Sabre52
Cave Dweller 
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,497
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Post by Sabre52 on Jun 20, 2009 15:11:16 GMT -5
Howdy folks, Some of these are older pics so some of you may never have seen them and some others I just took of my box of favorite poppy stones which I use as a decorative lining to my display case floor when I display my poppy finds. Anyway, this will give you a tiny idea of the number and variety of different poppy types that occur in Mariposa County, CA in one small five mile circle. Thanks for looking....Mel My box of favorites. These are self collected chips and fragments I've found laying about and a few pieces of cutoffs from my cabbing.  Closer shots:   .. Tumbled Sierra Jasper ( Hornitos Brecciated Jasper) and Cosmos Jasper mix:  Jasper from the Firefly pit:  |
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Post by mohs on Jun 20, 2009 15:32:52 GMT -5
i'll have 2 almond chocked jasp
a few of those sirreaous joys
& gotta have some hornitos britos !!
Rock Candy!
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NorthShore-Rocks
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since December 2008
Posts: 1,004
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Post by NorthShore-Rocks on Jun 20, 2009 17:14:27 GMT -5
Simply GORGEOUS self-collected material Mel!!! I gotta ask...How many pounds of rock do you think you hauled from Cali to Texas when you moved?
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,497
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Post by Sabre52 on Jun 20, 2009 17:40:42 GMT -5
NSR: *L* I took three loads with my own truck and finally got tired of going back and forth and had the movers move about 1700 pounds more, so maybe 4-5000 pounds with a couple hundred pounds being my slab and specimen type collection. Still unpacking and still hunting for some of my favorite pieces. What a mess!......Mel
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Good Vibrations
noticing nice landscape pebbles
Overanalysis leads to Paralysis
Member since May 2009
Posts: 91
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Post by Good Vibrations on Jun 20, 2009 20:31:22 GMT -5
Those are beautiful. Mariposa County, huh? Sounds like a good excuse for a road trip. Geeze, I love rocks. ~Erica
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Post by Bikerrandy on Jun 20, 2009 20:37:08 GMT -5
Those are awesome Mel  |
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wyobrian
fully equipped rock polisher
GO VIKINGS
Member since February 2009
Posts: 1,739
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Post by wyobrian on Jun 20, 2009 22:42:47 GMT -5
beautiful batch Mel  Brian |
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highplainsdrifter
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since December 2008
Posts: 1,266
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Post by highplainsdrifter on Jun 21, 2009 8:27:11 GMT -5
That's a dandy collection of poppies.They're all beautiful, but one really caught my eye. In the second photo, bottom center, there is one with orange cream colored orbs. I haven't seen that type before.
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,497
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Post by Sabre52 on Jun 21, 2009 9:56:20 GMT -5
Dan: Yep, that was a new variety for me too. Solid fracture free stuff too. Right before I put the ranch up for sale, Tom and I went on a crawl on the opposite side of the hill from the old 1965 prospect pit area. We found the remains of an old road and some ditches dug by the old 49'er gold miners and a couple tiny hand dug pits. We didn't have time to poke around much but the small pieces from that area were totally different color varieties from the other side of the hill. Lots of white to yellow poppies and a lot of green inclusions too. I have one of the green and white hunks in the coarse grind right now and it's looking real good. Like my buddy Tom says, if it ever burns off back in those canyons, there's gonna be new poppy jasper all over those hills. We even found new deposits above the old Holy Grail pit on the other side of the hill but the brush is almost 20 feet deep and too dense to crawl into very far. I know we barely scratched the surface on our hikes and Tom even found a huge 100 foot square monolith of red brecciated jasper down canyon from the poppies. He took me down to it and it was too steep to haul rock out but the jasper was so dense you couldn't even get a pick tip into it and had lots of hematite and purple jasper with the red. Real pretty stuff! I tumbled a few chips and it polished up nice too
The other area that was frustrating was the firefly pit where I found several large boulders that had flat faces that did not fit together which means somewhere below the pit I dug, there has to be the matching flat faced boulders in the dirt of the hillside. I just never had time or energy to finish digging the slope ......Mel
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Post by Michael John on Jun 21, 2009 12:14:12 GMT -5
Mel, I've heard about that "little" Mariposa area. If memory serves me right, there was private land near there where there was some heavenly material, and somehow the government got possession of it when the old man died.
My first "hounding" experience was when I was a little boy. A man named Ross Tilton had a gold mine on his land in Mariposa, and I went through it with my mom and dad. I think his sons worked the claim a bit after Ross passed.
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,497
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Post by Sabre52 on Jun 21, 2009 13:29:10 GMT -5
MJ: Yep, most all the poppy jasper up there is on private ranches or patented goldmine claims. There are locations on BLM land but access is real difficult as most the roads run through private ranches where you have to obtain access to pass through their locked gates. The one BLM road that leads into the area is barely a road and I used to mainly hike in or take my buddy's old fourby basher because I didn't like tearing up my truck on a road that bad. To top it off, the area is a maze of old goldmine trails so unless you really know the area and know where to crawl or cut your way through the brush, you'd walk right by most the pits without seeing them. Tom and I just cut trails through the brush and one season's growth covers them right up again...Mel
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firstrune
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since January 2009
Posts: 156
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Post by firstrune on Jun 21, 2009 17:19:45 GMT -5
oh gosh Mel, I think I could stare at those all day. What gorgeous colors and patterns! I'd never heard of "Poppies" as related to rocks until I saw this post, I thought I was going to look at pictures of gorgeous flowers,  these are even better. Bonnie |
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rollingstone
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since July 2009
Posts: 236
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Post by rollingstone on Jun 22, 2009 2:58:52 GMT -5
Mel,
Apart from your kick-ass job at shaping and shining that material, I hope you realize that you were deep into some of the most beautiful rocks ever created on this planet.... well, no doubt you already know that. Those poppies and colours are spectacular beyond belief. Great pics, and wonderful stories over the past few years about your adventures seeking them out! ... the stinky-horse-hole story is one that especially creates vivid mental images, LOL!
-Don
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Post by Bejewelme on Jun 22, 2009 8:41:42 GMT -5
Mel:
Those stones are so beautiful and hearing the stories behind them make them just that much more enchanting! Beautiful!!!!!!
Amber
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these are even better. 
