My sister gave us a mushroom-growing kit and I must say it’s been quite fun! This is the second batch so far. They are pioppinos and are about as tasty as some of the wild mushrooms we forage around here. #fungifriends

We actually had a nice, sunny day today after many days of rain. My girlfriend and I took advantage of it to go for a nice walk on the beach. She found this small orbicular jasper out there and I think it’s one of the coolest rocks either one of us has found around here! #rockhound

I decided to tumble a barrel of strictly petrified wood last week. I was pleasantly surprised when I opened it up to change to the next grit! The 4 smaller pieces are from PNW beaches. The large one I picked up rock hounding on a friend’s ranch near San Antonio when I lived in Tx. #rockhound

We had a fun time at our local No Kings march today. I think there may have been a few more people this time and far less negative reactions from passing motorists.

It wasn’t a very good year for chanterelles where we live because of the lack of rainfall. We only found a few here and there. We did find a really good spot for boletus edulis though! We had a heck of a good time in the woods today. #fungifriends #mushrooms #foraging

So no Rapture this time either? Feels like 2012 all over again.

A picture from a hike the other day. This is in the Johns River area in Wa. The hike ends at a pioneer cemetery. A beautiful nature walk with interesting history to boot!

youtu.be/d4LdUQzCPPM Nirvana covering a Meat Puppets song. Cranking this band tonight and having a few beers with my girlfriend. We’re trying to drown out the absurd amount of fireworks here. We totally get why Kurt disliked this ignorant town. #musicsky

youtu.be/iiCQcEW98OY#... A bit of a running theme to my posts this evening.

youtu.be/AioHRn9y6aM #musicsky

youtu.be/AioHRn9y6aM #musicsky

We stopped to visit this Thomas Dambo creation on the way home from Portland, Or. the other day. There are a bunch more of these throughout the U.S. I thought it was pretty neat. The only kind of troll I like to see on Bluesky

A new protest song. Not my usual genre, but I dig the lyrics. #musicsky music.apple.com/us/album/out...

We participated in a small town #nokings protest today. Beautiful Westport,Wa.! It started with a march and ended with everyone singing in the park. The only king around here is salmon. I loved that sign!

Remember this: be unpredictable. “Outrun, outlast… make it impossible for them to justify the cost.” They’ve already wasted $131 million. We are fully committed to peaceful demonstrations, and just as committed to protecting our communities.

We have to fill the streets in numbers too big to count! History shows that mass peaceful protests make a difference! If you are close to a protest now - GO! If you need to plan then go on June 14th. There are over 1800+ protests planned that day! www.nokings.org?SQF_SOURCE=i...

youtu.be/Fs_Xt2EY940 #musicsky Just felt like sharing something fun.

Happy Mothers Day! (And Mother’s Day) Apostrophe is good too.

Time line cleanse! A cool limb cast I found in a Yegua Formation exposure in Bryan,Tx. a few years ago. #rockhound #petrifiedwood

The protest we took part in today had a pretty decent crowd for the small town of Ocean Shores,Wa. The guy on the lawn mower wasn’t happy about us being there and we got a few one-finger salutes from cars. Most of the reactions from passing motorists were positive though. We liked that.

Top o’ the mornin’ to ya! #musicsky

youtu.be/los9WulxBjM #musicsky An oldie but a goody.

We moved this batch of mead into a jar for 2nd. fermentation today. The must contains wild huckleberries and blackberries that we picked over the summer. It’s been going for 2 months and I like the color. My girlfriend demanded we sample a taste (my arm still hurts from all the twisting) Delicious!

The final polish for my fossil corals. I had to stop the process for a few weeks due to below-freezing temps at night. They took a pretty good shine considering how soft they are. I think using ceramic pellets helped. Shown with some harder material which I ran in a separate barrel. #rockhound

Sometimes when wading creeks looking for petrified wood, pieces of weirdly crystallized chalcedony turn up. At one time they filled a cavity in the petrified wood, but eroded out over time. Fun to find in their own right but it would have been great finding everything intact! #rockhound

Some more interesting War of 1812 artifacts from Lake Champlain. Military buttons and a flint wrapped in lead which I assume was used with a musket. I found some musket balls here too. #metaldetecting

The area on Lake Champlain where I found my U.S. buckle plate became a public beach and picnic area sometime after the War of 1812. (Until 1950?)Besides wartime artifacts, silver coins from the early 1900’s, tin toys, etc. would turn up sometimes. While not in great shape, this souvenir is fun.

Regarding metal detecting, I’m often asked what my best find is. The item shown here is the answer. I have found more intrinsically valuable items, but it’s about the history for me. Found on Lake Champlain near the site of the War of 1812 Battle of Plattsburgh. I was wading in the spring. Ice cold!

After only phase 2 my Wisconsin rocks I selected for tumbling are shaping up nicely. They should look great in our display jar of tumbled material! #rockhound #rock #lapidary #polishing

Not sure if there is anyone here who likes to make mead. We got this one ready to start fermenting today. It’s our 3rd batch and it has wild blackberries and huckleberries that we picked and froze. Our last batch contained figs from our tree and came out pretty tasty.

My girlfriend and I checked out a nearby fossil hunting site today. (Lincoln Creek Formation in Greys Harbor County, Wa.) While we didn’t find much to speak of there, we did find an overlook with some great scenery.

Pieces of extinct corals and other Silurian marine fossils can be found on the gravelly beaches of Wisconsin along Lake Michigan. I selected some material from there today that I thought might do well in the tumbler. Update in a couple weeks! #rockhound #fossils

Stand-outs from our latest tumbler batch. These are all from PNW beaches. #rockhound

Maybe it’s because I’m new to the PNW, but this seems like an insane amount of driftwood. It’s washed in recently because of the storms and high tides.

"Christmas in Prison," John Prine.

Just a portion of my self-collected iron pyrite (marcasite) specimens. These are from field trips to the Martin Marietta quarry in Midlothian, Tx. with the Houston Gem And Mineral Society. Some of my fossil shark tooth collection (including ptychodus) comes from there too. #rockhound

We went to a beach we hadn’t been to in a while today. My girlfriend found a big agate and a bunch of others. I didn’t do so well. She’s really been kicking my butt lately, but I have an appointment to get new glasses soon. I lost my old ones in the woods when I was picking chanterelles! #rockhound

I took this photo when I was putting together my Lake Texoma post but decided to leave this one out. Looking at it today, I think it came out pretty good. I like the way the sutures stand out on this chunk of of limestone ammonite cast. #rockhound #fossils

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Before my girlfriend and I left Texas for good, we had a chance to say goodbye to beautiful Lake Texoma. There are different Cretaceous exposures on the shore and lots of ammonite casts and impressions. Other fossils too. It’s legal to take some souvenirs from the Tx. side. #rockhound #fossils

How cool is this?

A recent adventure on Mt. Apatite in Auburn, Maine didn’t produce any apatite but it sure was fun! There were plenty of chunks of pegmatite to check out and some had deep, red almandine garnets. Also, there were nice books of muscovite mica around. Can’t wait to go back and look around! #rockhound

About 3 years ago, I heard about a lawn sale through a gem and mineral society I belonged to. I found this piece of toredo-bored petrified wood in one of the bins. Toredos are what we call shipworms but they’re actually a type of clam. Best yard sale ever! #rockhound #petrifiedwood

A neat little jasper I picked up on a rocky Puget Sound beach. I used buffing wheels on an interesting section of it. #rockhound