Gold!

The Tucson Gem and Mineral Show is one of the biggest of its kind in the world and consequently brings millions of dollars to Tucson. There are shows like ours in set up in car parks and market places around the city and then there are shows set up within hotels and motels. They use the rooms and surrounding gardens etc for vendors to sell their wares. The furniture is removed from the rooms so that they can set up their cabinets and display cases in which they arrange the rocks, crystals, minerals, jewellery, gold, specimens, etc. Many take their own bedding and stay in the room overnight for convenience and for security!
We have friends who deal in gold only and we went to visit them at their hotel room today. It may be difficult to understand but these people are not in this business for the money. They just love what they do, like so many in this business.

Each year he has this picture displayed and people love it.

Hopefully you can click on this photo and read the label, bottom right. It is the fuel tank from a Russian satellite found in the Australian outback. You just never know what you might come across when prospecting!!

Selling at Tucson

Thursday was very cold with gusty, icey winds but still we must set up the booth (me with my suede jacket, scarf and woolly gloves on) so that we can start selling as soon as possible. Sure enough, despite the cold, along came the buyers looking for first pickings. Also, along came other vendors doing their buying before they set up their own booths.
Fortunately, the weather changed and Friday was a beautiful day and even though the show didn't officially open until Saturday we made a lot of sales.
I love to see the tables loaded with the polished rocks - greens, blues, reds, yellows - all glorious in the sunshine. The large items are on show too like the Orbicular Granite and the huge slabs of Tiger Eye which always attract lots of attention.
So many people that walk around our booth say, "You have such beautiful rocks in Australia!"
Right next to our booth is a food kiosk (in the background of the last photo above). They sell hot and cold drinks, freshly roasted nuts, sandwiches, snacks and they make a hot meal for lunch each day. We have got to know Grace and John really well and they enjoy looking after the vendors at our show. But I'm sure they like us best! (Well, they said so.)

This is a sphere made from a block of Tiger Eye. It is absolutely stunning and will be displayed at the main show which is the last three days and held at the Convention Centre in Tucson.

The theme of the main show this year is Australian Minerals!

Gifts!

Many of the vendors, rockhounds, gem cutters etc wear something they deal in or made, eg. cabochons, beads, etc. I had often wished that I had something made of Glenn's rock to wear. When we were at Quartzsite a man came to buy Mookaite and Black Jade and had a tray of cabochons he had made from those materials. We were admiring them when he picked one out and gave it to me. Next day I took it to a goldsmith in Quartzsite and had it made into the pendant shown below in the right of the picture. Luckily, I had brought with me a gold chain that my sister gave me a couple of years ago so I am wearing it every day. Then, today, the owner of a business in Montana who buys material from Glenn each year came to see us today and do her usual buying. She holidays in Australia almost every year and as she was coming to Western Australia at the end of last year, Glenn gave her our number and said she must spend a few days with us. So she took us up on our offer.

The last time we saw her she drove off in a hire car to tour the south west so we were interested to hear how the rest of her hoiday in Western Australia had gone. Everything went well and she couldn't stop saying how much she enjoyed staying with us. In fact, one of her first questions was, how is Woody!! (Everyone loves our dog.) Anyway, to show her gratitude first of all she gave me a box of chocolates, then she gave Glenn a Montana Agate, one of his favourite rocks. Then she produced a little box - for me. (The other pendant in the photo.) This pendant is made from a Montana Agate, by her father. It is absolutely exquisite - a real treaure. I feel really honoured.

Tucson

(click on images to enlarge)

It took us a couple of days to pack up all the rock at our booth in Quartzsite ready to make the move to Tucson. There are all the polished faces and slabs that cover the tables, the sculptures and contoured pieces plus all the rough rock and it all has to be packed back into the drums ready to be transported by truck to Tucson.

Glenn shipped a lot of rock to the US for this show so together with what was already here, even though we sold a huge amount, there were two truck loads to be taken to Tucson. It's quite a project but Glenn's been doing this for some years and although two years are never the same he is very proficient at it. Quartzsite is about 250 miles from Tucson.

FAQs at the show are: "Do you bring all this from Australia??"
"How do you bring all this to America?"
"Is it worth it?"
"You don't take what's left back to Australia, do you?"
"Are you going to take all this to Tucson?"

The same truckie handles Glenn's loads every year and even though he has a huge amount of work to do while the show is on, nothing is too much trouble for him.
We arrived in Tucson Wednesday and both loads arrived the next day, one in the morning and one in the evening.

Tucson has a population of about half a million. It sits on flat land surrounded by mountains and has few high rise.

