We are happy to hear that your folks are stabilized and that you have a large enough family to be able to support them by being there. It is daunting to try and reorganize your lives for them but I am sure they are most appreciative.

I'm a rock hound too, but have slowed down considerably since I no longer move from one state to another every couple months like I did for 20 years. I haven't been hunting since I went to Hillridge Farms in Youngsville with the grandchildren but I suppose that doesn't count anyway when you just BUY a bag to sluice for rough "gems" that are native to NC. It really is more fun to climb into mines or caves, or pan for gold in the mountains, but not in winter.

Good luck with your xls rockhunting! Since there may be some people on this site who don't know about Arkansas's treasures I've put a website link here. There is a good page at this site too for children's experiments in growing crystals, even growing edible rock candy! Fun to do in the dead of winter when they can't play outdoors. If you don't know about the mines open to collecting in NC www.rockhounds.com/rockshop/ncsites.html is a good place to start - or Google "rockhounding north carolina".

Nancy the nancedar

Here is a link that might be useful: Arkansas Rockhounding

Have a good trip TJ. We'll miss you but then again you will be able to check in on the road. Shannon

For those of you that don't know me - I am NOT a purist about anything!!! So my idea of rock hounding is much more relaxed than it may sound when I talk about it. I have lived or traveled all over the world and have picked up pebbles/shells/stones from everywhere. My problem is that I have never written on them where they came from so I hoard them all lest I missplace the true treasure. As an example: as a child I lived in Japan. One summer our family climbed Mt Fuji. I brought back a small lava rock from the top (so many people do this that they have to haul lava gravel up there to replace it every year). But I also have lava chunks from Hawaii and Costa Rica and I don't know which one is which - so I keep them all.

Now every year I drive home to Oklahoma to visit the parents and relatives and just off I-40 is a guy that sells chunks of waste glass. I have these colorfull globs of glass placed all over my yard and porch - some are large some are small. I've even been known to sell them at the flea market (made enough money to offset the cost of the big drive home!). I've also gathered or bought some nice chunks of crystals that decorate the inside of my "natural history museum" of a house. So when I found out that most of these clusters of quartz came from Arkansas, a state I drive through at least once each year, I decided that rather than look for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker this trip I should explore Mt. Ida and dig some of my own quartz. I fear that the rock hounding disease will get me and I will be hooked big-time,, but it may be cold enough to slow or stop me (good thing its not summer). So, if I find some crystals I'll be happy, but if I don't it won't matter much because I will be spending a day in the Ozarks wallowing in the mud - how can you beat that!

Nancy - there is this part time security guard that works the fair grounds who normally spends his days panning for gold in the western part of the state. He showed me some sizeable chunks he had found. He owns mineral rights to many plots around Charlotte and says back in the day it was THE place for gold panning. Anyway - I forsee a whole new hobby for me. Anything to get me into the mountains.

HAH! My DH said that if I could find a piece of gold that could be melted down and equal the weight of the wedding ring he gave me, THEN he'd be interested in panning. Doesn't he know it is like fishing? It is not how big the one you caught is, it is that you went fishing!

Nancy the nancedar

Where I grew up in PA., there were a lot of quarries. We used to be able to find huge pieces of quartz that were used in the production at the quarries, I think they were used as wedges or something. Some of them were huge, as big as two of your hands or as thick as your wrist and about 7 to 8 inches long with a faceted tip. Most of them were clear as glass or looked like huge diamonds. They were so beautiful. We had an old fashioned rock garden and our Mom had an area dedicated to those crystals.......... A question for you....Are any of these 'blobs of glass' ever cobalt blue in color? I would really love to get one of those to go out by the bottle tree I am planning that I saw at the fair in Tamelasks plot last year. ( almost have enough of the bottles). I have never seen you at the fairgrounds, although I am aware that you sell plants and things there also. Thanx!

new2 - yep. Sometimes I find cobalt but the most popular is the waste glass from canning jars, a kinda aquamarine. I buy the rocks by the pound and sell them by the pound which is kinda tricky because glass weighs a lot. A couple of years ago I used a ton of it in a garden I grew at the fair - I called it my kryponite garden. I had lights behind or under the larger chunks so that they would light up at night. Anyway, after the fair folks approached me to buy the rocks. I explained that they were $2 or $3 per pound depending on the quality. They figured the largest would be over $20 and totally freaked when I showed how a glass rock the size of a basketball can weigh up to 85 pounds. I only sold the smaller chunks.

