Pawffles' Pebble Palace

      At the moment I only have one tumbler with two 3-pound barrels. One barrel is basically just running the 1st stage of tumbling in 60/90 silicon carbide grit continually. Every week I take out the rocks that look ready to move on and put in fresh ones. With only one other barrel for the later stages it allows for three weeks of 1st stage tumbling to build up enough rocks before the second barrel finishes. So far I have not finished a barrel yet, but today I started one on the final stage! I took a few pictures of the best ones (still wet) to show you all for now, but of course more pictures to come when they finish. *1 *1 *2 *2     I haven't the faintest idea on how to begin to classify or even identify these rocks with the exception of the quartz in the last picture. The *n captions denote which rocks are the same with the corresponding number to match them. Here is a peek at a small agate that just finished its first week in stage 1 of tumbling!   ...

    Went for a shorter than usual walk this Thursday morning, only around an hour... but that hour was fantastic! Set out around 6:30 am, just as the sun was peeking over the mountain. The sky was very pretty and the temperature around 60 degrees, no wind so it was just right to feel very refreshing. Heard a single coyote howling, and that was in response to an emergency vehicle's siren. Other than that no wildlife to mention.     I was on a ridgeline I have been to before, but not that particular portion and I took a new path to get there. Almost immediately on the new route there I found a fairly large rock that looked like it could be incredible. It was very dirty however and I couldn't tell how nice it really is, at the time of writing it is currently soaking so I can clean it up. Aside from that I found quite a lot of rocks, a few decent sized but most were on the smaller size. Many are similar to those I have found in the past as most of my rockhounding has bee...

     Went for a walk tonight (Night of March 25th, 2025) from just after midnight to about 2 am. It was pleasantly cool in the mid 60s and slightly cloudy. The quiet air only broken by the occasional hoot from a distant owl. Similar recent outings had one or more bursts of coyotes howling and yipping amongst each other, but not tonight. Though there was still some critters to be seen, more on those later!      I went to a ridgeline that I have only visited once before, and that was during the day. My hopes as far as rocks to find obviously included jasper and any more translucent quartzes, though recently I've been more keen on finding nice epidote specimens. There was a relative abundance of epidotized opaque quartzes compared to other ridges I've hounded... except to my chagrin they were nearly all poor quality. Rather than incorporated veins of epidote, most had very thin layers on the outer faces. With my primary goal at the moment being tumbling rock...

This first post will be a little lengthy, later ones will probably be shorter and more about the specific rocks being covered.     For as long as I can remember, stopping to pick up a neat little rock that caught my eye has been a common occurrence. Most of the time it would end up back on the floor after a little admiration. On occasion however, that little rock was coming home with me! Over time those occasions added up to a small pile of interesting-to-me rocks, some rather plain, and others more striking. Despite how much I enjoyed inspecting random rocks when out and about, taking rocks home was never really my priority. That was until a friend mentioned rock tumbling in passing... straight down the lapidary rabbit hole!     I began researching rock tumblers and rock collecting in general, which I've since learned is referred to as Rockhounding. Without even purchasing a tumbler I began to grab more rocks as I walked around the local wash, and this time the...