Iowa Artifacts. 2011

Since arrowhead hunting is officially over for the season I'd better post a picture of all of the great pieces Kyle and I found. We started at Spring's first rain and ended after the leaves began to fall off Autumn trees. If you look close there are some pretty amazing pieces... It takes a lot of work to find this much stuff. Probably 3 hours of walking for every piece you see.

more souveneirs.

Wow, I have way too many smashed pennies. And by way too many I mean not enough. In all seriousness, if I took all of my sp's and multiplied each of them by 51 cents I'd be in the red well over 200 bucks. Oh well. I found these guys in my Tupperware full of random souvenirs...I realized I have over 4 Iowa Truck Stop pennies...I must smash one whenever I drive across 80.

I found an arifact all on my own!

I've learned a lot about stone artifacts over the last two years. I've been on a lot of adventures and have found a lot of wonderful objects. But I never went out on my own to find an arrowhead...until yesterday.
Mudd (the puppy) was pooping in a ditch when I noticed a cache of small stones in the dirt. I picked through a few pebbles and found flint rocks. Flint is a hard stone that can be napped into shapes (you may have seen arrowheads napped in obsidian at fairs or rock stores), where one finds flint one finds artifacts. I was optimistic about finding a piece at that point. And, sure enough, I picked up a brown piece of flint and saw nap marks where an Iowa native (500-200 years ago) would have used an antler to bust off small pieces to make a sharp edge (see below for napping patterns).
Now, I know that it may look like "just a rock " but it's not. If you look at the top photo you can see the clam shell shape of the rock, a sure fire sign that the rock was shaped by human hands. So, there you go. I found a scraper...a scarper is a multipurpose tool used to scrape fat off hides, bark off tree, meat off bone...you get the idea. I'm freaking geeked about my find. All by myself!

Here's a video on flint napping. Check it out

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bvl9662aVc

va-voom!

Well, Kyle and I did a nice thing this weekend. We helped an Adopt a Highway group clean up 4 miles worth of dirty roads.

List of gross stuff I found while cleaning:

1. deer skull
2. dead vole
3. underpants! ew.
4. too many McDonalds wrappers. People that eat there litter.
5. A rope that was 1 mile long.
6. porno!

I had a good time, though. I got some exercise, hung out with some nice people, and found this lovely piece of smut of the side of the road. Of course, I had to censor her a lil' bit. I guess all garbage isn't bad. Should I hang her on my wall?

Happy Friday!

I wish I owned this poster. I also hope/wish I win big tonight. Kyle and I are gonna go gamble the night away at some casino. Big money, Big money, Big money!

sigh.

Click on image for a better view.

Well, guys...its Fall. Summer has come to a close and we've traded green grass for falling leaves. And for the first time in many years, I'm not mourning the loss of a season.

Unfortunately, the changing of the season also means its harder to find stuff on the ground. No more fossils and rocks until next year...they're hidden under crunchy leaves. I've scanned in some interesting objects I haven't gotten around to posting until now.

Left to right top to Bottom:

1. River Amber (such a strange rock. Its soft, see through and looks a lot like the amber from Jurassic park. I've only found two pieces. Both were found on the river so I named it River Amber....take that scientists).

2. A geode: Its the state rock of Iowa, check out this interesting and fact filled page http://www.igsb.uiowa.edu/browse/geodes/geodes.htm. Apparently, Keokuk (iowa) is one of the best places in the United States to find Geodes.

3. You can't totally tell but this segmented rock is also semi- crystallized and very beautiful. I can't figure out how to identify it. Its bumming me out. Help?!

4. Quartz with flakes of pyrite (fools gold). You can make out the pyrite on the left side of the rock. Cool stuff.

5. An impression of a shell on a flint like rock. Fossils!

6 and 7. I haven't been able to identify these either. I imagine they're volcanic or were somehow blasted with heat a long long time ago. At first glance they look grey and unimpressive but if you hold them up to the light you can see through them. When you jingle them together they make a beautiful clinking sound. Sort of like a wind chime.

turkey nuts.

I'd like to consider myself an adventurous eater. Put a new food in front of me and I'll try at least two bites before I politely spit into a napkin while I pretend to cough. I used to be a semi-picky eater...that is, until Andrew Zimmern's show came out. Bizarre Foods opened me up to a new world of interesting tastes.

Deer, Bison, Elk, gizzards, poutine, scallops, squid, eel, octopus, goat, deep fried dandelions, pigeon, wild mushrooms, heart, liver, deep fried oreos (snickers, reeses peanut butter cups, and three musketeers...ALL DEEP FRIED AND DELICIOUS), oysters, clams, mussels, seaweed, vegan food, kibbeh...and the list could go on. I'll try anything.

My interest in new foods got me into trouble the other day. Big trouble. Bizarre food caliber. Almost vomit on my lap trouble.

I was at a barn party last Friday. It was good times. Lots of nice people, bonfires, and beer. Did I mention that someone brought turkey balls to the party? Yeah, a whole gallon of them in a large zip-lock bag. I was surprised by how large the testicles were...some of the bite sized snacks were longer then my pinky finger. And round. Ugh.

I was "cocky" and boasted...

"I'll eat those greasy bastards."

I shouldn't have said that. About ten minutes later Kevin walked up to me with two balls in his hands. I grabbed the smaller one and popped it into my mouth. I gave it one chew and swallowed. I also made the mistake of saying it wasn't too bad. I said it tasted like chicken. Kevin handed me the second testy. It was a big fellow and dripped oil. I popped the second turkey nut into my mouth and bit down. Instant gag reflex. For some reason the second bite was way worse then the first bite. It tasted like wet chicken fat mixed with organ meat. The hot oil that poured from the center of the morsel didn't help, either. I started to panic, I had a mouth full of balls and nowhere to spit.

I grabbed the nearest beer can and unloaded my palate. It was a horrific experience. Three other people tried to feed me turkey balls that night.

I told them to go piss up a rope.

an interesting optical illusion.

I managed to catch a pretty great optical illusion on camera.