smashed to find Herkimer diamonds.
Project people may not see anything interesting in other people’s crafts, but they respect the obsession.
At our week in family camp everyone got a big laugh over my sister’s and my craziness over rocks. But their laughs are understanding, because most of them have their quirks, too.
My sister’s rocks are small, clean, lovely and ladylike. Mine are big and heavy and dirty.
Several years ago she got into polishing pretty rocks: “I had to have something to do during the pandemic!”’ she chirped. She has not one, not two but three rock tumblers that went for weeks at a time.
I love to get flat rocks to use as stepping stones in the garden. I spread them out over the floors of my car to bring them home. That explains why the floors of my car cannot get quite clean, and other gardening implements and plants explain why the higher parts of my car cannot get quite clean.
I’ve found a road off Highway 81 in northern Pennsylvania where I can always find several great flat rocks. I’m always all hyped to go there and load up with exciting finds. My daughter hates that stop but has to put up with it.
There’s a rock mine in Georgia my sister stops at whenever she has to go to the airport. She can get a 5-gallon bucket of pretty rocks for $20.
“They see me coming!” she said, miming a quick walk with arms pumping: “a middle-aged lady with a hobby and money to spend!”
I make garden pathways out of my rocks. “What do you do with your rocks?” I asked.
“I have them in bowls around the house!” she replied cheerfully.
Her passion for polishing rocks lasted a couple of years, and then it faded away and now she paints.
The next day the family went to the Russell Family Mine for Herkimer diamonds. Herkimer diamonds are exceptionally clear 18-faceted quartz crystals.
We all sifted through dirt, chiseled away at rocks, and smashed at rocks with sledgehammers, all in search of the lovely crystals.
It was a fantastic activity for the whole family (especially because we had brought lawn chairs and books for resting times).
My sister was the most dedicated and furious searcher and the last to want to go. She said she could have spent another couple of hours smashing rocks. Her love for pretty, shiny rocks had resurfaced.
As for me, I did find three good Herkimer diamonds, smashed up a rock my daughter had found to release a few Herkimer diamonds for her, and took with me three large pieces of interesting looking chert (a striped rock). They weren’t stepping stone material, but I could just set them among the flowers and appreciate them.
And on the way back, my cousin took me to a river where he goes to get flat rocks when he wants them, and he helped me load the floor wells of my car.
at a time.
