Red-Headed Red-Neck Rock-Hound w/ My Trusty HellHound Cerberus

      My journey begins as aneeded easily distracted by any and all rocks...carting them home by the truckload. I love nature and am usually unable to make eyends to shine contact with someone; let alone eye contact if there is bare earth beneath me.

     I am living the rock/fossil hunter's dream...well, almost. I live and work (half of the time) on a lakefront property that can boast having more fossils per square inch, than a national museum. Being equipped with the knowledge of what I'm looking at, let alone what tools, ect...Whole nothing can of Bone Wax!

           For those who have those days (or if you are like me…years), for when you’re not sure, or you plain and simple- lack the proper tools and/or you just don’t have a clue…

”When in doubt… It” - Me

            And so my journey began…Like China in a Bull Shop…As with everything else that I do, it was all or nothing! I had to have had at least 75 to 100 rocks at that point…Of course, I knew better than anyone with way more hands on experience and text book knowledge, because I am smart and not one person in the last several months even saw fit to assume that I am not in possession of enough brain cells to understand plain English.

            One embarrassing entrance into the Fossil ID forum, and a serious lack of a tact and respect filter…that’s me, the show stopper. Definitely not in the, “wow, she’s smart” kind of way. More like, “wow, what gravel pit spit her out?” I’m ok with that, I think.

            All too often in life, we expect entirely too much from ourselves. I find that I expect expert knowledge and performance in a field that I lack even elementary knowledge of. Well, it is about time that I teach myself true humility and that being wrong is a normal and acceptable part of life…hmmm…talk about old dog-new tricks.

            That my friends, will take some time. I am OCD to the point of being neurotic with most things. My OCD backed with my having been taught, that if you are to do something, then you should do it right the first time, make me quite the ball of neurosis at times. Being me, I take that to the extreme and make myself think that that means that I must be the absolute best at anything I put my mind to…immediately! Unfortunately, life does not work that way.

            Here, you will find that I am likely to be wrong more often than right. I will be striving to put my least confident foot forward, in order to help myself and others in furthering their confidence and knowledge pool when it comes to the “the world as we never knew it.”

            I am creating this blog as a way to actively participate in expanding not only my own knowledge base, but with the hope that I can help others learn from my asking those “stupid questions” that we are all hoping someone else will ask, so we do not have to suffer the dents in the armor that is our pride. I will be shoving all of my pride way down deep, and dredging up all of the humility that I can muster; from the depths of the Mariana Trench where I hide what I believe to be…my “flawed” self.

            Below, you will find some samples that I believe to be or have a fossil encased within. Therefore, my questions to everyone, are thus:

How do you know if something is a real fossil if the matrix around it is not as easily identifiable as sandstone, but a mineral such as  jasper, and how do you know when you have removed enough matrix and are down to the fossil, if it looks similar to or the same as said matrix encasement; or if there is any matrix to be removed? It is possible to find “clean” fossils, correct?

Enjoy...I hope!

-Julie