Arkansas Fall Trip 2015

Posted on November 18, 2015 by jwj

After weeks of planning and researching many locations for quartz crystals that I had not been to before, including talking to many former mine owners in the Mt Ida area by email and gathering information on past and present sites, my vacation finally began on Monday morning November 9th. After packing all day, Onyx and I got up early on Tuesday morning and headed to the great state of Arkansas, home of Arkansas Quartz Crystals. I had a call the night before, my buddy Jim letting me know that another blast would take place at the quarry in Eminence later that week, but as I told him I would be gone all week, so I did the next best thing, let some of my rockhunting friends know in case they might want to make the drive down to check things out. I had taken new rockhunting friend Chuck Reed down there the weekend before and we found several bags full of crystals in the blast pile that day, even brought a few yard rocks home with me and he had a great time as well. I wasn`t able to take any photos that day due to a dead battery in my camera.

Onxy and I arrived at Fort Smith a little after 10 am and I texted my buddy Adam Lageveen, who lives in Sallisaw, about 20 min west of there, to let him know I was close…he texted back that it was a great time to come by and visit so we continued west on Hwy 40. Adam had some more quartz crystals in his collection that he wanted to get rid of so he could make more room for his collection of Native American arrowheads and knives…Adam creates them from various minerals that Native Americans used long ago…novaculite, obsidian in many colors, chert, quartz, and glass…and he is quite talented with it as well. He had put some of his quartz aside for me to look thru and had some smokies for me as well.

We visited for about an hour and then Onyx and I headed on south toward Hot Springs, where we would be staying in a condo on Lake Hamilton for the next five days. We arrived around 3:30 pm and after getting unpacked, we stepped outside to shoot the sunset over the lake…

I received a call from Ray Roth, who had driven up there from New Orleans the day before, and we decided to meet at Hibachi Sushi Buffet for supper. I had ate there back in July when I was there last and found it to have the best buffet I had experienced, great food including Chinese and American cuisines both. Like I told Ray tho, I was not there for the sushi, and as it turned out, he wasn`t either. We had a great meal there and talked about our plans on where to hunt the next few days, and I told him that we would be joined by good rockhunting friend Virgil Richards from Tulsa, and a friend of his as well, on Thursday morning. I drove over to the homemade ice cream shop called Scoops, and found them closed already at 8 pm…I was shocked, but found out later they were now operating under their winter time hours, decided to catch them the next day hopefully.

After a good breakfast of hotcakes and sausage at Mikky D`s the next morning, Onyx and I drove over to the Valero Station by the 270 Bypass, where Ray filled up his gas tank and I got a bag of ice for my cooler, and then we headed west toward Mt Ida, destination Twin Creek Mine. We arrived shortly after 9 am and after paying hostess Lisa our dig fees, we began digging along the wall hoping to find a pocket of crystals.

This mine is owned by a couple in Switzerland and leased out to Dixie and Bobby Fecho…Bobby used to operate the mine at Bear Mountain when his parents owned it a few years back, another good mine that produced some nice crystals in all shapes and sizes…it`s now privately owned and operated commercially. When we arrived we saw that Bobby had his trackhoe sitting partially in the public dig area and it appeared that he had dug into a sandstone rock area and may have hit a pocket or two there. About an hour after we started digging, Bobby showed up and confirmed that he had indeed found a few pockets of nice crystals in that sandstone area. I told him that Ray and I were interested in digging in a confirmed pocket area if possible, so he took me to a couple of pockets previously dug out and showed me both locations, one near the entrance that had several pockets and crystals very visible in the walls, and one at the top of the hill above the public dig area, where I could see some large crystal points laying all over a cleared area as well as crystals attached to the walls and one large point sticking out of the base of one wall, at least three pockets were visible and Bobby pointed out three other potential pockets while we were standing there in the rain. There was also a large yard rock in the middle of the cleared area that had large points sticking out of the top of it…needless to say I was drooling just standing there taking it all in. Bobby explained the process and cost of getting into each area. I told him there would be four of us but we wouldn`t be able to come back til Friday or Saturday morning. He said he would hold the pockets for us. Soon after we returned to the public dig area, it began pouring rain…I stayed along the wall for about 30 min, then got under the tarp that Lisa had put up as a rain shelter…Ray got back into his suv…I had put Onyx into my truck as he became soaked soon after and I didn`t want him to become a mud ball. I dried him off a bit before putting him in there with the fan on so he would dry out as well. Soon after the rain slacked off, and Ray and I returned to the tailing piles…this went on back and forth til about 2 pm, when he and I decided we had had enough. We drove back to Hot Springs and decided to meet at the Hibachi Buffet again that evening for another great supper. After stopping off at Scoops and picking up some home made ice cream, Onyx and I returned to the condo….it was apparent that the rain had set in for the day, which had been forecast, so we just sat it out inside the condo, which has a great view over Lake Hamilton, watching one storm after another roll across the lake.

Despite heavy rains and storms passing through, there was no dangerous lightning and as the storms cleared the lake by 5 pm, the skies cleared to reveal a beautiful setting sun…

At supper that evening, I told Ray we would need to be on the road toward Mt Ida by 7:45 am the next morning, as we needed to meet up with Virgil and his friend on the west side of Mt Ida and then drive on out to the privately owned Southfork Mine where we would be digging all day at. After a pretty sunrise and another good breakfast…..

…..we got on the road on time and luckily didn`t hit much traffic, stopping off at the Phillips 66 in Mt Ida so I could fill my gas tank. I had heard from Virgil prior to leaving Hot Springs and he said he was at Waldron, an hour from Mt Ida. Shortly after we arrived at the intersection of Hwy 270 and 27 North, Virgil was just a few miles away and we headed to the mine to meet up with owner Tony Thacker. I had contacted Tony several weeks prior and let him know that we were interested in digging at his mine, which he said would be fine with him, letting me know that the tailings there had not been touched by anyone in over a year, so I figured they would be prime for finding crystals in. We arrived a few minutes before he did and waited for him at the gated entrance at the foot of the hill. Virgil introduced his friend Doug Cunningham to Ray and I, and after a few minutes of explaining the history of this mine to them, Tony soon arrived in his Toyota pickup and introduced us to his red heeler dog.

After a bit of small talk, we headed on up the road to the mine, after crossing a creek and driving thru a few mudholes…

…..I didn`t know how Ray would do, since he drives a Jeep suv with front wheel drive only, Virgil and I both drive Toyota pickups with four wheel drive, but I looked back a few times and saw Ray gunning thru the mudholes just fine….they felt like solid bottom holes to me. In the middle photo above, we came upon that tree across the road, and Tony had to pull it back out of the way with his chain hooked to the tow hook on the front of his pickup…he said it appeared to have come down the night before when they had some wind with the rain. Luckily that was the only obstruction in the road going up, soon we were at the top with a great view not only of the mine, but the surrounding area as well….

….and after each one of us paid Tony our dig fee, we grabbed our tools, buckets, bags, and gloves and headed out in different directions to find quartz crystals, and let me tell you, they were laying all over the place. Tony decided to fire up his trackhoe and walk it down to the lower area and stir up the tailing piles for us.

Ray and Doug and I worked on some plates and pockets on the old wall below where we parked, and found some nice stuff there, I hit a couple of old pockets and came away with about ten nice plates and some nice clear crystal points, giving a few to Doug and Ray. Doug and Ray had found some nice crystals just walking around the slope below where we parked initially as well, and there were yard rocks laying all over the place as well. After the first hour we all took a break and then decided to drive down to the piles and check them to see what Tony was stirring up.

