Rockhounding Class

I must say that the demands of the summer season are getting to me a bit.  The work days are a little longer due to the fact that I have had a lot of people wanting to hire me to conduct the rockhounding class.  I am averaging at lest a couple of classes a week.  The class runs almost three hours, followed by the museum for seven hours.  As most of you know, I don't mind working hard for long hours.  However, the effort it takes to work the museum is more demanding than the effort required to make mineral art, write books, or design online classes.  But I'm getting through the summer.......

Yesterday, the Thoemke family from St. Peter, Minnesota hired me to conduct the rockhounding class.  Here are some photos I took during the beach segment of the class.  The participants split into teams to collect specified specimens in a friendly competition.  Everyone gets the same prize (a free agate they select when we get back to the museum), but I select a winning team based on the quality of the specimens collected as well as the way they are displayed and presented.  The winning team gets to select their free agates first.

Seagulls appeared to be checking out what we were doing...

Someone built a tree fort on the beach.  When we were kids, we built some incredible forts as well.

Team A with its specimens...

Team B with its specimens...

The pac-man rock...