elementary
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Post by elementary on Dec 31, 2010 18:42:19 GMT -5
Nothing like everyone else's posts recently, but here's a couple small fun pieces. Lil Hauser from the main diggings - showing blue agate and some tiny plumes of different colors. One of the mexican agates I picked up for free at a rockhound estate giveaway a few months ago - finally cut and polished. Thanks for looking. Lowell
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elementary
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since February 2006
Posts: 1,077
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Post by elementary on Dec 31, 2010 13:11:13 GMT -5
We (Mel and I) want to give a huge thank you to all those who contributed to the American Agate/Jasper Database this year. It's been very successful and the feed back has been very good.
Each volume has been downloaded more than expected Vol 1 2nd ed - 139 times Vol 2 - 191 times Vol 3 - 180 times Vol 4 - 120 times Vol 5 - 122 times Vol 6 - 134 times Vol 7 - 121 times Vol 8 - 88 times Vol 9 - 98 times
Even the Lakers Portfolio has been downloaded over 80 times.
I know I (Lowell) haven't had the time to update it recently. I've been editing a 20 page newsletter a month, been managing a softball team, and since September, my 6th graders have been keeping me quite busy (not to forget my 4-year-old daughter at home.)
But I've stepped down from the newsletter and the softball team and I'm working on Volume 10 - California (as promised a while ago). If you want to contribute, please IM me and let me know. I'll be posting new requests just after the new year.
(Oh, and I was mentioned in this month's Rock and Gem Magazine - in the article on the Rockhound Museum Exhibit in Santa Paula. It's not as good as being Artist of the Month, but hey, it's kinda neat!)
Thanks all!
Lowell
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elementary
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since February 2006
Posts: 1,077
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Post by elementary on Dec 31, 2010 12:56:22 GMT -5
I can feel it.... Something is getting closer, something heavy and mindless and unrelenting in its ability to cause obsession ... this ominous foreboding feeling, it's like something monstrous is going to come right at me in the not-so-distant future.
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elementary
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since February 2006
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Post by elementary on Dec 31, 2010 12:43:12 GMT -5
Woody,
I am happy you like the material. I had a fun time piecing together the bucket for you. I'm also happy to see what's inside some of these stones that I can't cut. That Whale is incredible.
Mel,
I hope you don't mind. It is a piece from the Fluorite location in the Cady's. I had enough of the material that I felt I could give up a piece to Woody. He really took care of my students with a box of Maury Moss a while back - sent without expecting anything in return.
Happy new year!
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elementary
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since February 2006
Posts: 1,077
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Lagunas
Dec 31, 2010 12:32:00 GMT -5
Post by elementary on Dec 31, 2010 12:32:00 GMT -5
Man, those are excellent additions to any collection - just don't tell me that both of you were bidding on them at the same time!!!
(A piece of luna agate - mexico - came up at our club's silent auction and two members knew I'd want it. Both were bidding against each other for me. Neither won, but I laughed when each later told me what they were trying to do.)
Lowell
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elementary
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since February 2006
Posts: 1,077
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Post by elementary on Dec 31, 2010 12:29:00 GMT -5
Holy Fire of Troy!!!!
That is excellent!!!
I've been finding flame and plume in the S. Cady's lately, but yours is superb!
Thanks for sharing,
Lowell
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elementary
fully equipped rock polisher
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Post by elementary on Dec 31, 2010 12:18:14 GMT -5
Those are excellent. You tailor the shape really well to the image in the stone. A lot of cabs are technically done well, but they don't capture the pattern in a way that truly highlights it. You've done it, though.
Did you acquire whole nodules that you cut, or did you purchase material already cut? Lowell
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elementary
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since February 2006
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Post by elementary on Dec 31, 2010 12:08:25 GMT -5
I swear, you don't have a rock tumbler, you have a cobble tumbler!
All is great, but love the pet wood!
Lowell
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elementary
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since February 2006
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Post by elementary on Dec 31, 2010 12:05:35 GMT -5
Lovely as ever, Mel!
I tell you, each year the class kids seem to find something new to go after. This year the tiger eye was the #1 item on their list. I saw a group of four outside holding up the stones in the sun a while back. When I came up to see what they were doing, they held out their hands with the stones and asked in an excited voice, "Did you know these rocks shimmer?"
Hope you had a great holiday!
Lowell
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elementary
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Post by elementary on Nov 28, 2010 20:31:25 GMT -5
Thanks, all, for the great comments!
