BE Clement Museum Gem Show and Dig Celebration 2013

Posted on June 6, 2013 by jwj

Several of us had a good time in Marion, Kentucky this past weekend, despite a lot of rain and storms pelting the area Friday morning before our arrival as well as later into the night before finally ending late Saturday morning, turning everything at the Eureka Mine into a gooey muddy mess.

I arrived at the museum around 2 pm on Friday afternoon and found Tina supervising a busy crew of helpers, that were assisting dealers and vendors at Fohs Hall in setting up their booths and preparing for the rock and mineral show on Saturday and Sunday. I transported some more grab bag material, and some druse/poker chip pieces for their silent auction as well and they helped me unload that too. Tina`s daughter, Jesse, took me back to get a quick look at their new display room in the museum while there, a project that Tina and a few members have been working on since the first of the year and let me tell you, they have done a great job with the new display cases that were built by the Amish community handimen to the north of Marion, and they look great, they have each one holding specific crystals and minerals of a specific type/category, nothing is mixed up any longer. their cubed display glass cases were moved out away from the wall and their new maps were placed up on the back wall for easier viewing. this room is near the back, one before the black light room.

As I walked outside the museum with Tina, I ran into Lamon Flynn, who had traveled up for the gem show with his grandson and they were unloading their Kentucky agate to sell and a large display case that holds his agate keepers, to show off as well. We talked for a bit, he was asking about Ian from Colorado, and Peggy of the Twister Sisters and if she had survived the latest round of storms in the Midwest. I found out his grandson had just graduated high school and was preparing to attend college and become a police officer.

After chitchatting with them a bit more, I headed to the hotel at Kuttawa and got settled in there, and then had a great supper at the Oasis Steakhouse next door. I heard from my mom, who told me about the bad storms that struck the Oklahoma City area once again, we have family members there, and then the St Louis area later in the day, at least three tornadoes. I then watched the local weathercasters, who were calling for the storms to move southeast and hit the Marion area around 3 to 5 am, with rain then forecast to fall much of the morning. I wasn`t sure how bad it would get the next day, so I retired early to get as much rest as possible.

I woke up about 6 am and discovered the rain pouring down outside my room, not sure if you can see it in this photo, but it was coming down in sheets, I could only hope it would clear off by noon as the forecasters were calling for…

…and after grabbing some donuts at Miss Neta`s Donut Shop in Eddyville, I headed to the Eureka Mine…..and arrived about 7:30 am to begin pumping down the pit. I had contacted and offered to help Bill Frazer and free him up from his many other tasks for this weekend, and he accepted my offer. I pulled up to park near the mine and found a muddy mess all over the place….

Apparently between Friday morning and Saturday morning, the pit area received about five inches of rainfall, so when I arrived, there was an additional two to three feet of water in the pit more than normal, and as a result, it was almost noon before I was able to pump the pit completely down to where diggers could even access and dig in the pit. For the first three hours of pumping, I wasn`t even sure the water level had dropped at all.

By 10 am, diggers started showing up…Mary from Ohio, was the first to arrive and soon after, several more showed up.

By noon there were approximately 35 diggers at the Eureka and while many stayed on top and worked through the three tailing piles, a few ventured down into the pit. I can safely say, it was the sloppiest gooey muddy mix I have ever seen there, every step on top was about ten inches down in the wet sloppy mud and down in the pit, you were lucky if you didnt lose your boots or shoes…even those with the pull on galoshes were experiencing problems keeping them on.

Around 11 am, a carload of geology students from the University of Illinois at Champaign showed up and began digging.

A few of them were brave, daring to move around the muddy mess barefoot…..

They were walking up to take a look at what Robin had found in the tailing pile back behind them, what was left of the huge pile on the north side of the pit last year, and had been turned over a week before the show and dig. Robin had found some nice cubes and showed them what they should be looking for in the mud….

…and Robin had found some nice ones by the time the geology students arrived, one of them a nice small set of cubes seen here close up in his crate….

…including that green bottle that I found in the mud that morning at the top of the pit…I hollered out, ” who collects bottles ” and he answered ” I do ” and got the bottle. I have discovered people collect different things these days in addition to rocks….

Diggers were looking through the tailing piles on both sides of the pit, this guy checking out the pile on the south side of the pit…

and you will notice he has his rain gear on, as many of us did, until around noon or a little after, when the sun came out finally…some went without rain gear deciding a little wet wasnt gonna hurt them at all since they were gonna get muddy anyway…..