Couldn't resist snapping this as we drove past on the freeway.

Just two or three days before we arrived in Tucson they had had snow! This is very unusual for Tucson - they hadn't seen snow in sixteen years! You can still see the snow on the shaded side of the mountains.
There is quite alot of new development on the outskirts of Tucson and that is where the house we are leasing is located. We have a lovely 'vista' of the mountains.

The view from the back of the house; to our right we have beautiful mountains in the distance, jacuzzi in the foreground and a new house being built nearby.

To our left; 'vista' of builders' rubbish bin and dunny!

Dedicated to the One We Love

This blog is dedicated to our dog, Woody. He is the most wonderful dog in all the world.

He's smart,

he's cool,

he's casual,

relaxed,

he's got a great sense of humour (sometimes he doesn't have any choice!)

he does his bit for Christmas,

And he's probably swearing and cursing that we dumped him in Stalag 13 (local kennels, very nice lady owner who gives him cuddles) for eight weeks!!

This is for him.

We love you Woody.

We'll be back soon!

Love, mummy and daddy

xxx

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Sweet tooth

It seems to me that there is a huge amount of sweet things on the shelves at the supermarkets here in the USA. There was an absolute mountain of packet waffle mixes and every accompanying syrup you could imagine.

The cereal aisle is three miles long and ten feet high. They have ten types of shredded wheat from frosted to low fat to....

I have never seen so many different flavours of Coca Cola in my life! Glenn thought he'd bought ordinary old Coca Cola but it was Black Cherry Vanilla. They call the ordinary stuff "Classic" !! He sometimes as a small port in the evening and as he'd been working and was thirsty he mixed it with what he thought was Coca Cola. It was the Black Cherry Vanilla variety. He gave me a taste and it reminded me of a drink I used to treat myself to in my younger days - a Rum and Black - blackcurrant. Very very sweet and sickly.
One luxury Glenn really gets into when we are here are the "creamers". He is a coffee drinker and he loves the 'creamers' you get here. It isn't powder, it's flavoured cream. Get a load of this list:

Amaretto – tastes like marzipan
Irish Crème
Toasted Almond
Soy Original
Sugar free French Vanilla
Soy French Vanilla
Hazelnut
Eggnog ?????
Vanilla Hazlenut
Pumpkin Spice (!)
Vanilla Caramel
Vanilla Chai Spice
Coconut Crème
Sugar Free Hazlenut
Original Vanilla
Peppermint Mocha
Gingerbread ....What??

Fat Busters

If only it were that easy!!

Spooky rocks

The way people are attracted to rocks will always fascinate me. I watch people come into our booth, walk round and round looking at all the rocks on the tables but they keep going back to the same table, to the same rock. It may be the colour, the texture, who knows, but different people are attracted to different rocks and I am sure, most times, they have no idea that they are.
One lady had done just this. She had said a couple of times while walking around how lovely our rocks were, how colourful, so different to anything else in the show, as so many people say. But I could see her keep returning to the box of unpolished Mookaite slabs. Eventually she stopped at it and started going through them.
Mookaite is very colourful and it doesn't take much imagination to see pictures in the rocks.
Suddenly she held one slab up and exclaimed, "That's the Arizona desert!"
That was the one she had to have!
Then, when purchasing their rock, people are so pleased when they see we supply a label naming it and giving its location, it becomes their treasure.

Quartzsite sunset.

Mountains in the morning.

Show and Tell

Looks like the mortuary!!

It poured with rain yesterday. We had heard it raining during the night but it had eased off by the time we were due to uncover the tables around 8.30am. There were a few people about and we made a few sales. But the clouds continued to circle ominously and from the weather images on the internet we could see more rain was coming. At times you could hardly see the mountains for streaming rain and then, sure enough, down it came and the people disappeared. So by late morning we had closed again and covered everything up. So had most other vendors.

We had banking to do and as there isn't a branch of our bank (there is only the community bank) in this town we took the opportunity to drive to Parker, 40miles away. The road reminded me of driving up north in Western Australia. You just put you foot on the accelerator and drive. Long straight roads across flat desert. On the way back we saw a 4WD upside down on the side of the road which wasn't there on the way! Emergency vehicles had been and gone. We wondered if they survived.

This morning the rain had gone away, the sun was shining and we had a big clean-up job to do. Even though we cover the tables with tarps and all but three of the tables are under the canopy, still the rain gets in. A mixture of desert dust and moisture makes for very mucky unattractive rocks.
By the time we'd finished our makeover, the tables and rocks were clean and the Tiger Iron and Tiger Eye was flashing again in the sunshine and looking spectacular.