Mel, This place was found recently by a couple friends of mine in a place far outside the normal stomping grounds near Ludlow (my only clue to location) which is why there are large pieces left.
To all, The place has given me the best material I've ever had in the S. Cady's by far. Up until recently my finds have been rating a D. These last two trips have changed that. There are at least two large outcrops of this stuff - some in smaller seam and more in boulders the size of watermelons. The narrower seams can look a little like Paul Bunyon at times. I've been using Google Earth to check out the geology from above and have been staking out the next hike from the remote parking area. There has to be more untouched plume outcrops (they are turning out to be fairly common in this region). One can only hope for the moss. Jasper also pops up here and there, but nothing in quality like Lavic. If I ever get word that this site has gone public, then I'll be happy to offer a trip. BUT I worry about this site getting out. I'm not the one who found it, so I feel I don't have the right to open it up to others. Paul Bunyon was recently put under claim by some group out of San Diego - by people who had nothing to do with the work done by my friends who dug out the bottom of the trench and reopened the seam with huge results. With the way Ebay and such have opened up on-line selling, I worry about places like this being hit by the commercial digger. (To online sellers here, please forgive this comment - but between excessive field trips and commercial sellers, there are sites out there that are no longer viable.) Woody told a story or two about Carnelian sites being closed due to aggressive digging.
So why take Woody? I took him because he was generous enough to send to me a box of Maury moss material for my students (we all know what a nice guy he is) but more importantly, he is from Washington - so I had no worries about him spreading the word around too much.
I am going to be heading out to the Cady's again during my winter break from teaching (OH YEAH - I loved the comments from some of you bagging on teachers in the Life & Universe section....Really enjoyed being smacked around a little bit...much of it for stuff, as a teacher, I have no direct control over... )
and I'll drop a note to see who else might want to come. I promise no results, only a field trip!
Anyway, sorry about the excessive writing. Meet me in person and it will be excessive talking (just ask Woody).
Thanks for listening,
Lowell
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elementary
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Post by elementary on Nov 28, 2010 17:41:57 GMT -5
Woody (Woodyrock) was heading down to Temecula, Ca for Turkey Day and asked if I had a day to lead him out into the Cady's. I was happy to oblige and met him last Monday out in Barstow - the same Barstow that had its water supply contaminated by some nasty stuff and had shut down its wells for a few days. Anyway, I met him and his wife Kathy (Cathy) and headed out along the I-40 to a place I had visited fairly recently. He and I rode together and I had a great time talking (I hope he enjoyed listening) and hearing his stories (such as old mining shacks filled with dynamite, diesel fuel melted water in antarctica that made interesting coffee, and other wonderful tales.) So we headed out, pulled off the highway and headed into the hills (into an undisclosed location). We parked and began a mile long hike. This time I took a different route than last time and came across a couple new outcrops of seam agate that produce some interesting plume. We then trudged across the sand and up a saddle to the red moss site I was sharing with Woody. Here is some of the material that was found. While Woody and Kathy hunted, I roamed along the sandy basin below the outcrop and found a bunch of small but interesting pieces of plume/flame agate. I wish I took pictures of us out there but I didn't (my bad.) I hope Woody is able to add a few once he returns to his great white north. I had a great time and hope to show Woody and his wife the Northern Cady's next time. Lowell
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elementary
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Member since February 2006
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Post by elementary on Nov 28, 2010 17:26:35 GMT -5
Boy, Steve, you got a great place to hunt!!!
Good finds of nice material!
Take care of yourself and talk to you soon,
Lowell
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elementary
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since February 2006
Posts: 1,077
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Post by elementary on Nov 6, 2010 11:50:37 GMT -5
Always am impressed at your tumbles - esp the large pieces of pet wood.
Nice job!
Now I need to get my tumbler fixed. (Not because it is broken, but because it has too many lil baby tumblers running around...)
***I do not apologize for bad humor...
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elementary
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Member since February 2006
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Post by elementary on Nov 3, 2010 0:51:58 GMT -5
Amazing collection of incredibly lovely material!
Keep it coming!
