Woody,
Really, really nice finds.
I think a little S.I.O. would take care of that iron staining.

I agree Chris,

I have high hopes for what SOI will be able to do. I have three “test” pieces soaking in it right now. I think I will inspect them after 24 hours and see how the process is coming along and increase the time/strength as needed. It is a very, very weak solution but I want to start off that way. I can always increase the amount if I need be. There is some little Iron cubes on some of the microcline that I am fearful will be eaten away if I use too strong of a mixture. Not sure if current outside temperatures will have an effect on this process or not. Will have to wait and see. I'll post pics in the Crystal cleaning fourm if I have any success. Later

Hi All,

I haven’t posted up in a while but have I have been taking advantage of this unusually warm winter and have managed to get out in the hills every weekend. When I last left off I had discovered a new area that was producing some promising crystals and rough combos. Well I have continued to work that pocket and continue to be amazed each time I go back. It started out with some rough surface crystals and then it became a spider-hole and it just seems that it never stops producing. Even the Microcline plates are amazing. I have found many smokies and a few are in great shape, some of the crystals are larger than a football. So much material has came out of this hole I that I am unable to carry it all back and have a nice rock collection right there on the side of the hill. Last weekend it finally started to give up Fluorite. It is very colorful and even shows up on some of the combos. The pictures do not show the same color as what the material looks like in your hand. In the pics it looks green, but in hand it has a very soft blue to it. When I left on Sunday I could look way back in the top of the hole and still see more fluorite. Some of the smokie crystals are very pale and I am not sure but I think they might be showing a slight tint of Amethyst in them. I am sure I see purple in some of them. I can’t wait to get back up there in the morning and hit it again. I am taking my niece and nephew and hopefully make a day out of it.


I have taken a huge amount of pictures, way too many to post up. Here is just a few.
Later, Woody.

Here in this next picture you can see some purple on the smokies to the left. There just might be amethyst in there somewhere. Also in the same picture is a small piece of microcline that is red or pinkish. I wonder if there might be some Rhodocrosite, (sp?) in that hole as well.

The next two pictures are of that fluorite. They just don’t look as green as it seems in these pics. Some of these are real nice display pieces. I’m going to need a bigger cabnet.

I think I will call this hole, "The Spider Pocket". It has been very memorable and worthy of being named. Have fun, Woody.

Sweet finds Woody!! Love the smokeys and the Fluorites. "The Spider Pocket" , you crack me up. Congrats on the great pocket!

I had to get out today and take advantage of this nice December weather we are having. It was chilly to start with but soon warmed up to freezing. I actually started out trying to do a little small game hunting but seen no birds or rabbits so that didn’t pan out. On the way back to the truck I saw a spot that looked like it would produce some Septarian Nodules. I just had to check it out and am glad I did.

Here is a video about Colorado Septarian Nodules. Happy Holidays Everyone, Woody.

http://youtu.be/tbrVE3Xel2Q

Great vid Woody.
Not sure about others but that was really educational for me!

Sweet finds Woody! They should glow under a UV light. Some of those are pretty big, are you planning on cutting a few open or keeping them whole for show? Great picture of Aspen on the big one!

That's a nodule too?
I thought Woody was giving Aspen too much fiber.

Chris........ Aspen is really fun to watch in the videos. She seems to get almost as excited as you do Woody to see what has been pulled out.

Hope you had a great Christmas and are staying warm.

Deviated from the norm a little bit and spent the day playing with the new detector.

After a long awaited “saving” period I finally got another detector last week. I did a lot of looking around and decided that the AT Pro was the correct choice for me. I have owned two previously so I pretty much knew what I was looking for. But of course you never know what you got till you take it out in the field and put it to the test. I must say that I was impressed from the start. This detector has great depth capabilities and it finds small stuff that my older ones just couldn’t. It doesn’t pin-point as well as one I had in the past. I have to dig bigger plugs and spend more time searching for the item than what I was used to but hopefully that will improve with time.

This detector is mainly for coins, jewelry, and relics. It will find gold but the better gold detectors operate on a different frequency. It has been my experience that if you try to use a gold detector to find coins you dig mostly trash. A good coin detector is better suited to sort out the junk. It can even indicate what the coin type is before you dig it; new penny, old penny, nickel, dime, quarter ect.. ect… unfortunately there is still a lot of trashy items that fall into theses same categories. Pull tabs and bottle caps are the arch enemy of the metal detector and lots of people get discouraged because of how many they dig. However, they register in the same range as nickels and jewelry so if you are finding tabs & caps you are actually doing it right.

Last weekend I found a 1941 wheat back penny and a 1940 Colorado License plate. There is a vacant field behind my house and it used to be a small farm. “I even boarded three horses there myself at one time”. The house was built in 1914. It stood tall and proud for a long time but a few years ago they bulldozed it all down and sold the land to a developer. They are going to hack it in pieces and put houses on it as soon as the economy gets better. So that field will be my honey-hole until they do. This weekend however, I went to the city park and spent most of the day digging in the still frozen ground. Did not find anything old but still got some cool finds. The best was $1.05 in clad, a silver necklace, and a ring that really had me going there for a minute. Coming out of the ground it looked 100% gold but after I looked at it I could tell it was only plated. The inscription reads, “18K elect pltd”. Still a cool ring and the stones look shinny, probably real garnets. Have a good one, woody.

Wow... really cool finds Woody!

Nice finds Woody! I really like the "Hello Kitty" character necklace.

I haven't posted up much as of latley because it is mostly a wash, rinse, and repeat cycle of what I did exactly this time last year. Don't want to sound like a broken record and keep repeating myself. I never knew I was so perdictable until I started looking at my previous posts.

Anywhay this weekend I did do something new, I was finally able to get that boat out on the lake and try out the new motor. This was only the 3rd time I've had it out. I've spent all winter trying to get a rebuilt motor put in it. The weather was very warm this Saturday so I grabbed all my gear, "including the dog", and spent the night on the lake. Worked great. We caught a lot of stocker sized fish, nothing to bragg about, but this time of year I'll take it. Can't wait till the weather really warms up and the fishing gets better.

Here is a picture of Aspen. She liked riding on the engine cover. Easy for her to see all around. Have a good one, Woody.

In spite of the recent snow fall I had to get out and take a walk in the hills. I figured the ground would be covered but I could use the time to relocate some tools for future endeavors. As I left the truck the ground was pretty much covered by snow but there was an occasional bare spot. So I chose to pick my way along hitting as many of these bare spots as I could. There wasn’t much open ground but I was rewarded nicely by some awesome surface finds. I didn’t have to dig an inch. These obviously slid down from higher and I will have to do some more scouting around once the ground clears.

I ended up going back to the spider pocket and spent about 4 hours digging some more in that hole. Found some nice Microcline and smokie combos in there as well. I got to say, for it being a snow-day I did alright. Have a good one, Woody.

Here is a few pictures of my surface finds.