…and the mud created hazards on its own, making balance very important…

….and getting back to looking for fluorite everywhere…this next guy John, one of the Maryland crew, I found him down in the muddy water pit about an hour later, looking for crystals…I think he figured it was worth a shot since it was near the backfilled area…

…and here are a couple more of the Maryland crewmembers, washing off crystals in the outflow from the pump….

…but no matter what, people still showed up and continued to dig all day out there, in all age groups too….

…..above is Ohio Steve clearing out after searching all morning down by the creek bank, he actually found a rockhammer down there buried in the mud…..and below is my buddy Steve from Memphis, walking around looking for treasures on the north side of the pit….

…and more afternoon diggers shown and raingear set off to the side as the sun was now out and it was humid as well….

One of the geology students, Cody, stood out when he showed up completely prepared for any type of weather in waders, and by the time he left for the day about six hours later, he was muddy from the front toes of his boots to the very top of the waders, looked like he had gotten down into the pit and rolled in it, but I can tell you Cody was one happy digger by then, having a few large yard rocks and some smaller cubed clusters as well for his muddy adventures. He was also happy because some rockhounds from Maryland….yes I said Maryland… had given him some instruction and assistance in hard rock mining as he was trying to tackle a pocket he found in the saddle in the middle of the pit. After learning how to hard rock mine some cubes, he was quite happy just to have learned the method, even though he really didnt extricate any cubes from the pocket. He was working over on the south side of the pit when Robin and Sandy joined me on the north side to take a closer look at the old tunnel entrance…..

….we tried digging it out to see if there was anything worthwhile in the mix, but didnt find a thing in it. After I explained the saddle to Cody, he moved to it to try and work the pockets, we then moved over to the south side where I began moving mud away from the base and digging down to the bench level and pulling out some small clusters of fluorite cubes. After a bit Tammy Bromley and her sister joined me on that side, staying up on top and sifting thru the tailing piles, after looking around on the north side all morning. Steven and April Gibbs arrived around 1 pm and stayed up on top working the spoil piles as well.

As I stated, there was an entire group that traveled down from the state of Maryland for the dig at the Eureka Mine, a club outing for them and after talking to them a bit, discovered that they do this quite a bit, and are planning now for an upcoming trip out to Utah to look for geodes red beryl, and agate. They had made the drive down here straight thru, and it required around fifteen hours. They stayed the entire day with us at the Eureka and around 4:30 pm, Bill Frazer came down the road to warn us of a dark storm cloud approaching from the northwest…we could see it coming down the valley but couldnt tell much about it due to the restriction of the trees blocking our narrow view of it, but as it neared our location, it suddenly changed direction and headed in a more easterly direction toward the highway from the pit. By that time though, all of us had bailed from the pit and decided we were tired and muddy enough to retire early for the day. The Maryland crew decided to stick around and take advantage of the waterfall under the bridge to clean up at before heading out, while the rest of us headed back to the hotel to clean up and go to the steakhouse. As I got to the intersection of Hwy 60, I could see the cloud that concerned everyone and saw that it was a roll cloud, a very long reaching roll cloud, several miles long and neat looking as well. They can be quite scary looking when accompanied by dark colored clouds. After a brief stop at the museum to talk to Tina, I headed to the hotel and stopped briefly near Fredonia to photograph the pretty horses that are always in the field next to the highway……

…and then I headed on south to the hotel to get cleaned up and then meet Steve, April, and her mom at the Oasis for a great meal and catch up on old times. They are great rockhunting friends from Memphis and I hadn`t seen them for about a year, so we caught up on events in the past year through supper. They are creating jewelry with their treasures these days so they were going to the show on Sunday morning. I had brought them some agates and other gems as well.

Sunday morning dawned early for me, it didnt seem like I had gotten enough rest and I had a long day in front of me. I arrived at the mine about 7 am this time and started the pump, the water level back down to its normal level this time and so it only took about 90 minutes to pump it down. I stopped after about an hour though and diverted the flow to the water hose and washed off the bench in case there would be any hard rock miners this time. Even though there were no hard rock miners there in the morning, there might have been some later on. Tammy and her sister were the first ones to arrive after Mike the host, and I put them down in the corner pocket I had been working the day before….

