It is another gray day as another major rain storm is descending on the Central Coast. The cool, wet February has kept most of the orchard trees dormant. Only a couple of early varieties have bloomed. However, there are still plenty of blooms as the daffodils are putting on a show. Daffodils are among the few things that gophers ignore and they seem to do well in our moderate climate.
After a number of failed exercises trying to get up to speed with the V-groove tools that came with the ULTRA TEC Faceting fantasy machine, this stone was a step in the right direction.
The grooves were more curves rather than straight sided and my attempts to polish were only partially successful.
The stone is smoky quartz, 6.68 carats, 11.4 mm across
While most of the apples and stone fruit trees are still dormant, some of the citrus trees are ready to harvest and several are loaded with fruit. Brought in a few this morning. Tangerines, limes and Morro Blood Oranges. Not sure what to do with so many limes. I will juice the oranges to have with breakfast. The taste normal for orange juice, but it does seem odd to have “orange” juice that is red.
And then late this afternoon, a random thunderstorm came through. At first it looked like snow — only instead of flakes it was round. A bit later it harder and louder as the hail came down. It was cold enough that instead of melting as soon as it stopped bouncing like previous hail we had encountered, this time it laid on the ground until from a distance it looked like a light dusting of snow,
The Tucson rough I bought wasn’t all green. Here are a couple other parcels that followed me home.
This is a parcel of garnets from Malawi brought to the USFG event by Dan Lynch. The purchase price was going to finish a children’s library in one of the mining communities. When these are cut, sales will go to a UNICEF sponsored program for high school scholarships for Malawi girls.
This is a handful of lovely amethyst obtained from Farooq Hashmi. His handful was a few more than this.
The madera citrine from Steve Ulatowski is incredibly clear. Maybe I should have taken a handful of those as well.
Oregon sunstone. I’m still not sure about sunstone. Probably will know a lot more by the time these are cut.