Rock collecting.......................

For a very long time I have been interested in rock collecting. I am a pack rat, or a Magpie or something like that. Something that makes me want to "collect" things. When I was a child I remember looking for pieces of broken china. One would inevitably find such things when our dads dug up the garden. Pieces with pretty patterns on them. Many things get dug up in English gardens. So I collected them and had my little storage place under the gooseberry bush.
Moving on, here where I live now, we have many wonderful beaches and so it is inevitable for one such as I, to find pretty stones. My Dad had the same fascination. I can still see him on the beach pockets stuffed with wonderful things and mum saying "Harry you are not carrying those all back on the plane with us".............No matter when or where we went to a beach we would find something to pick up and take home.

The above is a picture Laura took at the beach on Monday, the water is so clear you can not see that it is there, but all those stones are under water. These are Petoskey Stones, our state stone.

Petoskey's do not look like that on the beach, they are often hard to spot unless they are wet and that's what makes it fun. Often my husband will bring some home when they dig a new basement. They are found far away from beaches and that tells us that this was once all under water. The Petoskey is an ancient coral that once lived here.
Well since we discovered Leland Blue stones the simple Petoskey is now not so much fun to find. Blue stones are hard to find. I used to have a whole bunch that I brought home long ago from somewhere in the UP on one of our trips. They are not real stones, but are the slag from the mines. One time dumped in Leland Harbor they now wash up looking like Turquoise. They come in many colours such as green, purple, grey and blues. The Blue is most sought after for jewelry making. As it's rare it is fun to find. I did find a couple of nice pieces that I had stashed in the garage, I don't know what happened to the rest. I had put no value on it because I knew it was slag, but very pretty and so it came home with me.

When I die, and people go through my stuff (If I have not cleaned up my act by then) they will wonder why my cupboards are full of rocks and I have them sitting around the house in dishes. Blue and Green stones set in dishes

Tiny blue stones sitting in small glass things all over the place. We pick up the very small pieces and save them for the day I get creative.

The small worn pieces of what looks like coal, probably from the furnaces back in the day. It sparkles, so I brought some home.

These are Apache Tears, I got those when we went out West many years ago.

Coffee table bowl of Blue Stones in the rough. Also a small dish of flat stones tha t maybe I will paint on some day. If not I like how they look.

I have picked up Crystal bowls at Thrift shops and this is how they are being used.
Just a bunch of rocks.

Now I have so many Petoskey and other stones I am thinking I must make things for the garden. I will get some wire baskets maybe and fill them up. Trouble is if I set them out as I do in the house they get slimy and don't look pretty any more so I need containers that will keep them nice.
When we first started we bought a pick and when we went out west we looked for all kinds of pretty things. I bought books on the subject and tried to identify them. Well now I just collect them because they are pretty. We had gone to an Amethyst mine and brought a few pieces back and some geodes and things like that. they are scattered around somewhere. In the Upper Peninsula it's Agates. I find those hard to recognize in the raw but think I found a nice one the other day. You can see through it so it has to be one.

This fossil came home with us, it has crystals inside

Yes beach glass comes home too and goes in a small crystal dish.

I know you can buy bags of manufactured beach glass at craft stores but it's not the same. Laura found a beautiful blue piece on Monday, made her do a happy dance.
We Magpies want to find our own thats what makes us happy.
I am sharing this post with Inspire Me Monday