…If you share the same interest or just want to talk rock,feel free to email me and I’m more than happy to chat. Or if you happen to travel through my part of Oregon, be sure to swing in and say Hello…

The story of a growing addiction

Since the time I could walk I can remember my parents taking me into
the woods camping, fishing and our favorite hobby was collecting shed
antlers. Just like many young kids, I can remember picking up rocks while on
my adventures into the woods. Agates, Jaspers, Petrified Woods, Arrowheads
and more all made it home in my pocket. It wasn’t until the early 1990’s
when I was still in Middle School at the age of 12 or 13 I took a unusual
interest in Gold Prospecting. I worked on a farm and used my pay
checks to buy gold pans, vials, and eventually I saved enough to buy a
sluice box and metal detector. Rather than our normal shed antler collecting
grounds, we found ourselves traveling from the Pacific Ocean at Sixes River
to the east side of Oregon in the Sumpter / Granite area chasing the elusive Gold.
No matter where I went chasing gold, there was always a “cool rock” to be found
and stuffed in my pocket. As time moved along and my gold vials never really
seemed to fill up, I kept acquiring a high interest in Rocks, Gems, and
Minerals and slowly kept bringing home more of these treasures to sort,

clean and pile anywhere I had a empty void.After a year or so of collecting I made a visit to a second hand/antique
store here in my local town and made my first discovery of a stone

called The Thunderegg. I made several visits to this place until I purchased

every last Thunderegg in the wooden box where they rested. These

Thundereggs were already cut to expose the amazing variety of agate

interiors they held and is the start of a personal addiction, and the origin

of my now box upon box full of cut and polished Thundereggs.It was shortly after I caught the rockhound bug I was introduced to a
relative of mine who has been rockhounding for years. During hours

of visits I made to his home I started to learn the steps on how the rock

became the polished jewels you see in every rockshop.

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I met Sara while looking into Ethiopian opals and she had such a nice write up on her site I asked if I could post her article on my blog (above) and do an interview with her.  This is Sara:

Black Opal from Australia

Hello. My name is Sara Giller and I live in England. I have a website called Crystal Vine which has had a presence on the web for the last 10 years. I now work full time as a mineral dealer but my life began as a teacher.

I got my degree in Education back in 1984 and started work teaching mathematics mostly to children with special needs. The last 9 years of my teaching degree I worked for a Support Service helping children with emotional and behavioural problems.

I used to collect fossils and pyrites as a child on the Cornish beaches when we went on holidays but my interest got re-kindled when I went on holiday to Israel and came by a mineral shop with large slices of unusual agates. I became hooked.

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Pictures: R.Weller/Cochise College.

I was able to interview Roger Weller, an excellent source of mineral knowledge I must say! One of the great things he is doing that I must point out is he is getting his students to put their term papers on the net so anyone can learn, here is what he said-

” It always bothered me that student term papers were tossed away after they were graded. This is a terrible waste of human effort. By having students create geology web pages in place of term papers, they can share their discoveries and efforts with the rest of the world.”

About his site:

There are several reasons why I started my geology website:
1. I have a large collection of Bisbee minerals and I wanted to share it with others.
2. I disliked the high price of geology textbooks and the fact that they are changing every 18 months, so the students couldn’t resell them.

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