A while back a friend, Bill Henn, cut some slabs from some large pieces of picture jasper that I had form the Owyhee area on the Idaho-Oregon border. This weekend I took one of those slabs and freely shaped it to form this cabochon. This material is very easy to work with and I am looking forward to making more cabochons with it.

Today there was an estate and rock collection auction in Nampa, Idaho. Thinking that it would be a fun family activity my wife and I gather up the kid early in the morning and headed to the sale. I figured I would purchase some materials to add to my collection so the day before I made sure I had some cash. One hundred dollars should be enough to get quite a bit of nice rocks right? Boy was I in for a surprised.

When we arrived at the sale we found that there were many boxes and buckets of rocks and many single pieces that were nice specimens. The auction started five minutes early at 9:55. It was explained that they would do a table of boxes at a time and the high bidder would have choice of the boxes. Most of the boxes contained material that could be found within 50 to 100 miles of the sale. The surprise came when the bidding immediately went to eighty dollars a box. After the first round the auctioneer started over and the bidding went up to seventy dollars a box. This continued until the price per box got down to fifteen dollars. Finely the price was getting to my level. Just then the auctioneer had the boxes pushed to the next table and started over. The second table’s bidding started at $170 per box. This bid came from a man in the back of the crowd. When he won I could not believe it when he asked “What was I bidding on”. This is the point where I realized I was way out of my league. These high prices continued the whole time I was at the sale. At 11:30 it was time leave without purchasing one rock.

After leaving the auction we went to Stringer’s Gem Shop to purchase a couple of 100 grit sanding belts. Actually I this was not planned but when we were in the area my wife assumed that was where we were going. When she mentioned it I figured it would be a good idea to get the belts since I go threw them fairly fast. When we arrived at the gem shop the stringers were surprised that we were not at the auction. We told them of the situation they explained that they figured that would be the case and that was why they weren’t there. All of us had a good laugh and conversation about the auction.

It is amazing how time goes by. Saturday I attended the second field trip of the year for the Owyhee Gem and Mineral Society. It seems like it was just last week that we went on the trip to Reynolds Creek.

This trip started for me just after 7:00 Saturday morning when Jason and his fried Peter arrived at my house. We loaded my gear in Jason’s Jeep then stood around and talked for a bit. We didn’t have to be in Caldwell to meet up with the rest of the club until 8:00. The weather was a bit chilly but better than I expected since the forecast was for a very cold morning. At 7:30 we took off for O’Conner Field house in Caldwell. We then stood and talked with the other club members from 8:00 to 8:30. At this point it felt colder than an hour ago at my house. At 8:30 the group started the trip to the clubs pink plume agate claim.

Upon arriving at the claim I grabbed my tools and headed to the bottom of the hill. Jason and Peter just started collecting at the top of the hill where the vehicles were parked. I had to laugh at this because last year I did the same thing and had a full bucket before I reached the bottom of the hill. When I got to the bottom there was so much better material that I dumped out the bucket and started again. This year I was not going to waste the time filling a bucket before getting to the bottom. However I do have to confess that I had picked up a few pieces before reaching the bottom.

As I collect the material I tried to be selective. Carefully I studied each rock before putting it in the bucket or discarding it. After about an hour and a half my bucket was full and I started to work my way up the hill. This is the part of collecting at this site that is not fun. It took me about 20 minutes to haul my bucket to the top. Even though the bucket was full and I was having a rough time getting it to the top I still picked up pieces along the way.

By the time I made it back to the jeep I was exhausted. I had to take a few minutes to rest and to stop the huffing and heavy breathing. I felt like was going to collapse. One of the reasons I started rock hounding was to get exercise. This location has given me the two best workouts so far.

This was the perfect time to stop for lunch. Within minutes Jason and Peter were back at the jeep also. The three of us decided that we would just eat our own lunch at the jeep instead of joining the rest of the club for a potluck. After lunch Peter headed back to hill to retrieve a bucket that he had left behind and to finish caring up a 100 lbs. piece of agate. Jason and I just collected a few more pieces at the top of the hill.

As I searched for more rocks I found a horny toad lizard. Normally these lizards move very fast and are hard to catch. With the temperature being quite low this one was very slow and easy to catch. I wanted to take him home but couldn’t remember if I still had the equipment needed to take care of a lizard. I used to have many reptiles and have sold most of the equipment I had. After taking a few photos I turned the lizard loose.
At around 2:00 we were back on the road heading for Succor Creek to collect thunder eggs. As we drove to this location we could feel that the vehicle was already handling poorly due to the weight of the rocks we already had so we decide to postpone Succor Creek for another day. This was also a good decision because Jason and I were both really tired. I was actually dozing off from time to time.

On our way home we stopped at a small country store that has a facade made of petrified wood, agate and crystals. There were also small pieces of these materials all around on the ground at this store. We also stopped at a rock shop in Adrian Oregon. When we arrived at the rock shop there was nobody around. We could see many piles of rock that looked like it would be fun to dig through. Maybe next time there will be somebody around to let us see what is there.

Once we returned to my house Jason cut a few rocks on my saw. I cut one then decide to call it a day because I was just too tired to continue. After taking a shower I end the day by ordering pizza and watching TV with my wife, a perfect ending to a day of rock hounding.

This past Sunday my friend Jason came over at noon to cut some rocks that he had collected on our last trip to Hog Creek.  I was expecting to be in the garage cutting for a few hours but turned out spending 7 hours.  It is amazing how time flies when having fun.

As Jason cut rocks I work on polishing some of my own rocks.  One piece that I worked on was a very hard piece of agate.  After spending about an hour I was putting on the final polish when the agate somehow caught on the buffing pad.  A loud thud from the slab hitting the water pan and water spraying everywhere followed.  Luckily the damage was minimal.  The slab had cut half way through a brand new 600 grit belt which caused the water spraying.  The belt had only been used for 5 minutes before this happened; this is a great argument for using silican-carbide belts over diamond belts due to the cost of the belt.  The agate had a small piece chipped off and was otherwise undamaged.   I did manage to get a small cut on one of my fingers.  This was one of those cuts where it doesn’t go deep enough to cause bleeding but stings for a few days.

The last part of the day Jason and I change places.  He polished a few of the rocks he had cut and I cut some of my rocks.  The first few rocks I cut were some of the Hog Creek rocks then I went to work on a small bucket of thunder eggs I had collected the day before.  These eggs were from a bed at Succor Creek Park in Oregon that I had not been to before.  There were some different materials in the middle of these eggs that were not present in the other eggs that I had collected in the park.

One egg that I collected is too big to cut on my equipment.  I am very excited about getting it cut.  I can see some patterns on the bottom of the egg that look just like some of the eggs I was able to cut.

The pictures below are of the material I cut and of me cutting a thunder egg.  Jason took the pictures of me.  The rocks are wet and have not been polished.