Crab Balls Gallore!!!

[RJB]

Its been almost a year sence I went on a fossil hunting trip.   A bit early too.  My youngest son decided he wanted to go visit an old school buddy who lives in Oregon and wanted to know where all my fossil crab locals were, so I decided to go along for part of the trip and just show him.  Sad that lots of crab sites are closed now, and not only that, but found another site just recently closed too!  Brand new gates everywhere!  Anyways, it took us 2 full days of driving and hunting to get the first 4 sites done, then we said our good bys and he went onto Oregon and I went back up into Washington to do some trading with some crab guys.  I took along about $1600 worth of trading material so I was quite prepaired for some wheeling and dealing.  Got rid of all of it and turned it into more crab concretions.  Now ive got about 2 or 3 years worth of crab balls to play with. 

 

Here is a picture of my son way up on a cliff side that I would not intertain myself nowadays.

 

RB

 

 

 

 

 

[RJB]

Here are some more pics of this trip.  We did get a fire started in the rain too!  Lots of rain!    My little trailer got caked with snow and ice coming back home.  Some very nasty roads!  A picture of the crab concretions in the trailer and once I went through them, I put the ones I could read onto my prep bench.  Im gunna be busy for awhile now. 

 

RB

 

[DLB]

Glad to see you made it home safe hope we can meet again some day it was nice. 

[Fossildude19]

Nice report, Ron!  

Thanks for the pictures - at least you can stay out of trouble for a bit with all those concretions.  

Regards,

[RJB]

Thanks fossildude/tim

 

DLB:  Would love to sit around the campfire with you Dustin and just swap fossil stories. 

 

RB

[ynot]

 

[FossilDudeCO]

Looks like a very productive trip!

Despite the fact that some of the locations were closed!

It is unfortunate, but hopefully you can get back out before more are gone.

 

Thanks for bringing us along.

[crabfossilsteve]

WOW Ron, that sure is nice big haul of crab ballies.  "I hate you" ....ha ha.  Look forward to seeing what is in those concretions.  Some of them sure look sweet.  With all of the sites being closed, its good to see that people are still finding accessible locations.  Did you see Jason during your trip?

 

    Steve

[DLB]

1 hour ago, RJB said:

Thanks fossildude/tim

 

DLB:  Would love to sit around the campfire with you Dustin and just swap fossil stories. 

 

RB

That's for sure I'll by the beer  on a different note the sealer you mentioned for those ammonites was it called Opticon fracture sealer? And how would I get that wax off the big one? Thanks again for those BTW

[sseth]

What a haul!

[JustPlainPetrified]

Holy crab balls! What a haul! Yes, a lot of work ahead. Thanks for sharing...at least the photos.

[snakebite6769]

Where can one acquire said nodules and how do you prep them? I would love to have a crab fossil

[MCG DAWG]

What's the significance of the arrows drawn on them?

[DLB]

12 minutes ago, MCG DAWG said:

What's the significance of the arrows drawn on them?

He's showing The orientation its pointing towards the front of the crab

[RJB]

MCD DAWG:  DLB is correct.  The side the arrow is on is the 'dorsal' side and the direction of the arrow shows what direction the claws.

 

RB

[RJB]

snakebite 6769:   These crab concretions are getting very hard to come by.  The only ones I sell nowadays are ones that ive already started and gave up on for whatever reason/s. 

 

RB

[RJB]

crabfossilsteve:   yes, this may be my last trip to Washington.  These are not only getting harder to get, but getting too old and out of shape to keep doing this, especialy in all that cold rainy snowy weather!  I did see Jason, but hes not doing much anymore in the way of fossils.

 

RB

[RJB]

Yesterday my youngest son and I went to town on our fossil crab concretions. All the concs that I could read I put away for later. The concs that are what I call "a question mark", get put aside for later too. Those are the ones where I have to guess what is dorsal and go on the prep attack and hope for the best. If I end up choosing the wrong side I have to fill the prep hole with some 2 part putty and attack the other side. Its a bunch of wasted time but it does not damage the fossil crab this way. Then all the ones where you cant tell what from what we wack open with a mini sledge hammer. Here are just two that have been 'wacked' and another photo showing the posiblilty of Double Crabs in same rock. I have some very high hopes for those. Prepping is a whole lotta fun, but it does take some serious time.

 

RB

[aerogrower]

Nice as always. Cant wait to see the inside of the possible double. Wish I had the confidence to attack mine. In time....

[RJB]

Hey aerogrower, just swig down a shot of wiskey and go on the prep attack.  Oh, and take your time.  patience goes a long ways in prepping.  and the very best of luck to you.  If you want any advise or tips, just PM me.

 

RB

[jesus]

Hi Ron my friend. I hope that double is a very good man. I am Jesus Garcia

 

[RJB]

Well hey there Jesus. I don't belive ive seen you here on the FF.  Nice to see you man.    and yes, I hope those 'doubles' are good ones too.

 

RB

[abctriplets]

Wow, loving seeing what everyone's finding!

[Wrangellian]

That's dedication... I have gotten out to my site only once so far this year, then the weather turned bad again. I just wouldn't collect in the rain or snow, though I did collect once with patches of snow on the ground (but sunny). Too bad the access is getting closed everywhere. Too many people.

It amazes me that you can tell which way is front/top on those conc's! To me they may as well be a watch wrapped in a coffee-maker box, in terms of Xmas presents.

[RJB]

Hey WRangellian, don't be too amazed at my 'so called skill' at being able to read some of these crab concs.  Its actually quite simple and if you were he with me when I was going through all these concs you would be reading them too within minutes. 

 

RB