As you've probably noticed by now, I am a big "plant nut" with many, many plants -- some quite unusual and uncommon -- in my collection... You've also probably noticed that I enjoy wildlife -- birds, deer, even reptiles -- and also enjoy photographing all of these things...
What you may NOT know about me is that I also have a pretty extensive rock, shell and fossil collection, as well...
I don't think one can be as intensely interested in one or two aspects of the natural world as I am and not find that other aspects hold a modicum of fascination as well...
I first got interested in fossils after I found several on a beach in a neighboring county. It seems that there are sandstone cliffs there -- further up the beach -- that hold many fossil shells dating back to the Ordovician Epoch of the Paleozoic Era (the flowering of shell fish) that have been steadily crumbling down and dislodging the fossils which are then washed out to sea and brought back to the beach again by the tide...
The first fossil that I found which was plainly recognizable as one was a primitive "sand dollar" encased in rock much like the example below on the lower left from my collection:
The rock on the lower right actually has TWO sand dollars -- a small one on top of a larger one -- and the one on the upper right of the photo has dozens of small shell fossils and pieces of larger ones contained within it.
After becoming interested in fossils, I started noticing other rocks that I thought were pretty as I was looking for more fossils wherever I went... It just so happens that, here in Sonoma County, we have a great deal of different colors and mixtures of "jasper" rocks -- most of which are great candidates for tumbling...
This led me to become interested in the possibility of tumbling and polishing some of my finds so, I bought a used rock tumbler with 2 different small "drums" along with several different "grits" of polishing sands and began tumbling them...
Rock tumbling is kind of a drawn-out process... First you place the rocks you want to polish into rubber "drums" along with water and a fairly coarse "grit" on a little electric machine with long "rollers" which turn 24/7.
After about 2 weeks, you dump out the liquid and grit, rinse the stones and then put in more water with a slightly less coarse "grit" and tumble for about 2 more weeks...
There are about 4 or 5 successively finer grits which you swap out for the coarser ones every two weeks until you do a final 2-week tumble with just some dishwashing liquid and water.
The photos below are views of just a few of the several "industrial sized" pickle jars that I have full of my tumbled rocks along with various other rocks and fossils that I've collected along the way:
I also do some crafts with the ordinary shells and some of the fossil shells that I find like making driftwood and shell mobiles... Here is a pretty piece of abalone that I found which is one piece of one of my mobiles:
I haven't tumbled rocks for a while but I'm still inclined to pick up pretty rocks (especially pretty GREEN ones ;o) ) when I find them like these that I found just the other day while I was taking photos at the Russian River at Asti California which I presented in my recent photo-essay about the end of summer:
Maybe, in the near future, I might start up my tumbler again... :o)
luv,
jean
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Comments: 14
Thanks so much for posting this to
my group
Nana: It's really serendipitous that you said that about your friend's Christmas tree decorated with shells... When I "found" this particular beach that has so many nice, complete fossil shells, was right after I'd separated from my daughter's father and I was so poor that I couldn't afford to buy any Christmas presents that year for anyone... I collected shells from the beach and cool, natural "holy stones" (rocks with holes already in them from being processed by the environment that they're in -- such stones are deemed "natural amulets" of protection for the owner/wearer). I bought a package of rawhide boot shoelaces and made necklaces out of them to give as presents that year. Also, all I could afford at the time was a teeny, tiny Christmas tree and I didn't have the money to buy any decorations for it, so I hung some of the shells I collected on it that year... It was actually quite neat looking and completely "natural"! :o)
I bring rocks home from every vacation. I too, had a rock tumbler but didn't have the discipline and patience to use it so there are rocks from all over the state, country and a bit of the world in my back yard. I think my husband has been secretly tying to get rid of them a little at a time though. I noticed there aren't as many as usual.
Someday, far into the future, a geologist will be stumped as to why there are rocks from the Caribbean in my northern part of the world. :-)