My girlfriend and I had a real wilderness trip to Cowichan River the other day, where we found a few rocks, smeared ourselves in clay, swam, threw rocks for dogs to catch and ran into a herd of elk.
Rocks and elk on Cowichan River
Tag: lapidary
Flowerstone haul, reason to go back
Just a few pictures today of the Flowerstone I found while hounding this week inland on Vancouver Island.
Stumbling on Flowerstone
Flowerstone is relatively rare on east coast Vancouver Island beaches, with just a few pieces expected to be found per trip. But I headed inland on a hunch and stumbled on a large deposit of the aptly named porphyry.
Glad to be a lonely rockhound
I went back to a local beach in Nanaimo, Vancouver Island, this morning for a quick rockhound before the heat got too serious. I wasn’t the only one out there, and not even the only one after rocks.
Vancouver Island beach rocks
Had a weird sleep schedule this weekend and couldn’t help myself but get up at the crack of dawn today to pick up some tumbling material at a local beach.
Stumbling on Dallasite
On a whim I decided to check out a local lake today, a secluded one I would hang out at before I got into rockhounding. I didn’t expect to find any good rocks, but I wanted to expand my geological knowledge of the area. It wasn’t long after my girlfriend and I arrived that I picked…
Vibrating to the finish line – Part 2
My batch of Dallasite and other beach stones from Vancouver Island is now 75% of the way finished, with just one more session in my vibratory rock tumbler to go.
Pits, cracks and undercutting: the sad side of rock tumbling
It’s painful to go through your freshly tumbled rocks and hold your breath when you see a great one and then inspect for problems. Sadly, some of my best-looking pieces have suffered from undercutting during the rock tumbling process.
Petrified Wood update, getting the beauty out
Along Lower Mainland river basins I find a lot of what I assume is petrified wood, with the odd piece from the ocean. Some look perfectly like wood and are very striking, but many look quite dull and are harder to positively identify. But tumbling stones can bring out the beauty in them.
Vibrating to the finish line
My Thumler UV10 Rock Tumbler has seen the light of day and I’ve completed the second phase (of at least four) of rock tumbling.