….and after helping them for a while, I took off for home, stopping off at the museum to give BJ the gate key and then walked over to the gem show to visit a bit. I bought a few pieces of agate from Mr. Flynn and he invited me back to hunt with him anytime in the Irvine area and I told him I would def do that. As he said, springtime is better as far as less leaves covering the ground, but early fall has its advantages as well, as the deep creek holes are usually drier by then too. These days with the recession still making things difficult for many people, there are many more folks out hunting for it and selling it on the side, so you have to be careful as some of them are a bit on the shady side.

I soon headed home from there, taking Hwy 60 to Paducah due to the restricted roadway and construction stupidity on I-24 from Eddyville to Paducah. I stopped in Paducah to fill my gas tank, gas there 3.37 a gallon and then headed west on Hwy 62 and 286 to Wickliffe, crossing first the Ohio River and then the Mississippi River on the twin steel structure bridges near Cairo…..

….as I entered Charleston, Missouri, I encountered the lowest priced gas pumps seen so far on the trip, at the truck stop there, 3.25 a gallon and kinda wished then, that I had filled up there instead. Oh well…

On my way home, I made a pit stop at a great location that a buddy of mine told me about in south central Missouri, and filled my entire truck up with beautiful clusters and single crystals of calcite and druse, some that were several inches in diameter and length, and in many colors including some pinks and greens. I had several huge clusters in the front passenger seat and the entire back seat filled up, as well as the bed of my truck…I had to leave several behind because I simply had no more room to put them. I found some gorgeous orange dogtooth crystals there as well, and carefully wrapped them up and placed in several of my blue bags.

Hopefully they will still be there in a couple of weeks when I return with a rockhunting friend from the St Louis area. I was very tired when I finally got home about 11 pm Sunday night, but also very happy. It looks like my next few days off will involve alot of crystal cleaning and catching up on my blog site as well, as I now have about a dozen bags of wrapped crystals to clean up. As soon as I get them cleaned up and some photos taken, I`ll post them then.

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

Poker Chips and Dogtooth Crystals…May 2013

Posted on May 9, 2013 by jwj

Dont worry folks, I`m still hunting frequently, just been busy helping my parents with storm damage from a few weeks ago and catching up on some other details here at home, and still have about ten bags of crystals to clean up…will get the details and photos posted on here soon. Been finding some spectacular stuff lately. The details don`t matter as much as the photos, so here are some photos showing what I have been finding lately….

For the fluorite fans, the June Celebration Dig and Rock Show will be the last weekend of May, which is the first weekend of June as well, at Marion, Kentucky. Hope to see you there.

Cleaning out the Dynamite Dogtooth Pocket

Posted on March 6, 2013 by jwj

I returned to the Dynamite Dogtooth Pocket Sunday morning and found it intact and waiting patiently for me to return and clean it out. I had taken the day off from work, Missy and I arriving about 9 am on a fairly pleasant day, it was due to warm up later in the morning to about 38 degrees. I had my heavy coat on when I arrived but soon shed it in favor of something lighter so I could move around inside the cavern pocket.

The photo above shows the roof and far side of the cavern pocket at the opening…when I first climbed back up to it, this time cleaning off the stairs as I climbed back up, then cleared off a level spot for four bags, I set about pulling loose crystals, some druse bubble plates, and a few clusters from the muck below the pocket opening…

…this guy was sitting there on top of the muck fall down from the pocket opening, right in front of me, when I got up there and started digging in from the bottom of the pile and working my way upward…

…and I carefully cleaned out around him before pulling him out…wasn`t sure if he was attached to a plate lurking below the surface or not…as it was, he was pretty much just by himself with a small calcite base attached….

…and if you look close, you can see another smaller one right behind it higher up…..

…I pulled several small clusters and single crystals out of the loose muck and then climbed up into the pocket opening and looked inside. It pretty much looked the same as the last time I was there, some big dogtooths on the roof as well as down on the far side of the cavern wall….I say cavern cause it was pretty much as big as a small cave in there….

…I could have easily crawled in there and still had room to spare…it wouldn`t have been comfy getting poked and stuck by those needles on all sides, but it was definitely roomy. I decided to check out the crystals on the right side first, since I thought there was a possibility that I could damage them if I didn`t take care of them first…good thing I had my hard hat on, since the wind was blowing pretty hard and knocking rocks off the top…here you see this massive cluster of poker chip crystals, covered in dust, sitting next to my hat….

