Graduated Dexter High, Class of 1965, grew up in southeast Missouri, born in Cape, lived in Bernie through sophomore year of school, acquired a taste for BBQ, skiing on the lake, and living in the real world, and have grown to love my corner of the world. Attended SEMO State, participated in caving, conservation activities, while studying agriculture and political science at Cape State......married twice, three grandchildren, and retired after 20+ years in Quality Assurance in aerospace electronics, tactical weapons quality systems, and national security electronics systems, weapons, surveillance, satellite systems and correlated products. Hobbies include, caving, archaeology, paleontology, birding, water skiing, squirrel hunting, duck calling, and general raising of consciousness, politically, Goldwater Republican/moderate, spiritually centered, and liable to tweak a few ears at one time or another, further deponent saith not!!! I choose to blog on such subjects as current media, current events, times we've seen, places we've been, and why we are the way we are now.....

Walk Carefully in that Gravel Road!!

Posted Thursday, November 17, 2011, at 2:05 AM

There were many days, there were many ways, in which I knew I'd seen a group of specimens, shortly after a rain, simply walking down a gravel road in Stoddard County, I'm looking at gravel that has been "mined" from the ridge, and graded onto the roads that we have always known.....

To Wit.....there are specimens of agate, jasper, and "other" ideas which are found in our local gravel pits...and I've seen a number of them "gone" due to inactive uses, and I'm given to go out, kick copperheads, and gouge out some clay pockets, knowing that there is semi-precious agate,jasper, and chalcedony, awaiting in the ridges of home!!

A few years back, I went in search of an old "pit down off of 1 Mile road, and was met with a filled in area with motocross and bike trail access, and no vistage of the old agate pit...there's stuff in the ridge out there!!!

I ventured out to the ridge, west of Malden, to those areas where mountains of material were to be found, alas, grown up and closed out were the norm, I'll Google Earth again and see what is there!!!

Bottom line, I've been to many gem and mineral shows in the area, KC and area, and have seen samples of Crowley Ridge agate with price tags of $40, plus each piece, we have no particular limit on what lies beneath us in those old pits, and may find any number of dollar signs, simply walking the country roads after a good rain!!!! There are collectors out in the world who will pay a premium for rock we walked on, drove on and didn't know was there, until it was revealed to us.

I was introduced to Crowley Ridge cutting material by a gentleman in Malden, as a Cub Scout, Woody Meacham, gave me an insight into what I could or should not try in my tumbler to see what was there or not....to wit, I threw a couple of handfuls of "gravel" into my tumbler, and found after a week or two of processing, that I had several pieces of moss agate, one of which I carry to this day....you never know what's lying at your feet, just look carefully as you stroll, molater

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Oooh, I love moss agate!! I had no idea that we had it in these hills!! I must check this out!!!

-- Posted by goat lady on Thu, Nov 17, 2011, at 6:31 AM
Dear GL, Woody always said to look for those plain, white, rather rounded chalcedony nodules, because they were merely eroded agate nodules with the darker matrices worn off of the outside. I've had red moss, brown/red/ocher moss as well as a jasper/agate combo come out of the tumbler, keeping in mind a trim saw slice would keep one from spending a whole heap of time tumbling off the outer layers of these little wonders. That "old white rock" hides things!!!!!!!Good luck hunting!!!!molater, kkr

-- Posted by kkcaver47 on Thu, Nov 17, 2011, at 12:46 PM

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