Fall 2023 Rockhunts

October has brought some cooler weather to the Big Bend of Texas, so it’s time to come out and join rockhunts to have fun and find some beautiful agate, jasper, amethyst, quartz crystals, and other specimens.

I am leading rockhunting field trips on The Ritchie Ranch, the South Larremore Ranch and East Needle Peak, and Aaron Thomas is leading them on the 06 Ranch.  There are enough different locations for you to go for five days in a row and not be at any one place for more than a day.

Below is the schedule of rockhunts, and some information about costs and meeting locations.  For further information on the ranches I lead rockhunts on, and what you’ll need to do to prepare, follow this link:  http://terismithrockhunts.com/for-rockhunters/  To sign up for one of my rockhunts, send me an email at agatehunter@sbcglobal.net.  The only requirement for my hunts in addition to the fees stated below is that you need to join the Rollin’. Rock Club.  This club costs $10 per year for a single membership ($16 dual membership), and provides insurance that protects the landowner from any damage we may accidentally cause.

For information about Aaron’s hunts, search for him on Facebook, or email or text him at aaronthomasrockhunts@gmail.com, or (432) 538-2399.

I also still have lots of wonderful agate for sale.  I’ll give you more details on that in a separate email which should come out in the next few days.

Regards,

Teri

Rockhunts this Fall, and Rocks For Sale Now

Hi Y’all!  June is upon us, and with it the hot weather.  I’m working on my plan for going to California at the end of June.  My current thought is that I will indeed come back to Texas this Fall to lead more field trips, probably from Mid-October through Thanksgiving, or perhaps all the way til the middle of December.  You can look for a schedule from Aaron and me sometime near the end of August or beginning of September. 

As you know, mandates from the government to ‘shelter in place’ or not travel can indeed cause me to change my plans, but barring something like that, I want to lead trips this Fall to get to see everyone I didn’t get to see this Spring, and have lots of fun picking up agates and other goodies.

Also, I’m still selling rocks by the bucket, and shipping them out.  I’ve sent over 100 boxes of agate and other materials to rockhounds across the country via USPS, and every box has gotten there safely. I still have agate available from the Singleton Ranch ($125 for an unsorted bucket, $250 for a bucket where I’ve sorted two or more buckets together and removed everything that isn’t cutting material). There are a few buckets left of Stillwell Ranch material ($250 per bucket), South Larremore Ranch rocks ($200 per bucket), East Needle Peak rocks ($200 per bucket) and Ritchie Ranch agate ($200 per bucket).  I have mixed agate ($150 per bucket), Agate from Mexico ($175 a bucket) and all kinds of other goodies.  You can look at a complete list of what’s available on my website, at www.terismithrockhunts.com/rocks-for-sale/.   I hope to add selected specimens to the list of things for sale, but I don’t know when I’ll get that done.

If you wish to get your rocks before I head west for the summer, you need to order them by June 15th.  You can either have me save your rocks until you can get out here this Fall, or you can have me pack and mail them to you at the cost of $50 per bucket.

I hope y’all have a good summer and stay well.  See you in the Fall!

Regards,

Teri

Too Hot to Rockhunt? You Can Still Buy Agate by the Bucketfull

For those of you who don’t live in Texas, Friday, May 1 was when some restrictions on travel ended.  Hotels and motels in the Big Bend can open back up at 25% of their capacity, and restaurants can, as well, if they have room for social distancing.  However, the nice spring weather happened while we were sheltering in place, and now it’s pretty much summertime conditions: very hot, often windy, sometimes rainy, with occasional thunder storms which can bring lots of hail, or perhaps a tornado or two.

Because of the weather conditions, Aaron and I have decided that we won’t be leading field trips again until Fall.  We have lots of people tell us that they can take the heat because they’re from the Gulf Coast.   But the heat we have here is very dry heat, and you can get dehydrated here very quickly.  The combination of the elevation, the dryness, and the heat with no shade has sent many people to hospitals with heatstroke over the years, and we won’t lead field trips in conditions which may permanently injure your health (or ours!).

On another topic, my rock sales are going well.  All of the Walker Ranch cutting agate buckets have been sold,  as well as the buckets of agate nodules.  But there’s lots of other good agate still available.  Both the Singleton and Stillwell Ranches are great locations that are not open to the public any more. In my last email, I detailed the reason that I dropped the price on the Singleton Ranch tock buckets, but I’ll repeat it here:  Unlike the Walker Ranch buckets, where I separated specimens and cutting material, the  buckets of agate from the Singleton Ranch are completely unsorted.  That means you’re apt to get specimen material along with the cuttable agate. In order to make sure you feel like you’ve gotten a good deal, I’ve lowered the price of a bucket of Singleton Ranch agate to $125 for an unsorted bucket.  Or you can spend $250 for a bucket where I’ve combined two of the unsorted buckets and removed most of the stuff that won’t cut.

The Singleton material has some bouquet agate in it, and in general those pieces run fairly small.  Many will make only one cab, and to do that you’ll need to hold the piece in your hands while you grind a flat spot to glue the dop stick on.  The colors are usually pastels, and there’s also quite a lot of black and white plume agates there, as well.  There’s also water-level agate, which is where the silica that formed the agate was dissolved in ground water flowing horizontally.  The different minerals in the solution at different time made different color bands, mostly blue, grey, black and white. The bands are absolutely straight, so the material looks great if you cut diagonally across the bands for your cab. There are moss agates and occasional tube agates, and some very neat stuff that is brecciated common opal with a background of chalcedony. The opal can be any color from white through the buff, pink, and red colors into brown, and the chalcedony background  can be clearish, white, light blue, dark blue, or black.  The buckets of Singleton material are  $125 each, since I never separated the specimen material from the cutting material.  Or, I can send you a bucket that I’ve “curated”, taking the best cutting material from two Singleton buckets and putting them into one bucket, for $250.  that saves you shipping cost for the second bucket and doesn’t leave you with a bunch of specimen material you don’t want.
    
 The Stillwell Ranch had a whole bunch of different types of agate, jasper, flint, chert and petrified wood.  Pieces can be quite large:  perhaps the size of a brick.  I am continually surprised at the variety in the Stillwell agate.    In one afternoon a couple of years ago I found agatized petrified wood in nine different color combinations.  The pieces appear not to have grown in the location where they’re found.  There are several hills on the ranch that are actually just giant rock piles, deposited there in prehistory when the Rio Grande was many miles wide.  There are plume agates, mosses, fortifications, tube agates and some others that I can’t begin to describe.  There will also be colorful petrified wood, and perhaps some flint and chert that were exceptional for some reason.  They may have originated any where along the course of the Rio Grande, from Southern Colorado through New Mexico and the Big Bend of Texas.  Because this ranch is now closed to rockhunting, the buckets are $250 each.
 
 The South Larremore Ranch is very interesting.  It has gravel piles sticking up above ground level.  These piles were the bottom of an ancient lake, and they have some incredible agate in them.  It also has the creekbed for Calamity Creek, which is the creek that goes through the former Woodward and Walker Ranches, and picks up pieces of plume agate on its way down.  So there’s material there that looks like what you would find on the Walker and Woodward Ranches, in addition to the pieces in the gravel piles that can look like the spectacular fortification agates from Mexico. There’s also agatized wood, and perhaps some flint and chert that were exceptional for some reason.  Pieces are generally small.  South Larremore Ranch agate is $200 per bucket and the South Larremore Ranch is still open for rochunts in fall, winter and spring.

Feel free to look at my website, http://terismithrockhunts.com/rocks-for-sale/.

for other rocks for sale, and email me if you have any questions.

Regards, Teri & Aaron