Last year my son Jake accompanied me on a rock hunt. We went on a primative road located near our home in North Central Washington State. The road goes way up high into the hills overlooking the valley. There are so many rocks along the road (you cannot drive on the road unless you have a really heavy duty four wheel drive or heavy equipment like a bulldozer). While there were thousands of rocks on the road, we only found about a dozen that were suitable for what I was looking for. Sometimes a rock would look perfect – until you picked it up and saw that one edge was shorn off or the underside was too rough or it would not sit up the way I wanted it to. Some rocks were beautiful – but way too big. One thing I consider when choosing rocks is the size. It must fit into a priority mail box to save on shipping charges. Rock shapes also are a key element when choosing. If I am looking for “snake” rocks, they much be circular or oval in shape and fairly flat. If I am looking for “paperweight” rocks they much be smaller, round or oval in shape and very smooth. “Floral” rocks are taller and round and sit upright. Then of course there are many different shaped rocks suitable for animals. Usually when I go rock hunting I go alone because then I am able to take more time in the looking process. The only bad part of that is if you find a bunch of them and have to transport them yourself. Sometimes I will make a pile of rocks and then later have my kids help me transport them. Rocks can get pretty heavy! I am looking forward to warmer weather and being able to get out rock hunting again. It is always exciting to take a regular ol’ rock and transform it into something beautiful. It brings me great joy!

29 Feb This entry was published on February 29, 2012 at 8:48 pm. It’s filed under Uncategorized and tagged nature, painted rocks, rock hunting, rocks, shape, size, stones, wilderness, wildlife. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.