…and above them are a couple of thick plates of bubbles of druse hanging upside down…poised right above them, but luckily still very firmly attached to the roof, otherwise they wouldn`t still be in the photo, I would have removed them. Down below them was the short wall of dogtooth crystals, again covered in a heavy layer of dust and dirt, where that little single guy was located a few minutes before…

…I chipped a few of the more accessible dogtooths off the short wall, mainly ones near the top after raking several loose ones off the top shelf and placing them in the bag…I refer to the smaller single crystals as ” christmas tree ornaments ” cause Docia uses them to make christmas gem trees and use them as ornaments on the trees. Pretty soon I had a bag full of wrapped goodies, and set it down below in between some big rocks so it wouldn`t tip over. I grabbed another bag full of cloths, emptied them out and then reached up on the bottom of the pocket opening and felt around the edges…next thing you know, I am pulling this beauty out of there….

…without any chipping required even…after this one though, I chipped a few more clusters out of that bottom opening wall, and besides the perk of pulling out some beauties, it also created some room for me to work the bottom of the pocket an hour later. After this, I decided to see if I could work on liberating some dogtooths from the roof and far side wall….

…including this nice guy just hanging there waiting to be liberated from confinement and exposure to those harsh Missouri winters….

…and here is another one that was attached to the far side wall….

…very pretty bubbley and sparkley gray druse is all over the inside of this pocket and where the bright orange dogtooth crystals are attached, they really stand out on that type of pretty backdrop. The next photo shows my view from the bottom lip of the pocket opening, down toward the bottom floor of the pocket, about two feet below me….

…and even closer down into the pocket looking toward the bottom of it….

…and finally at the bottom as I saw it that morning….

…and if you look at that big orange crystal sticking up from the bottom center of the photo above, that`s one that I pulled from the muck at the bottom a few minutes later…it was very pretty, and no, I don`t have a photo of it. I do however, have a photo of the cluster that I pulled out of the muck that was located a few inches below it…

…and the next photo documents the progress I am making, two hours after arrival…now have three bags full of wrapped goodies on the floor behind me, the bottom lip of the pocket opening shows chipped out and some crystals removed from the short wall to the right…

…and here are the three bags loaded down with goodies, accompanied by a couple of larger pieces from the short wall of dogtooth crystals….one beach ball sized one on the left and one football sized one on the right, covered by the towel….

…and the beach ball sized cluster up close….

…and another view closer up of the pocket opening…up on the right side, you can see where I had chipped a few clusters away from the wall holding them, but had trouble with that one large cluster of poker chips…they kept breaking off, so I decided to leave them where they were concentrated at….

…and I decided to stop here…three hours into the day, popped open a can of Arizona green tea for lunch and carried a few bags back to the truck, after moving it much closer than where I first parked. Since I also had a ways to carry the bags over uneven ground again, I learned a valuable lesson last week and not only moved the truck closer, but packed the bags about half full for the trip to the truck, then packed them full and freed up a few more bags in case I found more pockets…which….I did. 🙂

After a much needed break, I wandered down the west wall and then down the south wall, and after dodging a few falling rocks and pebbles, I spotted a pocket at the bottom of the wall….

…but I wasn`t prepared for what I saw when I looked inside…it was a dogtooth….. of a different color….

…I walked back over to my bag and grabbed my hammer and chisel and returned to free it, then wrapped it and placed it into my bag and continued along the wall…soon finding this pocket up high….

…and actually it turned out to be a double pocket, side by side….this one on the right more interesting to look at because of the obviously larger crystals at the edge and just inside…

…and that yellow icky gooey stuff on the outside of the pockets…not sure what it is, but it can be quite nasty sometimes when you reach into a pocket and come out with your hand covered in it…gloved hand that is…and here is the pocket on the left side closer up…can see some blast damage on the outside edge….

…I moved on down the wall and soon came up on another pocket, one that had apparently been opened by a recent blast, one that I wouldn`t have to do any chipping to open up at all, merely raking down some loose crystals at first….