We no sooner walked up into the piles and we started seeing crystals laying all over the place. Here is a yard rock I found, that had yellow golden healer crystals attached to the base of it…Doug look a liking to it so I let him have it….

…and here is one of the nicer crystal clusters I found up in the wall pockets….

Virgil liked it a lot and used one of his bottles of water to wash it off….

…I don`t think any of us stopped for lunch break, we were all finding so many crystals that no one wanted to waste a single second of digging time. Tony drove into town and left us there for a few hours from mid morning to early afternoon.

Ray and I both found a couple of nice medium sized clusters, I gave one to Doug since he had never been quartz crystal collecting. Soon after Tony returned, I had three bags full of crsytals, many of the better ones wrapped up, and I was quite happy with my plates and crystal points, many of them good sized points. Doug took a couple of photos of Virgil and Ray during one of our breaks…

By 3 pm, we were all tired but happy with our finds and ready to head out…we thanked Tony and his pup once again for a great time of digging at his mine….

…and headed toward Hot Springs…I had told Virgil about a dealer that lived along the route back, who had some quartz clusters and points with green chloride and he was as interested in them as I was…so we stopped off on the way back to see Stu. I had told him a few days before by email that we would stop by on our way back from Tony`s mine, but he forgot earlier in the day that we would stop by…I had tried to call him from the top of the hill at Tony`s mine, but lost the signal apparently before I could talk to him. Luckily for us, he was there and we were able to take a look at some nice material that he had on hand there. I purchased some Jeffrey Quartz as well as some nice small clusters and singles with shale inclusions. Virgil made some purchases as well and we then headed for Hot Springs.

Virgil and Doug decided to stay at the same hotel that Ray was staying at…the Best Western just north of Oaklawn on Central Avenue…I do have to say they have the best breakfast bar I have ever seen out of all the hotels I have stayed at, bar none. Ray had stayed there before on prior trips and liked it. We got back to HS right as the sun was setting and decided to clean up and then meet at Cracker Barrel for supper. While cleaning up at the condo, I was able to photograph the sunset too…

I arrived at Cracker Barrel first and found the line into the restaurant to be about 30 people deep, so we opted for the Outback Steakhouse next door instead. All three of us had their smoked burgers and boy let me tell you, they were excellent tasting. We decided to meet in the parking lot there the next morning at 8:30 prior to driving out to our first stop. My Hot Springs rockhound friend Justin Baird was going to join us the next day on our hunts.

There was another beautiful sunrise Friday morning….

Justin`s allergies were acting up, so we got a little late start the next morning, he parked his car there and joined Onyx and I, and we drove south on Hwy 270 to the Magnet Cove Martin Marietta Quarry to see what minerals we could find there. Mindat shows a list of over one hundred minerals found there, including pyrite, purple fluorite, and quartz…I am used to quarries where you can readily find something pretty every few feet along the wall or in the blast pile, this quarry was nothing like any I have been to before. After a safety talk with the acting Quarry Manager, Jimmi Clifton, we donned our hard hats, steel toed boots, and safety glasses and drove down to the pit of the quarry, where no one was working that day. Jimmi told us the top bench of the quarry was Level A and the lowest area, the pit, was Level H, each level was forty feet high, eight levels, so the pit was about 320 feet deep. This quarry is known primarily as a micro mounters paradise, however I was hoping we would find something bigger to take home. The first photo below is looking north toward the entrance and the second photo is the south wall of the quarry.

…we parked about middle of the pit floor and then started looking in that pile of rock in front of our trucks…

Doug, Virgil, and Justin began finding some nice stuff right off the bat, the fluorite there was almost like powder, and the pyrite was very small as well…

….Justin found some nice sized calcite crystals and stayed to look for more in the pile…in the meantime, I decided to make a circle of the pit floor and see if I could find anything worthwhile…I have to say this quarry had some of the ugliest rock I have ever seen….leaverites for sure….

…we took a break about 11 am, Ray and Justin continued to look for minerals in the pile in the middle of the pit floor….

We decided to drive up to Level A and see if we could find anything up there…I called Jimmi to let him know we were changing areas in the quarry as he was going to come get us before they blasted a certain section above us….

…and while we didn`t see anything up there either, there were many vultures flying around above us…that got our attention for a few minutes at least…

..not having found anything substantial there, we decided to try out a location that Justin knew of for wavellite. I called Jimmi and thanked him for allowing us to collect there and then we headed north back to Hot Springs to check out this abandoned quarry….we drove down a logging road a little ways so that no one would mess with our trucks…Virgil was carrying a large generator and a power hammer as well, sure didn`t want anything happening to it. We walked in the rest of the way to the quarry….

…needless to say, after a 35 min hike into the place, we found very little worthwhile to take back home with us. We left about mid afternoon and decided to drive down and see a guy about some smokey quartz clusters that he had for sale. We arrived at his place a little after 4 pm and boy did he have some nice crystals….

…while we were there, Justin and Virgil started talking to the owner and darkness came and settled in…I didn`t think we were ever going to get out of there and back to Hot Springs for supper. The temps started dropping and I grabbed my jacket out of the truck, my allergies were starting to bother me and there I was out in the boonies without my meds, and three guys who like to talk shop, going at it non stop…Doug and I just rolled our eyes and hoped for the best, talking to the owner`s nice daughters. Eventually we did get out of there and headed back to HS…Ray called as we drove thru Mt Ida to see where we were at, said he had waited as long as he could and then ate supper when he didn`t hear back from us. We decided that we would eat at Cracker Barrel this time and since our clothing wasn`t too dirty this time, we decided to just drive there direct and eat…I had to drop off Justin at his car next door anyway, and he was going to join us, until I got him to his car and he found a note on the windshield from his girlfriend letting him know she was next door at The Border. I let him know what time we were gonna drive up to the mine the next morning and he took off. Virgil, Doug, and I had a great meal at Cracker Barrel, since it was fish night there.

Onyx and I were up early at dawn on Saturday and discovered fog covering much of Lake Hamilton….

I skipped breakfast for the most part, stopping to get a bag of ice and some cash at the corner store. We then drove over to the McDonalds on the west side of HS where we were to meet Justin at 7:15…he wasn`t there nor did he show up by the time Virgil, Doug, and Ray showed up, so we drove on up to Twin Creek Mine, paid hostess Brittany our pocket fees and then drove up the logging road to the private pocket area at the top of the hill above the public fee dig area. We parked our vehicles in the woods, and while Ray was trying to park his jeep, Virgil and I walked over to the private pocket where I intended to point out all the highlights to him, that Bobby had shown me on Thursday…as we walked up, me in front, I immediately spotted tire tracks in the soft mud that were not there on Thursday…I came to a sudden stop and quickly noticed the large yard rock was gone…looked to my right and noticed no large single point sticking out of the mud wall…no no crystals laying all over the place like they were on Thursday when there. Virgil knew right then and there what had happened, he had been thru a similar experience years ago….cause it appeared that those crystals and pockets had been highgraded…meaning crystals dug out and removed before we arrived !! We drove back down to the camper office to get our money back, and were met by Bobby…we explained to him what we found up there…he stood there and claimed someone must have snuck into the mine and stole all those crystals, claimed he was just as angry as we were, but sure didnt look angry or even upset, sure didnt sound angry or upset, his facial expression never changed nor did the tone of his voice…I have been around angry people and you normally can tell real quickly that they are upset using your hearing and sight alone…he returned to us all of our money and then after some small talk, offered the other pocket pit to us at a good price…he took us up there and showed us where the pockets were at, as well as one pocket that he asked us not to dig into…we decided to give it a try and see what we could find.

