365Caws is now in its 16th year of publication. If I am unable to post daily, I hope readers who love the natural world and fiberarts will seize those days to read the older material. Remember that this has been my journey as well, so you may find errors in my identifications of plants. I have tried to correct them as I discover them. Likewise, I have refined fiberarts techniques and have adjusted recipes, so search by tags to find the most current information. And thank you for following me!
Monday, January 17, 2022
Walker Valley Material
Day 96: More years have passed than I care to count since I dug these specimens out of a hard-rock quarry in northern Washington. They are a few of the better examples of the material which my husband and I collected from Walker Valley. I am given to understand that the site is still open, but my days of swinging a sledge and prying open cracks are long past, and I still bear a few scars inflicted by flying shards and slivers of dark basaltic matrix. Amethyst and citrine as well as clear quartz crystals were the rewards we sought, my husband hoping for facet-quality pieces (we found a few) while I pursued plates for a mineral display. The calcite roses were a surprise to us both. We had not heard that they were present. To me, they were a greater prize than the quartz, having survived truly brutal extraction methods. Although rockhounding at this level is beyond my reach now, the fascination with minerals remains. Like most kids regardless of their chronological age, I still come home from outings with my pockets full of rocks.
Labels:
amethyst,
calcite,
mineral specimens,
Walker Valley
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