..til I could get to these crystal clusters sitting up above the loose crystals in the back of the pocket…I was standing up on my toes trying to reach these guys with my mini mattox…one I am still getting used to after damaging my other one…

…here is a photo below with different color showing the clusters on the left side…and the loose stuff in front…I had to pull them down with the rake in order to get the clusters in the back to loosen up and slide down into my waiting hands….almost needed a bag to scoop them up with cause they came down in an avalanche each time…

…and this last cluster was sitting up high on the right side of the back of the pocket, obviously already with some damage to it…but it came sliding down as well….

the crystals that came from this pocket were a nice honey brown color with dark grey tips after cleaning them up last night. I didnt see any dogtooths in this pocket but it was a nice change from the other two pockets I had worked Sunday. I photographed several of the goodies cleaned up today, and will post a few more as soon as I get them edited up.

Well since I had a good nap earlier today, I decided to go ahead and edit up the photos of the goodies I cleaned up last night, so here they are, hope you enjoy as much as I am….I posted a few on FB as well…

Now a few of the larger clusters I found inside the pocket…..

and some more smaller ones….

52 Single Frosted Dogtooth

Rockhunting Last Weekend With MAGS

Posted on February 19, 2013 by jwj

A few years ago I joined the rock and gem club called MAGS, the Memphis Archaelogical and Geological Society, based in Memphis, Tennessee, and each year they like to travel up here to look for druse quartz. Last weekend several members drove up and spent the weekend with me, and I took them to the new druse spot on Saturday, and then to MFQ on Sunday morning. Since this spot is normally very muddy and wet, I left Missy with my parents Saturday morning on my way down.. there is a pond there that she likes to jump into and bound through and usually comes out very covered from her head to her tail in thick mud, something I didnt want to deal with today. I havent figured out yet, why she enjoys that so much but has a problem when it comes to taking a bath and cleaning up.

As I drove south I noticed the temperature was about 15 degrees, so it was def going to be a cold day out there, but at least the weather was going to be clear and sunny too. I had made arrangements to meet the group around 9 am, and I arrived at the meeting spot, just as they were approaching from the east. Betty Marler from the Park Hills Club came with them, and after a few minutes of small talk, we loaded up and drove down to the new druse spot…the skies were blue and sunny, but the wind was just a bit sharp, requiring head cover for sure…I was glad I had my heavy coat on with the fleece lined hood. I pulled into the small parking area and found it had been changed just a bit since I had been there two weeks prior, but we were able to get all the vehicles up into the upper end just fine, and after a few minutes of acquainting everyone with the layout of the area and boundaries, and showing them what they could expect to find, they were soon scattered out all over the area….

I had brought several samples from both locations with me, just in case someone didn`t find some great stuff, but as it was, especially at this location, there was no way anyone could strike out here…like one of the gals said, it was like walking into a jewel box, there was druse glittering all over the place. After everyone started finding some good material, I grabbed a bag and my mini mattox and headed out to look and see what I could find and help them find, as well. I started up the hill in the direction that Paul and WC had taken off to, where the heavily eroded clay dirt areas are….

….and within minutes I started seeing some smokey colored druse pieces in the bottom of the erosion ditches, just laying on top of the clay dirt waiting to be found. Since the temps had dipped so low the night before, the normally soft clay dirt was frozen in most areas and walking was now easy. I looked to the north and spotted a few hunters over on the heavily eroded west slope above the pond….

I soon had my bag filled with some pretty smokey colored druse bubbles and a nice medium sized plate that I found sitting upside down, and I returned to my truck, others having returned to their vehicles for a break. Mike and Ann, from the North Little Rock area, joined me at the truck bed and were soon looking at the samples I had brought along……I had told everyone there to just help themselves to anything they wanted in the bed of the truck…in addition to the samples, I had loaded up four big boxes of grab bag material for their April Show as well. Those boxes included some beautiful crystals from my Arkansas quartz trips and Kentucky fluorite trips the past couple of years and several of the members were enjoying sifting through them as well. After a few minutes of break and a can of Arizona Green Tea, Mike and I headed up the west slope above the pond to see what else we could find. A few who had already been up there said they were finding some great druse in different colors and Mike had been up the north side and saw some spots where smokey colors seemed to be heavily concentrated. I grabbed two bags and started around the front of my truck and immediately spotted some large deer tracks in the clay dirt….