There were actually several crystal points laying all over the place so it looked pretty good. After we grabbed our tools and started looking around, this special pocket pit started looking better and better. Virgil and I dug into the small tailing pile on the right side and crystal points started rolling down right into my waiting hands, it didn`t take long to fill a bag in that one spot alone. Doug walked up to the end of the pit and Ray walked around checking out the boulders for vugs and pockets.

Ray called me over after finding a few boulders with what appeared to be smokey points all over them…he was right, they were definitely smokeys and I was able to chisel a few plates of them off the boulder, then looked around and found a few more boulders covered as well….

…which then led me to look closer at the wall, and discovered crystals lodged into heavy thick clay that were acting like glue holding them to the wall. I went to my truck and dug out my small pry tool, that resembles a big white two pronged fork and began prying crystals out of the wall…I had grabbed my screwdriver as well but the fork was working better…Virgil soon joined me along the wall and began prying some out with his screwdriver too…..

…at one point, I was even using a couple of fairly flat rocks stacked one on the other for a makeshift ladder so I could reach some real beauties higher up on the wall….

…and even climbed up on the wall at one point in order to reach some higher up than that…then went and got Virgil`s lightweight aluminum ladder from his pickup….thanks to Doug for the photos of me in action…

…after we cleaned off a couple of walls, I decided to take a break and take a flat of crystals to Brittany, to give to hostess Lisa when she returned…they were crystals with some dogtooths from the quarry at Eminence…I had found out Wednesday while there that Lisa liked dogtooth crystals. While visiting with Brittany, I found out that Onyx had been making the rounds with the public diggers and everyone up there really liked him…I wasn`t surprised by that. I returned to the special pocket pit and found Doug and Virgil up at the other end popping off some beautiful plates from the end wall….

…I decided to take a water break and then popped a few plates off walls myself and then walked around picking up small clusters, yard rocks, and crystal points that were just laying on top all over the pit.

It was about this time that Ray decided to leave and apparently as he did, Onyx took off and followed him up the road and out of the mine property, then started walking down Collier Springs Road to the west. A few minutes later, as Virgil, Doug, and I were taking another break by our trucks, I received a call on my cellphone from a young man who said that he had found my dog…said he was on a gravel road near Crystal Vista…I asked how close he was to Twin Creek Mine and he said not too far away and said he would bring Onyx to me on his four wheeler. Earlier this summer, I had found some custom engraved collar tags at my vet`s office and attached it to Onyx`s collar, had a flag emblem on the front that was really pretty as well as eye catching, and engraved my name, cell number and Onyx`s name on the other side. I walked down to the parking lot entrance and a few minutes later Jordan came riding down the hill on his four wheeler with Onyx sitting in his lap appearing as if he was driving it and a big smile on his face. I thanked Jordan for finding him, as well as calling me and returning him to me, said I would have to add four wheeling to Onyx`s resume. Lucky for me Jordan was riding his four wheeler in the area, cause we normally come in from the east and leave to the east as well, and had not noticed Onyx gone since he had been back and forth to the public dig pit all day long. I felt blessed to have him back and such a nice young man to discover him and return him to me.

Shortly after that, I had walked over to the office to use the Johnny On the Spot and afterwards, heard someone call out my name and ask if it was really me…I looked over and saw Janyce Sorrells and she called her husband David over to talk to me…they are rockhound friends from the Paducah area that I met and dug with at the Eureka Fluorite Mine at Marion, Kentucky…they were camping on Lake Ouachita while there and had been digging at various mines in the Mt Ida area. They too were heading for home the next day.

Virgil, Doug, and I continued to dig for a couple more hours, until Brittany came and told us that it was near closing time and time to pack up our things and prepare to leave, after a bit of small talk as well. She was a very good hostess that day and very nice to talk to as well and I heard from other diggers in the public area that she was very helpful to many of them as well. We left shortly after 4 pm…Virgil and Doug headed to Oklahoma and I headed back to Hot Springs to clean up and have supper with Ray one last night.

As soon as Onyx and I returned to the condo, I discovered my battery on my cell was nearly dead, so I quickly cleaned up and changed clothes, then ran out to the truck to charge it up so I could call Ray about supper. We decided to meet in about 20 minutes at the Hibachi Sushi Grill for supper again, giving me some time to charge up my phone first. As soon as I returned to the condo from supper, I saw and photographed the moon in the clear spots over Lake Hamilton….

Onyx and I slept in a little bit on Sunday morning…getting up early to photograph the sunrise before returning to sleep a few more hours…..

I first thought about spending an extra day til I turned on the news and spotted the weather forecast for heavy rain and storms on Monday…I decided I really didn`t want to drive back home in that type of weather, so we got up and began packing at 9 am and headed out the door. We stopped off at Waldron on the way home, for the annual Thomas Family reunion at my grandfather`s farm…my Uncles Joe and Harley actually have the farm now, but I still refer to it as my grandfather`s farm…..we took Ross Creek Road in from Hwy 71 and approaching from that direction always affords me a great view of the farmhouse and barn up on the hill across the valley when I get close…

..and by 2 pm after a great dinner with dessert and fellowship with relatives and friends there, Onyx and I headed north toward home…arriving about 8:30 that evening. All in all, it was a great vacation and very productive rockhunting trip.

Here are some of my finds and purchases too….the first ones from Stu, smokeys and shale inclusions….the big single crystal in the upper left hand side has green chloride attached to the base of it….

…and this one from Collier Creek Mine….

…and these next crystals are smokeys from near Glenwood….

this next one shows the shale inclusions very well in this cluster….

I will add more as I get them cleaned up….give me a shout at jwjphoto7@gmail.com if you want.

Bladed Barite from Washington County

Posted on November 1, 2015 by jwj

Last weekend I drove down to Washington County to the Washington State Park to meet members of the St Louis Rock Club and hunt for barite and galena. We met at the Petroglyph site of the park and checked out the fossil footprints on the rocks, as Dr Bruce Stinchcomb told us about the history of the area rocks. We then drove a little ways over to some property that Dr Bruce owns, crossing a creek and then driving up a small mountain of a hill to several old tailing piles of ” tiff ” mines. Tiff is a term that the locals use to describe barite, which was heavily mined in that area back in the early to mid 1900`s, leaving many old tiff pits all over the countryside of Washington County. I have to stop and say one thing here…that is the first time I have ever seen anyone cross a creek in a very small Chevrolet car, and not just once, but two of them went across that ten foot wide creek with no problem at all, and I was totally amazed !! After stopping to talk to one of the neighbors up on top of that huge hill for a few minutes, we caravanned on down the road to a ” Y ” intersection where we parked and fanned out in search of goodies. I began by helping a few of the other members find some nice ones, Chuck Reed and his daughter Mackenzie, and a couple of guys named George and Darrel, weren`t sure what we were there looking for. I also had taken a few flats of calcite crystals from MFQ and let everyone know they were welcome to come over and take some home with them…even Dr Bruce liked what he saw in the flats too. After a few minutes, I took off up the road to the south and then down an embankment to a red clay looking tailing pile about 20 yards away, and after walking around a little bit, I climbed up on a small hillside and found some really nice looking bladed barite pieces just sitting there waiting on someone like me to take them home…..