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elementary
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Post by elementary on Nov 2, 2010 21:18:13 GMT -5
I don't have cabs but I do have some things that are definitely ghostly or ghoulie: 1st - My daughter being consumed by consumerism... Next - My avatar - watch your fingers: My happy ghost: My ghoulie-eyed ghost: And finally Alien Mummy Skull:
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elementary
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Post by elementary on Nov 2, 2010 21:07:28 GMT -5
Okay, the best one's I keep and display in small jars by location. As a teacher, I organize my polished pieces in a display according to location and then I allow my students to buy my extra polished pieces for extra credit points or pick them after passing a reading test. The better ones I put into bead boxes I buy at Michael's hobby and create comparative collections the students can again purchase for points. These tend to have 17 different polished stones and a map so the students receive a nice collection to jump start their interest. I vary the collections by location, material (jasper/nodules/moss/combination). I also donate polished stones to my club for the kid's booth grab bags. One day I ought to learn to wrap, but then again there's a lot of things I need to learn to do... I've posted this in the past but her it tis again - my classroom display - though this is from a few years ago - the polished stone collection is up to 70 varieties. Lowell
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elementary
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Member since February 2006
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Post by elementary on Nov 2, 2010 20:33:10 GMT -5
In addition to the light, I use a gigantic lens while holding the stone at an angle to check for marks. (I used to have better eyesight but the combination of reading these posts everyday added to staring down at a shiny rock for scratches under a bright lamp has rendered my eyes a tired mass of wrinkles...it has nothing to do with age or too much TV)
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elementary
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Post by elementary on Nov 2, 2010 20:25:17 GMT -5
Well, I can safely say I wasn't around when this hobby began, but my dad worked for Joel Hauser, the one who popularized the Hauser Geode Beds in Imperial California.
Joel was taken the the beds by his father who ran a mule train through those hills in the first decade of the 1900's and noticed spherical rocks on the ground. When Joel showed his father in 1936 some of the nodules and rocks he had collected elsewhere, Joel's father took him out to these hills. This was about 1937. The area was pretty much closed during WWII so Patton could run his troops around, but the benefit was more bulldozed roads afterwards. By the late 1940's, field trips were being run out there. It amazes me that 70+ years later you can head out there and still find virgin geode fields to dig.
As for when the hobby became popular, look at when the oldest rock and gem clubs were formed. In california, clubs date all the way back to the mid to late 1930's. Ventura was formed in 1944 - oddly enough by high school kids who had seen a local lady's mineral collection and wanted to collect themselves. (I'm the club's historian hand have access to thousands of pages of material from 1944 to present.) In our history, it's been documented that the hobby seemed to be focused (at least in our club) on minerals and crystals initially with an emphasis on fluorescents. In the 1950's there was an increasing interest in radioactive material. But as lapidary equipment changed from the homemade structures of the 1940's & 1950's to the first companies that focused on this type of machine in the late 1950's and early 1960's (my dates are general), lapidary arts increased in popularity. (Obviously interest existed before companies built the machines, but I think increased road building and technology helped make the hobby more accessible.)
I am constantly amazed at the ingenuity of the early practitioners of this craft. The machines they pieced together, from mud saws to hoists to lift giant chunks of petrified wood, are constant feats of engineering. Joel Hauser also had a keen sense of trade. He went to the local stone cutter who handled tombstones and traded slabs of petrified wood to the guy in exchange for cutting the logs he got in Arizona. (Which he gained partially by trading ironwood grabbed from the Colorado River region.)
The other publication to check is Desert Magazine. In checking the Index to the magazine (owned by a friend of mine) you can see field trip articles published as far back as the late 1930's. After WWII these were almost a monthly feature. What is great about these articles is that the maps are better than almost anything put out these days. I still use them when out in the field.
Anyway, that's my 2 cents worth - if anyone is interested.
Lowell
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elementary
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since February 2006
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Post by elementary on Oct 30, 2010 16:22:23 GMT -5
Been working here and there on my piles of rock. Here's a sample of what turned out okay. Agate Creek, Australia (from the bins behind Diamond Pacific, Barstow) Mexican fire agate (from Harris Estate sale last year) Plume/Flame agate from Field Trip two weeks ago to the Southern Cady's (admittedly polished by a friend) Mexican Agates from Allmen estate giveaway last month: [I had thought they might be Agua Nueva but the main opinion went against this - so here's some more to ponder) (1st already seen but colors look great in the sun:) AND finally - the one that I started to polish along a broken side and it turned out to have the tightest, most complex banding of anything I've worked. I need to cut behind the curved face I polished to see what the banding is like through the middle: Moctazuma (spelling?) Both from Mel's moving sale: Mexican Sonoran Red Hot: Mexican Agate (from Mel's moving sale) Thanks for lookin' Lowell
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elementary
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since February 2006
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Post by elementary on Oct 30, 2010 16:05:04 GMT -5
Gollum!
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