…and soon caught up with Mike, and fairly quickly we were finding smokey colored druse plates all over the place….he wasn`t sure if he ever did locate that one area that he spotted earlier, but by the time we finished looking all the way up the hill, it didn`t matter as we both had filled several bags full of bubbles and plates. We even found a few pretty big ones that he and Ann could take home for yard rocks… others were roaming the west slope as well looking for various colors and sizes….

During one of the breaks, I had found out that Mike worked for Union Pacific Railroad, and at one time was working out of the same building I had worked in, downtown in St Louis, several years ago before they moved many of the St Louis operations to the new building in Omaha. I had worked for five years as an emergency response management telecommunicator with UP, and loved my job there…as I told Mike, had they stayed in St Louis, it`s likely I would have still been working for UP.

After a few more hours, we decided to drive over to another area where we have searched in years past and found several larger pieces. After guiding them to that spot, I walked down to the creek at the bottom of the hill and didnt see much of anything worthwhile to pick up and carry back. Even the creek area didnt have much sparkle, and the leaves were very heavy in the woods there, making it difficult to see or find anything in the area.

I took off a few minutes later to head home, checking with WC on what time and where to meet them Sunday morning to take them to MFQ the next morning. Betty wasn`t going to make this trip with them, as they would all be driving home to Memphis from MFQ, so wanted to make sure they knew how to get there from Park Hills where they were staying.

Sunday morning bright and early, Missy and I got up and on the road headed to MFQ, this time taking Missy with me since she likes to run around the floor of the quarry and never gets muddy there. As we left Sullivan, I looked southwest and saw this beautiful sunrise….

It was a good thing I stopped to shoot it along the interstate when I did, because within five minutes, it had completely faded away and then twenty minutes later, the skies looked completely different….

Missy and I led them to the floor of the quarry and stopped at the first bluff right below the entrance….

…where I met some of the members that weren`t able to come up on Saturday, opting instead to drive up for the quarry trip…Caroline and Matthew Lybanon, and Neville Mayfield, who I have talked to several times by email but never met in person….I explained to everyone where they could dig into the bluff and what they could expect to find…again showing them samples I had brought along from this quarry, so they would know what to look for. I also pointed out the other areas of the quarry floor and showed them the areas of the walls to stay away from, clearly marked with blue spray paint…these are areas of the wall where rocks and gravel frequently fall down from above and so are unstable for a close approach. I pointed out the new collecting area…

…which looked about the same as the last time I was there a few weeks ago in January….

WC and I drove over to the newer area to look around and see what we could find while most everyone else set about surface collecting or digging into the bluff wall to see what pockets of druse and poker chips they could locate. We were soon joined by Ann and Cornelia and soon began finding several small green and chocolate colored poker chip crystals, some wrapped in matrix with dolomite druse…it was obvious someone had worked some pockets there recently and apparently left quite a bit of good material behind after high grading…which was fine with everyone there cause they all liked what we were finding. After a couple of hours, more hunters started drifting over to the newer location after working the small bluff as much as they could. Soon after, I climbed up into the crevice area to see if I could locate anymore pockets….

While I didnt locate any pockets along the left side of the wall by the crevice, I spotted a nice pocket up above the center of the nose, and was scraping loose gravel away from what looked like a stepping area to climb up to it, when a hole opened up on the area I was scraping…within moments, I pulled out a plate of crystals and announced a pocket found…soon I had a crowd of hunters looking for crystals gathering fast….Mike came over and helped me with his prybar and soon we were pulling a few plates of crystals out of the shallow pocket. There were also some bigger crystals sitting on top of the rock, so we were able to chisel those out as well. I pointed out the pocket of dark gray poker chips above, that I was climbing up to and once up there, determined I was going to need a chisel and hammer, so Mike stuck around and assisted me with the tools and then climbed up and held on to the chunks of crystals while I hammered them out of their rocky location. They came out in three pieces, in good shape, and he was able to hand the bigger two pieces down to Neville who then handed them off to others. All in all we were able to find and extract some very pretty crystals from a few pockets and everyone was happy with their goodies. We spent the last hour dividing up my grab bag material into a few vehicles that were headed home to Memphis and resting up. I provided everyone with road information and they all took off about 2 pm headed south. Missy and I drove over to check out an older pocket that I had worked on many times before, but since I was a bit tired at this point, I decided to head north and check out the secret spot before heading home. See the next story on that amazing dogtooth stop. 🙂

A….Holly…Jolly…Dogtooth Day

Posted on January 14, 2013 by jwj

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

Cleaned Up More Dogtooths From Christmas Day

Posted on January 9, 2013 by jwj

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….