…I looked around and found four or five right on top and gathered them up in my arms and headed back to the truck. This time I grabbed a bag and my mini mattox and let Onyx out on his leash to walk him around a bit. Two of the members had their dogs with them on leashes as well. We headed back to the spot where I dug around a little bit, while Darrel and George were in the area searching as well. Darrel and I found a barite shelf in the top of that pile but we didn`t find any more nice bladed pieces like I had found. I wandered on down the hill and around a corner where I spotted yet another small pile, and within a few minutes, I had found some nice druse chunks with bladed barite blended in with the druse….

…Chuck and Mackenzie joined me a few minutes later and we dug up a few more nice ones, before Dr Bruce decided to drive on down and around the area to find some more areas to dig in. While we joined them and dug around a bit more, we never did find another area that had as nice of stuff. Shortly after I ran out of time and had to head home to get a nap in before I returned to work that night once again. I had a great time while there and always enjoy looking for Missouri Bladed Barite. Thanks to Dr Bruce for a great field trip !!

Another Dandy Dogtooth Pocket Day

Posted on October 19, 2015 by jwj

Earlier this week I decided I was going to drive back down to MFQ and see if I could find anything good, after checking out both of the most recent blast piles last Sunday, and finding some nice yard rocks. I figured after they stirred up both piles a bit, if they decided to work both piles evenly that is, that more material could be uncovered…little did I know what lay in store for me.

I had talked to Nathaniel and he decided to ride down with me and on the way down, he told me that he sure would like to find one of those chocolate brown colored dogtooth crystals….little did he know what lay in store for him. I always pray for a few things before I make each trip…I pray for a safe trip for Onyx and I, pray for no flat tires, and I pray that I will find some pretty crystals and minerals. Sometimes when I get where I am going and there is some rock overhanging a pocket in front of me, I will say a quick prayer to keep me out of harms way and when I find nice stuff, I thank God for that as well. On really hot days, when the wind stirs up and brings us a nice cool breeze, I thank God for turning on the fan, too…and I usually thank him for nice weather as well….I realize he is super busy, but I believe in keeping the lines of communication open.

We didn`t get a real early start yesterday morning, but as I told Nathaniel, it wasn`t gonna get light til about 7:30 am, and it was gonna be cooler than what we were used to so far, so if we arrived around 9 am, with full sun, that would give it time to warm up a bit. We loaded up the truck as the sun was rising prettily…..

On the way down there, we spotted two bald eagles in a tree top next to the highway…..as soon as we passed them and confirmed it, I turned around and returned so we could both photograph them, pulling off the side of the highway to do so…..as I turned around, one took flight and passed overhead, leaving one in the tree for us….

…we had to approach from the side so as not to spook him, and after a few seconds of snapping images, he took flight…we just kept shooting images….

…a local farmer stopped by to make sure we were okay and told us that there were alot more eagles that could be seen along the river at Houston. Nathaniel used his phone camera and I was shooting with my Nikon D200 and zoom lens. I wasn`t sure what I had in my images until I got home last night and looked at them after loading them into my computer, sometimes my autofocus doesn`t work as well as I would like it to…needless to say, I was pretty happy with my images of the eagle. As I told Nathaniel, I have never seen two eagles in a treetop like that, so I took that as a good sign for our day ahead.

We got on the road again and when we arrived at the quarry, we found the pile on the left side to be quite a bit less than when I was there the week before. The pile was steeper so there would be no climbing to the top, and we could see stuff sliding down so we both donned our hard hats and grabbed tools and bags….

….setting out to check for signs of pockets. Nathaniel went to the right from the middle…..

…..and I went to the left from the middle, stopping at a big boulder 20 feet from the middle, where it appeared that a few pockets were located, one under the boulder, and one or two on the left side of it……

…pretty soon, Nathaniel went past me to the left and set up camp about ten feet from me, finding some openings in what appeared to be a vuggy wall….

…and pretty soon after that, he was telling me that he had some nice dogtooth crystals inside…

…..I had walked back to the truck to get my flashlight to look inside my pocket at the base of the boulder, and I grabbed my camera as well. When I returned to the wall to see what he had found, he was pretty excited and I saw that he had good reason to be excited…..

JACKPOT !!! I was excited for him and told him to get his phone out and photograph them before and after, then told him how to remove the ones that were anchored in there, after carefully removing the ones that were loose, and to go ahead and wrap them up soon after removing them if possible…yes Virgil, I told him to wrap them up, just as I wrap mine up as soon as I can after removing them from the pockets…and yes I told Nathaniel all about you, Virgil….lol….

….I then returned to my pocket and said a quick prayer, that while I was glad Nathaniel had found a great pocket of dogtooth crystals, I would sure like to find something similar as well…

…..and what do you know…the next thing you know, I am pulling dogtooths out of my pocket soon after too….Nathaniel took some photos of me with my finds, every time I pulled a nice one out…

….he said I was killing him pulling one after another out…as he was chipping that huge plate of his out of his pocket….

…and in no time at all, we had been working those pockets for about three hours, opening the mouths of the pockets pretty big from the small openings we started with. Nathaniel had to open his up big time to remove that huge plate that he was chipping out, that alone took him about thirty minutes to do. When I was finally able to open mine up more, I shined my flashlight inside to see what all I had yet to pull out, turned out to be about fifteen inches deep inside and almost two feet across, with a massive base of chocolate colored calcite latched on to the top of the boulder and pointing down, those were the singles I had pulled out before, having broke off the base and were just laying there when I started reaching into the vug.

When that pocket ran out on me, I moved a few inches to the left and right and found a few more and then another pocket under the boulder on the left side of it, opened up….

…as I was checking it out, pulling a few plates of black and brown sparkly druse out, Nathaniel finally liberated that huge plate of dogtooth calcite crystals from his pocket, he turned around with it in his hands and a big smile on his face, and I snapped this photo of him holding it….

…and here is another photo of another nice one he pulled out of there as well….

….after a short water break, we loaded Onyx up and drove over to the other side and checked out the wall over there, and found some more nice pockets of dogtooth crystals once again, spending about 90 minutes before heading for home. I stopped off at Rocky Falls to see if there was any fall color there, and found some nice color and some kids there…..Nathaniel remembered swimming there as a kid growing up in the Ellington area….

…on our way home, we saw several deer including a doe and two fawns, both fawns were as big or bigger than their mama….sure was nice to see so much wildlife, made for an even better day. Here are a few of my crystals from my pockets Saturday…..

…and a closeup of Nathaniel`s huge cluster, that he photographed yesterday and sent to me……

…..it still has him pretty excited…which is always a good thing.

if you have any questions or wanna say hi, give me a shout at jwjphoto7@gmail.com

Protected: Secret Spot and MFQ With Rockhound Friends

Posted on October 3, 2015 by jwj

How I Spent My Labor Day Weekend 2015….MFQ

Posted on September 16, 2015 by jwj

That`s right…Onyx and I spent our 2015 Labor Day Weekend at MFQ on both Saturday and Sunday, after receiving word from my buddy down there that a new blast occurred on Friday afternoon. We drove down early Saturday morning, arriving about 7:30…..sure was a pretty sunrise to greet us tho along the way….

…and we saw some deer and a wild turkey on the way down, so I knew then it was going to be a good day ahead….the fog increased as we drew closer and I knew it was going to be a hot one once the fog burned off….

…and here is the before in the fog, and after the fog burned off later in the morning, images of the pile that greeted us on our arrival….

As I was lacing up my boots for the day ahead, and one snapped, I briefly thought I sure hope this isn`t a bad sign…luckily for me, within five minutes that thought went quickly out the window like a rock was attached to it. After switching to my spare boots, I started up the right side of the pile…..

