Post by Sabre52 on May 18, 2011 20:56:59 GMT -5
Howdy folks,
Finally had me a free day so the wife and I headed over to the Three Rivers, Texas area to hunt petrified wood. Really interesting area from a biologist's standpoint. That south Texas mesquite scrub area abounds with bird's of Prey and songbirds. Observed a huge number of Cara cara, buntings, and scissor tailed flycatchers ( one of my favorites) and lots of wildflowers and butterflies. All the wood hunting there is roadside hunting and we were lucky enough to find several good spots. One roadside actually had lots of wood weathering right out of the banks. Most the wood was tumbler sized hunks but I did find some larger stuff too. Found a little palm, a little shrinkwood, that vine stuff, and maybe some root stuff of some kind and the big find of the day was several pieces of what Matt Dillon calls George West type wood which is a full replacement with various kinds of agate inside. Still have to wash it all off but I think I have a couple of spectacular hunks of that stuff. Got about fifty pounds of nice little wood sections in various colors for the tumbler and some fantastic flint for the tumbler and even found one true banded agate nodule. Drive was about three hours each way so it made a really fun and productive day trip. Got to say though it is a heck of a lot more hot and humid down there than up here at the ranch. Was about 92 and about 100% humidity so the wood hunt was sweaty but fun. Here are a couple of pics of me hunting in a couple of areas. Almost every hunk of gravel in or along the road is a quartz material with most being flint but really a lot being pet wood mostly in dark tones so you have to hunt for the colorful stuff. I'll take pics of the wood tomorrow and post pics of my favorites.....Mel
Finally had me a free day so the wife and I headed over to the Three Rivers, Texas area to hunt petrified wood. Really interesting area from a biologist's standpoint. That south Texas mesquite scrub area abounds with bird's of Prey and songbirds. Observed a huge number of Cara cara, buntings, and scissor tailed flycatchers ( one of my favorites) and lots of wildflowers and butterflies. All the wood hunting there is roadside hunting and we were lucky enough to find several good spots. One roadside actually had lots of wood weathering right out of the banks. Most the wood was tumbler sized hunks but I did find some larger stuff too. Found a little palm, a little shrinkwood, that vine stuff, and maybe some root stuff of some kind and the big find of the day was several pieces of what Matt Dillon calls George West type wood which is a full replacement with various kinds of agate inside. Still have to wash it all off but I think I have a couple of spectacular hunks of that stuff. Got about fifty pounds of nice little wood sections in various colors for the tumbler and some fantastic flint for the tumbler and even found one true banded agate nodule. Drive was about three hours each way so it made a really fun and productive day trip. Got to say though it is a heck of a lot more hot and humid down there than up here at the ranch. Was about 92 and about 100% humidity so the wood hunt was sweaty but fun. Here are a couple of pics of me hunting in a couple of areas. Almost every hunk of gravel in or along the road is a quartz material with most being flint but really a lot being pet wood mostly in dark tones so you have to hunt for the colorful stuff. I'll take pics of the wood tomorrow and post pics of my favorites.....Mel
