Fossil Hunting

Last week The Bean and I embarked on a Fossil Hunt. Actually, we just went to the park and walked in the creek beds.  But we ended up finding a lot of nice fossils and other things.  We have had such torrential rains and flooding the past couple of years that the creek is full of more rocks than usual - rocks that do not belong in that particular creek bed that came from who knows where.  It is interesting to find chunks of Feldspar, Slate or Native Stone that you can tell floated in with the rains. 

We found a lot of really nice Fossils including this nice big one.  The actual fossil measures about four inches across - the biggest fossil I've ever found.  We also found a perfect evergreen leaf which I apparently forgot to photograph.  We also found a rock full of seashell fossils - those are raised up instead of being indented.  I love finding fossils - it was once a living thing, millions of years ago and it has been in that rock since.  When I discover it, it is the first time anyone has laid eyes on it.  We carried home armloads of rocks to be researched and looked at under the magnifying glass.

That's our street above the creek.  We've lived here 17 years and that is the first time I have ever been under our street, that is for sure. 

I could walk upright, The Bean could not.  Sometimes being short does not suck.

I have always loved rocks. Whenever we went for a walk when I was a kid, I spent the entire time looking down at the ground, looking for special rocks. It's a trait I still have today - always looking for a special colored rock or one shaped like something or a heart shaped rock or a fossil or any rock that speaks to me. I usually have trouble keeping my britches up because I fill my pockets full of rocks on our walks! 

In our usual junking frame of mind, we found things along the way that has floated in as well.  We played a game of "Man vs. Wild" thinking of what we could use things for if we were lost in the wild.  The Bean spotted a Coleman jug lodged under some limbs - a vessel for water would be a great find if we were truly lost and not a mere 100 yards from our own house.

We found pieces of white plastic - good for gathering rainwater, shelter from the elements, to wave at air crafts from below, tie on our heads for protection from the sun and wind.  A length of rope - good for hanging clothes to dry, dragging firewood, pulling ourselves up cliffs, combined with the plastic to make a tent, etc.  I even spotted an actual spoon glistening up the creek.  (Leave it to me to find silverware in the middle of nowhere).  The spoon could be used for digging looking for grubs (ick), a hole to take refuge from the wind or snow and maybe even to catch a sun ray and flash an SOS for help.

All in all, it was a good day - a day outside in the sunshine, a day scavenging for fossils and rocks and in a day of Homeschooling even if neither one of us really knew it at the time.  Those are the days I enjoy the most of all!