…and came upon these boulders about halfway up, and circled around them to the left and then back to the right, looking carefully around each side of them, picking up a few nice loose crystals all the way around them, and then came to the right side of that one that appears to be in the middle on the right side…

…and wait til you see what was on top of the boulder to the left of this one…

whooeeee…. I was in dogtooth heaven……

…I climbed back down the pile to get my hammer and chisel and another bag of wraps as well as a bottle of water…luckily for me that nice mass of dark colored crystals above chipped out of that boulder rather nicely….while you might not be able to tell here, many of them turned out to be dogtooths, too….turned out to be alot of red druse in the pockets surrounding these beauties too….

…by 9 am, the fog was burned off and luckily for me, there was a vast area of shade remaining to work with, and stay cool inside of, since I had a lot of territory to cover ahead of me. I was only halfway up the pile and seeing poker chips laying all over the place, many of them with dogtooths sticking out the ends. I was in poker chip heaven for sure…another prayer answered….

Onyx was staying pretty close to me today…he found a bed of soft dirt about halfway down the pile in front of me, after climbing up with me and walking around the top to check things out before I got up there…he took advantage of the soft dirt and laid right down there…

he stayed there til the shade burned off…..as I got to the top of the pile, I started finding a few more chunks of crystals with the red druse prominently stamped on and around them….beautiful stuff for sure….

…I climbed down from the top into this little niche of a depression and checked the wall for pockets…not finding any, I turned around and spotted this boulder in front of me, with a small looking vug at the base, so I grabbed ahold of what looked like a loose piece at the base of that vug and pulled out and back, and a gorgeous cluster of brown dogtooth crystals came loose from the vug and boulder. Here is the boulder after I have opened up the vug some…I will post photos of the cluster a little later….

…and some of the vug itself after I had halfway emptied it…this boulder is about five feet tall, and that vug was about 2 feet deep and every bit of fifteen inches wide….about a foot high in front…..

…in the image below, the cluster on the right is what I pulled out first to reveal the vug….the cluster on the left was the next one waiting for me inside the vug, has a nice dogtooth sticking up on the right side there….looks like a blade sticking out….

…it took me the better part of an hour to clean out the vug…after that I wandered back up the middle of that depression and found some breathtaking chalcedony type chunks of what looked like red and yellow druse with poker chips embedded in them…I`m describing them after the fact of cleaning them up, but when looking at them with the dirt and dust all over them, all I could tell was that they looked like chalcedony and were red and yellow colored….I found about half a dozen of them….

…they were in the last bag I cleaned up, yesterday, so I will try and get some photos of them tomorrow to show you what they look like cleaned up. By this time it was approaching 11 am and getting hot…so I grabbed the bags and headed for the truck, having to make a couple of trips back up to get some of the chalcedony chunks, wrapping them in my t shirt as I was by then, out of wrapping cloths. By the time I got back down to the truck, and got Onyx inside in the ac, and those beauties wrapped up in bubble wrap, and changed into clean clothes, I was pretty done in, and had only covered a third of the pile. I decided to return and see if I could check the rest of the pile the next day. I had no other plans.

Onyx and I did the same thing the next morning, only getting an earlier start this time, this time finding an ever prettier sunrise on the way, near some old stockyards enveloped in layers of fog with the sun rising over the top….

…then I found it evolving some and shot the sun rising up over a small barn in front of us at the the next intersection….

…and catching some foggy sunrise scenes on down the road too….

…arriving to find the quarry enshrouded in fog once more. I climbed up to the top of the pile once again and began finding dogtooth crystals all over the place along the top of the pile, and every five to ten feet were smaller boulders with clusters of poker chips covering them…and loose ones in the dirt and loose rocks below….I didn`t take my camera up there with me this time, but I recall finding about five pockets embedded in the dirt under a few boulders. I was able to split one boulder open and found the interior of the two halves coated with sprays of brown dogtooth crystals. here are those two haves with the spray of dogtooths inside one of them…

…and some more images of the chunks of red calcite druse that I found laying all over the place as well, must have come out of huge pockets when the blast occurred, they were literally laying all over the place…and in boulder vugs too….

…and then I found a boulder up there at the top that had some beautiful clusters of crystals on the top…I wasn`t sure I would be able to chip them out, they looked like they were solid but lo and behold, they came right off the top with just a few whacks on the hammer, and I was astounded….here they are all cleaned up with just a little bit of damage to the ends of them…

…and I found this one down in a pocket in the dirt nearby….

and here are some of the many nice dogtooths that I found in those dirt pockets and vugs….the nicest one being this plate that I was able to chip out of one of the boulder vugs…

Another great day that wrapped up a great holiday weekend for me…Onyx and I packed up and headed home by 11:30 am and rested up the rest of the day. Hope everyone else had a nice holiday weekend too !!

if you have any questions or wanna say hi, give me a shout at jwjphoto7@gmail.com

First Field Trip For Two Young Rockhounds

Posted on August 27, 2015 by jwj

Earlier this summer I was contacted by good rockhound friends Matthew and Carolyn Lybanon of the Memphis Club MAGS, they emailed to tell me that they would be up in the St Louis area the weekend of August 22nd and 23rd and wondered if I could take them rockhunting on Sunday the 23rd. After checking the calendar to make sure I was off that weekend, I answered them and said I would love to take them rockhunting that day. They were interested in finding some dogtooth calcite crystals so I knew exactly where I would take them, the secret spot and MFQ. In the weeks leading up to their visit, I drove down to both locations and did some hunting and digging to see if I could spot some specific locations where we might open up a pocket.

During one of those visits I found out that Onyx likes to swim, one of the quarries has some water holes that are about three feet deep on one end…the only problem with that is that I have to give him a bath a day or two later as that water has been there a while and is a bit on the dirty stale side of things, but that`s no big deal either, he smells better and I get a good workout in doing so.

A few weeks ago, Tina from the BE Clement Mineral Museum in Marion, Kentucky, contacted me and told me that she had received a visit from a family located in Waterloo, Illinois, and there was a young man in that family that was starting out as a rockhound and looking for some assistance…she provided me with their contact information and I made contact with Mike Sabo last week, soon after they returned from their vacation. Mike told me his son Cianan was 12 years of age and just getting started collecting rocks and minerals and that they had not been out on any field trips as of yet. I asked them if they would like to go with us on the 23rd and after checking with the rest of his family, Mike said they would love to join us. I let them know what tools and clothing to bring and we were set for their first field collecting trip.

Last week I was working with a new guy named Josh and while talking to him, found out that he likes to collect rocks and minerals, but he too, had never been out on an actual field collecting trip, so I invited him along as well and he was able to go with us also. Sunday morning rolled around finally and Josh was the first to show up about 7:30 am….he, Onyx, and I had just returned from McDonald`s where we picked up some breakfast, and we were met at my house by Mike and Cianan. Luckily they had already stopped for breakfast and had no problem coming inside to talk with us while we wolfed down our hot cakes & sausage patties, while we waited for the Lybanon family to arrive. Matthew, Carolyn, and daughter Julie were due to arrive about 8 am, which they did, and then Alan, Debbie, and the twins arrived about 20 minutes later, finding most of us out in the backyard touring the rock gardens, and then walking inside to look at the rest of the collection including the dogtooth room. Everyone also got to meet Onyx and discover what a cute attention ham he is.

