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rock hounds

Have You Spit On Rocks Today?

April 26, 2017 By Kimberly A. Cook 1 Comment

by Kimberly A. Cook                     (Twitter@  WarriorTales)

Distracted easily, that’s me. Finally had a day of sun last Friday and I could hardly make up my mind what to do first. I avoided all the things I “should” do and bolted into the backyard to assess fairy house door construction.

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Love this solar powered fairy door. When you open the door a staircase shows up, but alas, too tall.

The Douglas Fir stump in the middle of the Fairy Rock Garden is going to become a house. With this in mind I have already cut up one of the leftover cedar fence boards for a roof.

Assembly challenges exist on that since I can’t figure out how to nail the pieces together, even with a vice. Think glue first, then nails.

Have been able to de-cone several pine cones to get the shakes ready for the roof, but I digress. Last year I bought a variety of fairy house doors and now was the first opportunity to go outside without a scuba suit on for more than ten minutes and play.

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Very cute Easter Bunny themed door, but would not allow for roof overhang. Don’t think I need to do gutters. We shall see.

Gathered the fairy house door booty and headed out. Tried several different doors and the size problem appeared. Too small or too big. The Goldilocks issue. When I finally figured out the little door with the Welcome sign on it would work the best, I noticed a shiny pretty rock in the special lake rocks.

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Perfect! Even comes with flowers and a window frame. Now have to figure out the entire glue attach thing.

This is how it starts. For us born rock hounds, it was a simple pick up of one rock. That is never enough. Before I knew it I was matching rocks for earring sets. Like when am I going to get my butt in gear to do that?

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A girl and her bucket of rocks. Life is good.

Never stopped me before, so on I gathered. Ended up using one of the large fairy house doors as a tray. When I had trouble finding exact matches I hauled out the kitty litter plastic bucket still  half-full of leftover rocks. There is another full container since I obviously didn’t know how many rocks I would need. Backup rocks.

While I sat in the sun hunched over the plastic bucket, happiness ensued. One challenge was the lake rocks had been out all winter and were completely rinsed off, not so the ones in the bucket. Dust on these, so this required some spitting to get the true color on some rock specimens.

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Little rock couples, how cute.  Except for one at the top. And before I tripped. But I have the photo.

 

When I finally stopped since the tray was full, it worked well until I tripped on getting up and launched three of the rocks into oblivion, never to be recovered.  Sigh. When baby rocks fall into other rocks and on a cement walkway studded with rocks, forgetaboutit. I did a scan, nada.

Pretty proud of myself I only lost three of the rocks, though. Can use the others as pendants. You betcha.

If you’ve got a rock hound in your family, we’ve got Mother’s and Father’s Day coming up. Go to a local landscape rock place, find the “specialty” rocks and buy a couple pounds. Perfect!

Got rock stories?

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Filed Under: Garden Tagged With: earrings, Fairy Garden, Fairy House Doors, Fairy Rock Garden, jewelry, Kimberly A Cook, landscape rocks, play, rock collecting, rock hounds, Warrior Tales

Back To The Rock Shop?

June 14, 2016 By Kimberly A. Cook 4 Comments

by Kimberly A. Cook                     (Twitter@  WarriorTales)

A great joy of my recent vacation was sharing the Richardson Rock Shop and Ranch with my Mom. She’d heard the stories and seen some pictures, but it’s not the same as being there. It was our second stop after driving over Mt. Hood; had to fuel up with pancakes at the Black Bear Diner in Madras first, before heading to the rock shop. Another excuse to carbo load!

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Enough to make a girl swoon, the geode rock pile!

 

Upon arrival at the rock shop what to my wondering eyes appeared ? A virtual mountain of Moroccan geodes, mine for the picking. Before there had been a small pile of these uncut beauties at the end of the rock slab shopping table. Now it was a virtual mountain. Be still my little geode lov’in heart.

After a tour of the premises to show Mom all the great rock areas, it was time to get on with the geode shopping. Ever helpful handsome cutter guy told me the best geodes were lightweight. With his help I then proceeded to hand weigh and compare about half that rock pile. Almost. My Mom enjoyed the serious nature of this geode picking business from the shop.

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Cutter Guy with the pick of the pile. 

 

Cutter guy tried to get me to break protocol by peeking into some of the geodes which had small broken holes so you could look inside. Told him there were no peeking guidelines when it came to picking the perfect geode. Finally decided on three to try for cutting after deciding only one would not do.

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Fabulous geodes on the half shell! And now for the rock glue geode puzzle to put together. 

 

Ended up with three great specimens, except when the largest one was cut in half, part of the geode broke on the final cut. Sweet sea biscuits! I gathered up the pieces anyway so now I have TWO geode halves to try and piece back together with the special rock glue. Which means when Gate Girl and I head back this Fall to do some serious digging, I’m going to have to go for another large geode to cut. Good thing we’re taking her truck next time. I may need to load up the back with geodes.

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Guard rooster defending the petrified wood block. Notice the committed look in his eye.   

 

Orlando: Hugs and prayers to all the families, friends, law enforcement personnel, emergency responders and medical staff in Orlando, Florida and across the United States affected by this tragedy. Let’s all hug our families and friends and make memories today.

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Making rock shopping memories with Mom. Priceless. And she puts up with me!

 

 

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Filed Under: Travel Tagged With: Black Bear Diner, collecting rocks, geodes, Kimberly A Cook, Madras Oregon, Oregon, Richard Rock Ranch, rock hounds, rock shop, rocks, Warrior Tales

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