one of my gloves to the left of the blue bag…

…and yes, thats an orange dogtooth crystal laying on top of one of the pieces above….I then took a look up above that bench and saw alot of druse pockets and….

….this nice little poker chip attached to one of the druse pockets right in the center….

…and looking up about another six feet, I saw this spectacular sight…..I was like whoa….

….hold on to your hats tho….things were about to get even better….I climbed up on a narrow ledge and saw this just above the lower bench area and below the mass of crystals, in a very accessible location for me….

…and this cluster perched right in front….

…I climbed up and found another ledge so I could have both feet up there and not be hanging on with just one foot firmly attached somewhere, and started pulling some loose crystals out and brushing away some loose dirt on the right side, and discovered another pocket on the side….

…and zooming in with the lens, I saw this at the opening of that side pocket….

…and started to get excited….I took a closer look at everything in front of me and started seeing crystals all over the place….

…and the next 2 photos show the top of the pocket, left side….

…so I sat my camera down and began pulling whatever was loose, out of the pockets, starting at the bottom and working my way to the sides and above slowly and carefully….within ten minutes, I had this pile accumulating already….

…and I began working in a circle around that big chunk you see up above in the middle of the pocket. Luckily I had a few flat ledges that I could lay crystals down on til I had amassed several and then would climb down and transfer them to the lower ledge. I continued to clean out around that big chunk to make room to bring it down as well….

Many crystals and combos were coming out of the loose dirt around the big chunk quite easily and I even removed some nice twins and big single crystals as well, some were four to six inches long and three to four inches wide even. I really liked this big cluster in the front though….

…and really wanted to get it out of there before I removed that big one hanging over it, to prevent any damage to it, plus there were still so many crystals just hanging around underneath that huge chunk, so I kept on removing crystals under and around it first….

…you wouldn`t believe what all was under that chunk alone…you can see several in the middle and the two medium sized chunks on the left and right were both nice bubbles of druse on the faces, the faces turned in toward the pocket itself and not visible to you or I, and poker chips attached to the faces and bubbles….I was amazed each time I climbed back up there to remove more….

…after climbing down and moving more crystals and combos and plates to the bench once again, I climbed back up and decided to see what all was in that pocket to the right and after clearing quite a few loose crystals embedded in the red dirt in front of it…this is what I saw up close….

…again, totally blown away and even more exited….then I pulled those two facing pieces out from under the big hanging chunk…another HOLIE COW moment…..

…and I climbed down and added them to the bench with the other accumulated goodies….like that cluster of crystals on the right side of the pile….

…seen here up closer…..

…I took a short break and returned to the truck for some gatorade, then came back and bit the bullet and removed that hanging chunk…it was loose and didnt require any effort to pry it away, just effort to keep it from falling down on that cluster below and damaging or even decimating it….once it was out of the way, you can imagine my surprise at what lay behind it….

….an even LARGER pocket opening….and just wait til you see what was inside there…. I then pulled some more loose material out of the way, and OILA !!  there was a very large crystal cluster sitting loose inside all the other loose stuff….take a look at the next photo, you can see it just in front of the bubbly facing pieces…..and even bigger than the one still in front that I would have to chip out….

…and even bigger closer up….

…I continued to pull more loose stuff out of that front area, that the hanging chunk had been protecting well, alot of combos with bubbles of gray druse and poker chips attached as well as single crystals, in very pristine condition…was laying them on the small ledges as I pulled even more out….

I now had a view of more bubbles of druse plates attached to that big piece on the right side, and poker chips attached to it…

…and after removing more loose stuff just above the end of my mattox handle above, for reference, you`ll begin to see what I saw in the larger pocket opening above after I removed that large hanging chunk of rock that protected most of this pocket….

…and a closer up view reveals even more….

…and the next combo I removed from inside this pocket was absolutely stunning…no damage to it, pristine condition…I was just totally blown away….but as I said before, it gets better…..

…I removed some more of those hanging chunks above and some of the looser chunks on the left side of the pocket, which by the way were harboring some more loose crystals and combo plates, and this is the view I had inside the pocket showing the back wall of it….

and trying to get a closer view for ya….