Soon after, we loaded up and headed to the secret spot, arriving soon with cloudy skies and cool temps still intact. Mike and Alan were driving vans, so we had to take it a bit easy going down the road at the secret spot due to the road being washed out in a few places…I even had Josh jump out of my truck and move a basketball sized boulder in the middle of the road as we were descending down the steep part of the hill. I had assured them the road was solid earlier so we had no problems, acquiring just a little bit of red clay paint is all. Soon after arriving and gearing up, everyone spread out to look for crystals and pockets….and Onyx naturally headed for the water holes….

…I took Alan over to a pocket that I had located two weeks before and showed him how the pocket expanded back into the hillside, explaining that with a small sledge hammer and chisel, he could prob get back into the deeper pocket and pull out some nice crystals and clusters. I left him there as he started hammering away, and headed to the other side to see if I could help others locate some likely looking areas to find crystals loose on top and what to watch for in terms of potential pockets. Cianan and his Dad were already checking out some old pockets and finding some loose crystals laying around on top. Josh called out and I walked over to where he was standing over a rocky bank with a ledge of poker chips embedded in the gravel and what appeared to be some openings in the dolomite ledge…he indicated he would work it but would appreciate some help, so I looked around and spotted Alan at another location and asked if he would like to help Josh work it…Alan came right over and teamed up with Josh to see how deep the pocket would go….

…I heard Carolyn and Debbie talking behind me and looked over my shoulder to see them checking for some sign of a pocket on the ground about thirty feet away…they were looking in an area that I had found several floor pockets over the past few years….

…and now that everyone was looking around and digging in, I grabbed my gloves and mattox and began to see if I could find a good pocket for them as well….soon after, I was joined by Cianan and we started digging into a couple of likely spots….

…I got a chance to talk to him for a bit and found out he was a pretty sharp young man and totally into searching for pretty crystals and minerals. Back at the house, right before we left, I gave him a couple of flats of crystals from the Viburnum Trend area mines that a friend had given me the week before…I had cleaned them up and got them sparkling again with some super iron out just last weekend. We were able to find some shallow pockets of druse and poker chips but no big pockets opened up for us…Josh and Alan pursued the pocket on the bank as far as they were able to and then wandered off to explore other options….I took a water break about an hour later and spotted Josh on the wall on the far side, looking for signs of crystals and pockets….

…and looked back and saw that Cianan was still hammering away looking for a pocket…a good sign of a dedicated rockhound in the making….

…then I heard some more hammering in the other direction and spotted Alan hard at work with two sidewalk supervisors behind him directing his every move….

…he was working some old pockets that I had discovered about a year ago, another location with potential to find more if a guy is willing to work and look for the pockets, moving a lot of rock to do so….

…in the meantime, Josh was down along the wall in the area that I had located several good dogtooth pockets during 2014…

…and Cianan continued to look for pockets and crystals in the clay dirt….

…by this time it was nearly 1:30 and we had been digging a few hours there, and we decided to drive on down to MFQ and see what we could find there…Alan and Debbie decided they were going to head on home to Memphis tho as they had a short night of rest in St Louis and were worn out now…and Mike and Cianan decided to head home as well, so the Lybanon`s followed Josh and I down to the quarry as soon as everyone else peeled off on to other highways. Josh took a nap while I drove south and soon we arrived …I had received word from my good friend Jim that much of the higher bench material had been dozed off to the bottom, so when we arrived, we found a huge pile of rock leading up to the bench above like a giant stairway…..

…we all walked over to the base of the pile and were pleasantly surprised to start seeing alot of red boulders and small chunks of red druse with poker chips and many with dogtooth crystals in vugs on the boulders too…..

…Carolyn took some of these home with her, she was ecstatic to find some beautiful stuff here….she likes to surface collect and this place was a dream come true for a surface collector like her that day….

I grabbed my new three pound hammer and chisels…my old ones were buried under quite a bit of tailings dirt in the old pit at the Eureka Mine by the trackhoe operator that we had problems with at the last machine dig….and I began cobbing down some of these boulders, as Josh decided to climb up the pile and see what he could find on top….

…joined by Julie down at the far end who was walking around on the base of the pile looking for more crystals too….and it was about this time that the sun finally made an appearance with the cloud cover rolling away….

..and about halfway up, Josh stopped a few times, finding some nice small clusters of poker chips intertwined into each other and successfully tossed them to the soft sand bottom near my truck to pick up later and wrap up to take home….yes Virgil, I was able to convince him to wrap them up before placing them into his backpack….

…about an hour later, Matthew, Carolyn, and Julie decided to head home, a five hour drive ahead of them yet to Memphis, and Josh and I wrapped up shortly after as well, the heat taking its toll on me and sapping my remaining strength for cobbing any remaining boulders. By this time, we had the back end of the truck completely packed with wrapped specimens, Onyx was soaking up the ac in the cab for the past hour, and we were ready to cool down, so we loaded up and headed north to Rocky Falls to do just that….

…one of those beautiful treasures of the Missouri Ozarks that some folks don`t know about…there were several locals there when we arrived, sitting out in the shallow edge of the pool in front of the base of the falls while their kids were sliding down the falls into the deeper base pool…..

…we were there about 30 minutes and then headed on up the road for home…about ten miles down the road, coming down a hill, we spotted a beautiful doe and two spotted fawns in a field on the right side of the road…I slowed down and shot through the windshield to capture them…..so pretty…..

…all in all a great day, albeit a long one, but full of so many enjoyable moments and time well spent with good friends….does it get any better than this ??? I doubt it.

James

jwjphoto7@gmail.com

Summer Break 2015

Posted on July 31, 2015 by jwj

Sorry folks for not updating my blog site sooner, but I have been taking a break from the heat that came on strong in July, staying inside and working on my collection, adding to it here and there, and cleaning up the quartz I collected in Arkansas the weekend of July 4th and the fluorite that we found at the Eureka Mine during our second machine dig end of June. I still have some cleaning to do on the fluorite, having completed step one with the Super Iron Out and now moving some pieces to the diluted down Muriatic Acid solution soon. I`m not even sure that Step 2 will remove the coating that is covering some of the cubes, because quite frankly, I am not even sure what the coating is made up of, but Muriatic Acid is as far into the cleaning process as I will go, so if that doesn`t clean it off, then it will just remain on the cubes. Here are some of the cubes cleaned up well by the Super Iron Out process…keep in mind, these are mostly small sized clusters, many of them smaller than palm sized and some are only the size of a golf ball….I used one of my high power halogen flashlights behind them to backlight them with…..

…and here are some of the quartz crystals I brought back from Arkansas the weekend of July 4th…some of these are available if anyone is interested and I have some small yard rocks available too. I have some local friends that like quartz for their rock gardens like I do, which is why I brought a few more back this trip…..I can send them to you by flat rate box if you are interested in some….the first four photos show the yard rocks….

…and these are medium sized clusters of quartz from Collier Creek Mine…I purchased them from my friends Bill and Faith who now operate a rock shop about ten miles east of Mt Ida on Hwy 280, called Blue Moon Crystals…they have the best crystal baskets around too…

..and an assortment of crystals including some smokey quartz crystals from DeGray Lake area….

…and this palm sized cluster of smokey herkimers from Lake Greeson….

…and this plate and small cluster of quartz with green chloride crystals too….

