Canard and family

Hi, all. My name is Don Carey, and I've recently gotten started in the rock world with my two daughters, Anna (6) and Alyssa (4). Anna got some nice rocks from my Aunt and Uncle in Vegas last year, and she's been hooked ever since. She's happy to tell anyone who will listen about how to identify quartz crystal, how wood gets petrified, and that fools gold and pyrite are the same thing.

We got Anna one of those little hardware-sorting bins from Home Depot, and she packs her rocks all over in it. We got a smaller one for Alyssa, and she is very proud of her collection, too. And she identifies her rocks very in a very four-year-old way. "Red, white, yellow, green..."

I'd be lying if I said this hobby was just for the girls, as I'm having a great time learning and collecting (although I don't technically have any of my "own" rocks.) I always wanted a rock tumbler when I was a kid, and now I have one. We're a couple of weeks into our first batch (see my post in the General forum).

As for the screen name, Canard (French for duck) is a left-over nickname from my high-school days (now half a lifetime ago) that comes from the small forward wing on some airplanes. We don't actually own any ducks, nor do we speak French. And we don't know any French-speaking ducks.

Thanks for all the good advice that I've already found, and I look forward to learning even more.