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Rocks...older than dirt

I don't think people believed us when we said we found a lot of rocks in the house. Some of them were just rocks....bags of sand. Paper bags of gravel. We imagine that they were for gardening. They were in drawers and in cabinets, in closets and the kitchen and the basement.

And then there were fancy rocks. Like these:

So when I picked up this old copy of "The Reader" (Chicago's free news), I was surprised to read about rocks like ours. Or, rocks that were here in the house anyway.

The Vanishing Mother Lode of Mazon Creek

And the photos of the fossils in the article looked mighty familiar. Turns out that fossil hunting in Illinois has always been big and that folks used to grab rocks that looked promising, leave them in their backyard and hope that they split in two revealing a fossil inside. Which explains the split rocks inside and outside of the house.

So, I guess one man's rock is another man's, um...let's see. Fossil treasure? Gem?

Some of the fossils had tags...like these fern and stem fossils from Coal City, Illinois...April, 1957.

The fossils below I recognize...they used to be sand dollars!

This house can reveal itself as half junk pile and half side show. Which makes you appreciate just a simple cup of tea...and definitely scares you away from garage sales and flea markets!

p.s. Have to give a shout out to blogging pal, Tully Monster, in this entry. :)

Posted by jeanne on August 8, 2004 at 11:23 PM

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