Machine Dig at Eureka Mine 2015 – 02

Posted on July 13, 2015 by jwj

Five days after visiting with Ian at MFQ on his way home from New York state, I was picking him up at Lambert International Airport in St Louis. I worked the night before and caught a few hours sleep Friday morning, then drove down to pick him up…his plane got in earlier than it was scheduled to, so he had to wait on me an extra 20 minutes…then we headed east and south to Marion, Kentucky, for my second machine dig this year. My buddy Pete Stoeckel, from near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, drove down to join and dig with us in search of a fluorite vein at the Eureka Mine. Our intent, as always, was to help the Clement Mineral Museum staff and board of directors, locate additional digging locations that provide opportunities for rockhounds who come to dig there each month. We had performed some preliminary digging there in May and wanted to expand upon that and see what more we could locate along a vein we uncovered back then…that had been machine dig part one and this was machine dig, part two. In May, five of us split up the cost of the trackhoe, and this time there would be four of us, one absent member who was injured a few days before but donated to our cause to make it easier on us. We stopped in Paducah for fuel at the Pilot Truck Stop and I noticed to the south of the city, in the direction we were proceeding, it looked like rain…so far we had not encountered any on our trip……

I called Tina as soon as we got back on I-24 and headed that way, and it`s a good thing I did, cause she told us we would need to find an alternate route in there due to a broken natural gas line in the area of Crane that had Hwy 641 completely shut down. I told her that I recalled a highway at the turn off to Patti`s Inn and Suites, where Phil and Shirley always stay at, and that highway would take us north to Hwy 60 at Salem, and we could then turn east to Marion. She confirmed that, and I told her we would see her soon. Ian wanted to study the Eureka Mine maps a bit before the dig the next morning, which is why we were headed to the museum, thinking the maps would be there. Pete called to say that he was at the hotel and was going to take a little nap, asked that we call when we arrived at the hotel and he would be ready soon after for supper at the Oasis Steakhouse next door.

Bill Frazer called us next and told us to just come to his house instead, because he had the maps at his home office. About thirty minutes later, we arrived at his beautiful house and walked out to his office. We sat down and Bill pulled out some various maps for Ian to look over and then made some copies for him to take with us and study later at the hotel. Bill then gave us a tour of his house, the living room is at the back of the house and is a huge great room, like in log homes, with a stone staircase to the kitchen on one side and a beautiful wooden staircase to bedrooms on the other side, plus there is a huge stone fireplace on one wall as well and he has large windows on the back wall of the great room too….the outside siding appeared to be cedar…very beautiful craftsmanship throughout the residence. Tina and her daughter came over and joined us shortly after and we stayed just a bit longer to visit, then headed for the hotel to join Pete for supper. Sherry called her daughter, Sarah, who is a paramedic and dispatcher as well, and she was able to give me directions around the gas line snafu that led us around it and back to Hwy 641…she also said that by morning, the highway would be re-opened to normal traffic. We only had one problem navigating the backroads she provided directions for…there were no roadsigns where there needed to be, so I called Bill, told him where we were, and he told us how to get out of there, and about twenty minutes later we arrived at the Days Inn at Kuttawa. I stay at this hotel all the time, it`s next door to a couple of gas stations and a truck stop, but also next door is the Oasis Southwest Grill and Steakhouse, home of great food and atmosphere. It`s also in a wet county, where most counties north, east, and south of there are dry counties, and they have a variety of beers and wines inside if you are into that type of thing. Pete and Ian are beer connisseurs and so it was a perfect fit for them. We have all ate there before and really enjoy it.

I tried to call Pete as soon as we got there, but he didn`t answer and I found out why a few minutes later as I walked up to my room….he was outside his room without his phone. He and I caught up on things while waiting for Ian to freshen up and then we all headed to the Oasis for some good food and fellowship…they had a live band singing outside, but it was a bit warm for us, so we sat inside to cool off a bit. An hour later, after some good pork chops for me, seafood for Ian, and bbq brisket for Pete, and catching up on everything plus plans for the next day, we retired to our rooms for a good nights rest. Pete had the longest drive down, about fifteen hours, so I`m sure he was very tired and wanted to hit the hay fast…we planned to get up and go to breakfast in Fredonia the next morning at 6 am. After checking my email, I too hit the hay soon after the news and slept solid as a rock. We stopped off at Brenda`s for breakfast, a place Jeff Deere had recommended to us for great biscuits and gravy…and he was true to his word…it was a great place to eat…however, that was their last day open there, it was for sale and the owners were retiring for health reasons.

We headed on over to the mine, catching up to the trackhoe on its way over there as well, in Marion on bypass route…the truck escorting it and the truck carrying it pulled off into a big open field at the top of the hill and we continued on down to the mine, parking, getting our boots on, tools ready and I took some photos as well….here is Ian and Pete down in the new pit area looking things over…

…and while down there looking around, we heard the trackhoe fire up and start down the hill, so I told them I would go open the gate for him, as he had to cross the creek below the bridge we drive across, due to the weight of the machine. It took him awhile to get down there to the bottom of the hill cause he had to stop and open three wire gaps and close them behind him…finally I saw him coming thru the trees….

…and then he pulled up behind our vehicles and stopped to talk and visit with us…I told Danny this time he would be directed by Ian as well as myself when Ian was busy, and soon enough Ian had him digging in the new pit, expanding it a little wider for us to get a better idea of the depth of fluorite….

…and within moments he was hitting bedrock and pulling some pretty good sized boulders out of the muck, as Ian keeps an eye out for signs of fluorite…..

…and soon Ian sees something and stops the work so he can jump in and check things out as Pete stands by….

…Ian saw some signs of fluorite there and had the operator continue to dig out the muck….and pretty soon he was down to bedrock and even more big boulders…

…and after raking the top layer a bit with the teeth, we found some nice plates of fluorite underneath and in the mix….

…and after pulling out some nice cubes from this mix, Ian checked the hole to the side and found a few nice vugs of even more cubes, so we spent a few more minutes cleaning them out while the operator moved some tailings around to fill in the old pit and create some room to maneuver the big machine….

…and here are a few of those plates of cubes covered in mud that we recovered from the pockets and vugs in the photos above…we put them on the tailgate of my truck and put the better stuff we found later on, on some sheets of plywood that were there laying around….I apologize for not using flash in the deep shade for better photos….

It took all three of us digging thru the muck about thirty minutes to pull out some more plates and cubes before we could get the operator to start digging once again…this time it appeared that he had tied into some better looking material, maybe more of the vein as well from what we were seeing this time….it def looked more promising….

…the next thing you know, he dug up a pretty good sized boulder and set it up on top near the road…indicating that we should take a look at it, so look we did, and we liked what we saw….a nice vug of big deep purple cubes….Ian and I soon left it with Pete to cob down….something Pete is good at doing….

Ian had the trackhoe operator continue to dig out the new pit on the old pit side, just to see how far that bench went back toward the old saddle and see if there were anymore veins of fluorite running through it as well….

…..that saddle running across the old pit from where the pump sat above it to the road side, had produced soooooo many pockets and vugs that again produced soooo many plates of beautiful plates of deep purple cubes and several folks had worked it and know exactly what I am talking about here…Pete himself had worked that saddle and brought out many plates, some after injuring his hand to the point of fracturing a bone in his hand and continuing to pound those plates out the next day…its no wonder we refer to him as Superman these days.

On another note, the cubes that we pulled from the last pockets, were now placed on the sheets of plywood, they appeared to have some nice cubes in them, and we later found out, some of them were sleepers too…we separated the really super nice pieces we occasionally pulled from the muck and placed them on another sheet of plywood all to themselves….

A few minutes later, while Pete was still working on the boulder up above us, the trackhoe operator pulled out a huge and long boulder from the depths of the new digging area…Ian clambered over it and asked him to turn it over cause it appeared to have some cubes on the back side…and sure enough it did…not only cubes but very large cubes and a few long vugs and pockets of more cubes too….we called out to Pete and he came down to take a look too….