The wetness on the ground will hopefully keep the dust down for a day or two. I must be dusting these rocks two or three times a day. We have a real feather duster, I think they are feathers straight out of the roosters tail (ouch) and it's very affective. One day I was dusting and a man asked me where my French Maid's outfit was. Very funny.

These are tumbled Mookaite pieces (below) and have sold well. Glenn sent some good solid pieces of rock to China to be made into spheres and contoured sculptures. They didn't make as many spheres as we would have liked but these pieces are beautiful and a few are coming back to Australia! For us! We can't resist them. As we pulled them out of their packaging, we priced one and hid one, priced one, hid one. This (below) is Ruby in Zoisite. Our friends across the way are selling a small amount of this. This small piece of rock was really, really heavy and expensive! It isn't top quality ruby so not good enough to be faceted as it would be cloudy but it is ruby and will be beautiful when polished. I couldn't find a link with as much clear information as I'd like so I'll leave it to you to look up. I have learned, however, that ruby is a Corundum and Corundum can be colourless, red, pink, red, black, brown, orange, yellow, green, indigo, violet, or mauve. Red corundum and most pink corundum is called ruby, all other colours are called sapphire, usually with the colour specified as a prefix to the word ruby, for example, yellow sapphire.

More booths

Just look at all this glass. I could not believe my eyes - acres of glass; from lamps to bowls to vases .. amazing!

And onyx. I love onyx.

Onyx comes from various places around the world. These items came from Pakistan.

Getta Loada This!

How would you like this in a corner of your lounge room?

The floor would have to be strong. It weighs 500kg.

It is a sculptured piece of Orbicular Granite.

Few have been able to walk past it without going up to it and reading the label.

I haven't seen people stroke this one like they did the magnesite.

Perhaps it doesn't look as 'friendly'.

We sell the 'orbicules' as single polished faces or small clusters.

People are fascinated by this rock and many assume, at first, that they are fossils.

Made into a sphere it is also quite spectacular.

Loss or Gain?

This is Magnesite, also known as Lemon Chrysoprase.

It was a lump of rock that Glenn sent to China to be contour polished and they did a great job.

For the past few days it has been sitting on a drum at the end of a table where there was polished magnesite slabs and faces.

A magnificent piece.

Almost everyone that walked past it, stroked it. Just as if it were a sleek cat basking in the sun.

Our friends across the way said that from over there it looked as if it was translucent, as if the sun was shining through it.

Someone bought it today.

The cad!

I didn't realise how much I'd got used to its company.

I, too, had been going over to it and stroking it.

Such a short time and I'd taken it for granted!!

It's gone!

Forever.

Well, yes, he did pay well for this beautiful sculpture.

He isn't going to sell it on, either. He is a collector.

Thank heavens I didn't give it a name!

Best in Show

Many people visiting the shows are travelling in mobile homes and far from home, touring or have just come down south for the warmer weather (warmer weather??) . So the pet dog comes too.
Wandering around browsing the booths, little Fido has to wander too. I was enjoying watching the dogs pass by. They came in all shapes and sizes and I found I just had to take some photos.
Some wear coats, some are grossly overweight, many have had their tails chopped off. I'd never heard a good reason for docking until an owner of an Australian Cattle Dog we were talking to here said that the line his puppy came from had bushy tails that stuck straight up in the air and it frightened the cattle, hence the docking. I'm not quite sure about that.

"Scooter"
He looks all forlorn because his master is taking his time looking at the rocks on our tables. He was a lovely little chap.

This is a "Desert Wolf". She is a Service Dog. Her owner suffered a serious head injury some years ago and she can warn him of a seizure. That's her job. A beautiful animal.

One of the lucky ones who don't have to walk.

"Teddy"

"Zac" on the left belongs to Harry (flintknapper extraordinaire). He (Zac) is interested in "Ginger" and wanted badly to play. She wouldn't have a bar of him.

This is a Shiba Inu a breed very popular in Japan, apparently.

Another lucky little fella who doesn't have to walk.
This is a "Min Pin". Miniature Pinscher. He was the size of a Chahauha.

These are Shar-peis.

Look at this lovely old Springer Spaniel.

Now here's something different. The chap in the booth nextdoor to us makes these 'dogs' from all sorts of things like shovels, garden forks, nuts, bolts, etc. They've got character, don't you think?

This is "Zac" again. It was early in the morning. Harry had gone walkabouts and left Zac at the booth on his chain. The ground was obviously very cold so he hopped up on Harry's chair and he's sitting there looking out for him. Gorgeous.