Rockhound House

On the way to the Celebration of Agates Show, I was invited to stay the night at some new friend's house. Thanks to Larry and Marcy -- you were great hosts and have one of my favorite rock hound houses that I've had the pleasure to visit.

When you drive up the driveway, first you see the incredible house. They cut off the top of an old barn, then moved it a mile and placed it onto a new foundation next to a river. What a house...

In addition to rocks (I'll include most of those photos tomorrow), there are incredible flower gardens.

A quartz rock in the flower garden...

There is a large vegetable garden, too.  To stop the deer, there are motion controlled water shooters.

Here is a pile of 25 tons of rough Mary Ellen Jasper.  I did buy some and will have it for sale at the museum.

The river...

Here is my favorite stromatolites rock, located on the edge of the lawn near the river.  Larry traded a car for the rock.  As I have reported in the past, stromatolites are the algae-mat organisms that use the energy of the sun in photosynthesis and give off oxygen.  If it were not for these organisms, we probably would not have evolved.  The Mary Ellen jasper that I'll have for sale are also stromatolite remnants.  I must admit, I do not know of anyone else who has such an incredible stromatolite mound in their yard.

More garden photos....