..and then a few minutes later, Ian dug down at the base of the huge boulder and pulled out a few small plates of big cubes….they were partially covered in some mucky looking stuff, but you could still see some nice cubes there too….we were excited cause the cubes we were seeing were definitely getting bigger…..

….so he continued to dig down near the base of the boulder and pull out even more, plus the cubes in the vugs were looking pretty nice too….

…and with all the finds from this one huge boulder, Ian took a few last looks around the base of the boulder just for peace of mind…..

Due to the number of vugs on and around the huge boulder, Pete and Ian both worked on liberating more cubes from them together….while the trackhoe operator moved the tailings around to create more room to maneuver once again….

…they said, James you gotta come see this, it`s loaded with fluorite….I walk over and sure enough it is, but now I have two guys facing the rock and covering it up partially…still working it over….I`m thinking how do I try to shoot this thing with them blocking me out…oh well I`ll just shoot it and if anyone says anything, well I will just cross that bridge when I get to it….lol….

..then they said to me, holie cow, you have to come over here and take alook inside this one vug, the cubes in there are humongous…..

…and believe me, even though I didn`t get a photo of them, there were indeed some very large cubes up inside that vug…guessing four to five inches square, maybe six….two or three of them anyway….deep enough purple that one would think they were black even….Ian and Pete continued to work the bench and vein while the trackhoe operator continued to move things around up above….

…and it was about then, that I noticed Bill Frazer coming up the road, he was brush hogging on his tractor and doing a mighty good job of it I might add….I asked Bill if it was okay to have the trackhoe operator push the tailing piles into the old pit to fill it back up and he was very fine with that…

….so while Ian and Pete were working on the bench some more, I had him do just that up by the road, he also took out the small tree that was half dead and laid it down into the old pit then covered it up with the tailing piles ….

…then I walked him up the road a bit to do some more digging on the other side of the road in an attempt to try and locate the fault line…however after three deep digs down, we were unable to find anything other than spotty sandstone and gave up. After a short break, Ian decided to have him dig the pit a little longer instead….

…and during the course of this particular section of the dig, he located several glass bottles which appeared to be quite old…

…the last thing we had the trackhoe operator do while there, was fill in the old pit with the tailing piles left over….he did a pretty good job of it….keep in mind, you can still dig over there, it will be tailings you will be digging down into and they may have some good material in them still…..

and during the time he was filling in the last water holes in the pit, this big shiny green frog took off for wetter pastures as did this huge turtle…they both successfully moved over to the creek very fast….

..and soon he had the old pit looking pretty level….

…before he left tho, the roadside end of the new pit suffered a partial collapse, so we had him fill that end in to strengthen and stablize the walls. while digging it out earlier, he had severely undercut the base of the roadside wall, which led to the weakening of that wall about 30 minutes later, when it fell inward. Be very careful if you are digging down on that end of the new pit.

Here are a few vugs that we found along the way in some of the boulders there….

…and there is a lot of material to be found in the HUGE tailing pile on the south side of the new pit now…I say HUGE because it is quite tall and long both…email me at jwjphoto7@gmail.com and I can tell you where to look in that pile for some nice material. We left quite a bit in the piles for everyone to find. If you are a hard rock miner, concentrate on the bench at the bottom of the new pit, and that is where you will find the nicer plates and pockets. Happy Hunting !!

MFQ in June 2015 With Ian

Posted on July 12, 2015 by jwj

Two weekends in a row, I was down at MFQ…once on my own in my new truck and the second time with my buddy Ian and my new buddy Onyx. The first trip down there, I had received a call from my buddy Jim that some blasting had taken place a day or two before, turned out to be the coved wall again but taking out more of the center wall too….

….so I was able to find some nice pockets along the wall, including some filled with green poker chips, and some filled with nestle chocolate brown dogtooths and black dogtooths, so I re-positioned my truck closer to those pockets in case I started filling bag after bag with some pretty crystals….

….in fact, I was up along the wall and working on cleaning out the third pocket when my buddy Ian called me from Denver, to see what I was up to…and I told him what I was up to…he reminded me that he was going to be stopping off a week later to rockhunt with me on his way back home from New York state…I promised him that I would leave him some material there. A few minutes later tho, I had located a pocket up higher on the wall than I could reach…..center of the photo below….it was about ten feet up from the pile….

…..so I returned to my truck and got my extendable handle rake, then returned to the wall, climbed up on four rocks I stacked up…had forgotten to bring my ladder that day with me…and then reached up to the pocket with my rake and gently moved it around, pulling down a few small black colored poker chip crystals, as well as raining down a few small pebbles on me too…

….luckily my hard hat deflected many of those from me..and soon I was bumping up against something more substantial in the pocket with the rake…I pulled it to the edge ot the pocket so I could look at it, and liking what I saw, very carefully snagged it in the jaws of the rake turned upside down, and lowered to my waiting gloved hands…

….the photos of the pocket above were taken after the fact…i was unable to see what was above me nor in the pocket itself, had to feel around with the rake and hope for the best…luckily I was able to pull out the best without any harm coming to it or me…

…I also found what looked like a few bat caves along the wall near the base of the pile…but Ian later determined they were prob bird nests inside them cause he was pulling out straw and bits of debris and twigs from them….

…later in the afternoon, storm clouds started rolling in, so I decided to pack my bags and vamoose back toward home….

..no doubt that it had been a pretty nice day for collecting there and I was happy with what I found….

…the following week, Ian met me at MFQ and we decided to tackle that one pocket again…my buddy Jim brought us a nice ladder and we were able to climb right up to the pocket…since I had pulled the nice cluster out the week before, I let Ian cleanout the pocket and take home whatever he wanted to….

…while he was chipping out some black dogtooth crystals from the pocket, I looked down below and saw my new buddy dog Onyx, strolling around the base of the pile…he never did stray too far, which was fine with me…since this was his first official rockhunting trip….

…and while Ian was chipping out a few for himself, I discovered some nice ones in the pile itself…like this big one that I dug out right below Ian a few feet….

..and while it didn`t go home with me, there were a lot of little ones underneath and around it in the loose dirt that did go home with me. After working on the black dogtooth pocket, Ian made his way down to the bat caves next and worked on them for awhile…

…I headed home about noon, stopping off to see my miner friend Dave and Ian headed home to Denver from there at the same time…getting into Denver around midnight.

New Addition to my Rock Garden

Posted on July 12, 2015 by jwj

One of the last trips Missy made with me was down to St Louis County to pick up a huge Dogtooth Calcite Crystal Cluster with Chalcopyrite and Galena Lead attached to it, that a guy was selling…he was downsizing from a house to an apartment and could not take it with him…he had purchased it from a friend of mine at the Park Hills Show a few years ago and had it in his front flower garden. He had told me it was quite heavy and recommended that I bring someone with me to help lift it into my truck, so I contacted my nephew Zack and he said he would be glad to help me with it. I picked up Zack at Eureka and drove on over to Dennis` residence in Fenton to pick it up. I backed up my truck into his driveway as close as I could get, which left about twenty feet for Zack and I to carry it…luckily that was as far as we had to go with it, cause Dennis was right, it was pretty darn heavy with all that galena lead attached to it, and we had to handle it carefully due to all the crystals on the front face of it…it measures about 18 to 20 inches high and about 15 inches wide, at least ten inches thick, if not more. Luckily Zack had his wheaties that morning and was able to help me lift it just fine. My neighbor Glenn helped me unload it when I returned home with it, and I was able to get the truck quite close to the spot I intended to set it down at…here it is in that spot on display….