…when sunlight hit the back wall, it lit up like a christmas tree…the druse is actually a silvery gray druse with alot of sparkles in each bubble and valley..and there are dogtooth crystals embedded in there as well…I immediately thought of Docia when I saw them, lol…more ornaments for her gem trees. 🙂
I`ll stop here and update it tomorrow with the rest of the story. You might be like me, need a little extra time to digest it all before you see more.  🙂

I decided to return to the secret spot yesterday and see if I could find another pocket, whether in the blast pile or on the floor again. I didnt get to bed as early as I wanted to Friday, and then got up early to beat the projected heat in Saturday`s forecast. Missy and I arrived about 7:30 am and started looking around. I made a short sashay up on the pile but didnt locate anymore pockets in the slopes, so I climbed over to the pocket that the loose rock had been cleared away from and found a nice plate of crystals that needed to be busted free with a hammer. I walked back down to my truck and retrieved my hammer and chisel and after about thirty minutes, was able to liberate it.

I then walked it back to the truck after wrapping it up and as I was climbing back down, I came across a short stack pile that seemed to have some potential for a pocket. With my mini mattox in hand, I walked around and did some exploring, found a few small loose crystals, embedded in the dirt but no pockets at all. I walked over to the waterhole that Missy was wading in and started seeing some calcite signs at the edge. After making a few scratches and working my way back toward the water, I finally located some low spots and dug in to see if I could find anything…

…in the photo above you can see where I set my blue bag down, thats the area I saw some signs of chips up on the top of the small ridge there…the next photo shows where I found the potential pocket on the floor by the waterhole…

…I started scratching around with the mini mattox on the left, finding only solid rock, and then after moving back toward the water, found the low spot and started digging in….

…those low spots can be a good sign all on their own, specially if there are small tree or plant roots doing down in them…or a sign of a depression indicates with water rings indicates the water had to go somewhere…course occasionally it will just be a drill hole that opens up underneath, too.

This time though, I dug down and hit shale and then started pulling up small poker chip crystal pieces….

…which is always a good sign of things to come…if you can find the pocket…the next thing I turned up with the mattox were a few druse plates….

….yet another good sign, and when they are upside down as these were, you know you are on top of a pocket….how good the pocket is remains to be seen from there though…..

I decided to take a few minutes and clear back some big rocks and loose dirt and gravel and give myself some room to work on this one.

I wasn` far from the water`s edge and the ground there was pretty saturated, but it was beginning to warm up so I didn`t mind getting muddy and wet at the same time. I started digging down and the first thing I came up on was this nice druse plate hanging upside down….

…and figured if I found nothing else, at least the druse was pretty enough to take home…I have been skunked a few times before with mainly druse pockets, but I like druse too. I continued to dig down and pulled out plate after plate of druse, but was seeing some smaller poker chips too so figured it would work out just fine…..

…so I`ve laid the mattox down now and I`m pulling one druse plate after another out of the hole and the next thing you know, I pull this out….

…and I`m like HOLIE COW !!!!!!  has to be the largest single dogtooth crystal I have ever found, let alone seen….Docia and I have hit pockets of little ones, but never seen one THIS size…

…its every bit of at least five or six inches long…and pretty as can be…

…and then for the next hour…I`m pulling smaller ones out of the pocket right and left, so I pulled a white cloth out of the bag and placed them on it, just so I wouldnt lose any in the gravel there.

Well the pocket started expanding back toward the rock pile in the form of a trench, so I figured there wouldnt be a deep pocket, and would have to see how far back it went before ending to see what all I would be able to harvest from it…

..some of those trench pockets wear out fast….this one did not…it kept going and going and going….for awhile there I thought I would be moving some big rocks but fortunately that didnt happen…here is a photo of the dogtooth crystals I found initially, sitting on the white cloth…..

The next thing you know, I`m pulling several single poker chip crystals out of the  hole, and I start to notice that they are dark colored…pretty soon I pull a large one out that isnt covered with mud all over, and it appears to be a blue color….

…I was pulling several of them out, a few at the start of the pocket but now several are coming out in the middle of the pocket and kept on as the pocket trenched backwards toward the blast pile….

…and the pile of crystals and plates just kept on expanding right along with the pocket size….

…and by noon, I was done…the heat was coming on fast and I was ready to wrap and get out of there…it def was a nice morning for collecting though….

…as soon as I finished wrapping and switching out from my boots to my street shoes…I decided to go take a look at the rock wall that was formed up the clay dirt road that leads to the druse plate location up the hill….the rock they had removed from the pile was used to form an erosion blocker and they led it right up that old road to the top of the hill…

…luckily I was able to find some nice chunks of bubbly druse in the rocks, even a few that had poker chips attached….all in all, another great day of rock collecting at the secret spot…bout stepped on this guy in the rocks…

…and here are some of my finds all cleaned up….