Dogtooth Crystal Christmas Day

Posted on December 28, 2012 by jwj

Since my family celebrated Christmas on Christmas Eve, due to my work schedule and my sister`s family schedule, I didnt have anything planned and neither did Docia, so she met Missy and I at the secret spot about 10 am. It was alot colder than it has been, about 27 degrees when we arrived, but hey, a little cold weather doesnt stop the hardiest of rockhounds. I figured we would be sheltered from the wind as well, as we have in the past, but not this time…it was whipping around in there the whole time we were there. Missy and I arrived first and after getting my boots on and laced up, I headed over to a section of older wall where I could see what appeared to be a pocket that I hadnt noticed before. I was up there chipping around with my mini mattox when Docia arrived. I took a break and walked down to get a few dogtooths out of my truck for her from my last trip there, that I had found. She handed me a box that contained a gem tree for my supervisor, Patty….

…..a christmas gem tree for me…..

….and a pyrite sun on a stand.

After getting on her coveralls, she grabbed a bag and tools and headed over to the older wall near me. We moved up that wall, looking for pockets and then to the east wall where we finally found some pockets and sat down to work them. I decided to take another look at the druse/dogtooth wall I had found last week. After clearing away some more of the rubble, I located what appeared to be another pocket way back in the back section of it, which required me to really reach back to pull stuff out and then later, on the left side as well. Since it was so cold and windy, I left the camera in the truck and didnt take any photos til I got home and cleaned the specimens up.

One of the first few I pulled out of the very back pocket, was a nice double terminated dogtooth crystal stretched across a piece of druse matrix…here it is all cleaned up…

I was also pulling out a lot of pretty druse chunks, bubbly and lots of different colors on a primarily gray druse base….

…and every once in a while I would pull out some smaller dogtooth crystals as well, some wrapped inside a poker chip and exposed either at the tip or down along the body of the dogtooth formation somewhere….many of them in excellent condition…

…some of them were a honey brown color, some an orange color, and a few of them were a darker brown color. I kept on pulling several top and sidewall plates of the bubbly druse out, some of them with poker chips and some of them with dogtooth crystals attached to them, until I reached the back of the pocket. I put my mini mattox in there to make sure it was the back of the pocket, cause I was at the end of my stretch and reach and could no longer reach anything with even the tips of my fingers.

I then turned my attention to the left side wall and the first thing I pulled out after clearing some of the sideall plates there, was this nice single crystal attached to a small piece of gray bubbly druse, that had a very different look to it on both sides….

…above photo shows the pretty side of the crystal on the ugly bottom side of the druse matrix, where the next photo shows the other side of the crystal on that ugly bottom side of the druse, with some of the gray bubbles exposed on the other side….

….and the other side shows the pretty druse bubbles with the dogtooth showing as frosted over and only the tip of it exposed…

…I was also pulling out a few chunks of druse bubbles with some frosted dogtooth crystals attached to them….

…and closer up the dogtooths look like this….

…I filled three bags after wrapping up these and some of the single crystals, and took them to the truck…as I walked back toward the wall, I looked down where I was watching my steps over some loose boulders and saw some poker chip crystals laying at the bottom of the pile slope…so I looked up and spotted what appeared to be a large chunk of poker chips and druse exposed on one end near the top of the pile…so naturally, I climbed up there and started digging in to expose the entire thing, and before you knew it, several dogtooth orange crystals were found in what appeared to be a large pocket blasted down from the wall. I pulled a couple of large plates out and took them back to the truck, and brought back an extra bag with cloth wraps. Its a good thing I did, because an hour later, I had filled both bags and was returning to my truck for yet another one, when Docia came to tell me that she had froze out and had enough of the never ending wind.

Missy and I stuck around another 45 minutes, filled one more bag, and then took off for home too. It was supposed to possibly start snowing around 5 pm, and I decided to get out earlier than that, just in case. By this time I was cold as well and only the hot tub could thaw me out. 🙂

Frosted Orange Dogtooth Crystal Pocket

Posted on December 21, 2012 by jwj

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.

Protected: Rockhounding With Ian Merkel

Posted on December 3, 2012 by jwj

Thanksgiving Day 2012

Posted on November 27, 2012 by jwj

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.

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