I plan on selling plants at the Wake Forest Farmers Market (it's all Nancedar's fault) next year and I hope to sell glass rocks at Summerfest at the JC Raulston Arboretum if they'll let me. Keep in touch and I'll fill you in as my schedule becomes clear.

Thanx! ! ! I'll have to look ya up !!

Even at 20 degrees and bitter cold I love the mountains! Today I'm outside of Little Rock on my way to Hot Springs. So far so good.

Well, silly me, I assumed that something like natural hot springs would be a BIG deal in the cold of winter - WRONG!! seems the tourist season is in the summer. Now who wants to dip in the steaming wawa then?? Anyway the town in cute but empty and boarded up for the most part. They do have a cool set up for anyone to dip clean drinkable water from the fountain. People were driving up with large jugs and hauling it away by the truckload. The water is over 4000 years old and too hot to drink (they cool it before it comes out the spigot). It takes it 4000 years to decend to the deepest part of the earth where it heats up, and one year to come back to the surface and bubble up through the rocks which pretty much follow the main drag of Hot Springs. The park is also the first park in the national park system - older than yellowstone.

Digging for crystals was also a bust! they don't allow dogs. At least the only place I could find that was open didn't. It would've cost me $10 to scratch through their piles of rubble for tiny chips of quartz - so instead I went to rock shop and bought them. I think I got the better end of the deal. I did look around inside the park for crystals and found none. (the park has a spot where they allow you to hunt for crystals - probably the only national park that does).

I arrived in Oklahoma around lunch time today (Wednesday). The weather was warm but there is still a lot of snow on the ground.

Glad you arrived safely- sorry the Springs were a bust? Okay stupid question- do they allow you to soak in them? I know in NC the natural hot springs were supposed to be medicinal and people would go there to "heal". Perhaps you should take some water with you and have a Christmas drink with the family. Does the water taste good? I grew up on clear well water. It was sweet, literally. I'm spoiled. I can't stand city water. I've had to resort to drinking bottled water.

I'm all for letting someone else do the hunting and I do the admiring. If they won't let Tammy in you don't want to be there. They obviously can't recognise a walking treasure anyway. Shannon

Shannon - Evidentally the Hot Springs area was a big deal to the Native Americans that ended up in that area. So most of the bathouses are named for Indian chiefs or tribes. Now being a national park they have wonderful signage explaining all of it. The town is considered a national treasure and is part of the park (weird). The springs bubbly up through the rocks at the base of a long slope. It was sculpted into a straight line - rock walled creek that flowed along beside mainstreet. Tourist would come from all over to soak in the water in special bath houses built beside the creek and the water was pumped up into them. Some of the bathhouses were built over the creek and the water flowed through the main floor. It is all very lavish and fanciful and full of antiques. But it is also under massive renovation during the winter and most of it is closed. You can still soak in the tubs but for a fee - I decided to shower at the hotel instead.

I only had a small water bottle to fill and as of today I haven't tasted it. It is supposed to be sweet. I need to mark that bottle before it gets mixed up with all the other small water bottles.

I offered it as a cure to my dad but he passed on it. He is dehydrated but they advised us to make him drink high calorie liquids instead of plain water. Since he is undernourished also, he has to consume a huge amount of calories just to improve - BUT - because he is undernourished he is too weak to stay awake long enough to eat enough. So food as to be packed with calories and nutrition and small in size. Too big and he will just throw it back up. Put too much pressure on him to eat and he will just drift off to sleep (to avoid the conflict, he can't run away after all). So I have to constantly think up creative ways to get a bite or two out of him and have sugary drinks available all the time. The whole process points out how futile it all is. He looses about 2 pounds a week. It takes all day to keep things going and keep him clean. I'm worn out already and I just got here!!!

John, good ,safe trip.
Next year I think one of your 'fair' garden plots should be a nighttime garden accented with phosphorescent rocks under black light and low pathway lights. Night bloomers.

Dottie - I'm now the director of the flower show but I still do some gardening around the competition plots and there are plenty of dark corners that a night blooming garden would be perfect for. Thanks

John, Glad to hear your Dad is doing OK.

So many plant- lovers I know are also rock hounds, me so included. I have rocks I collected in travelling as a kid 35 years ago, and they remind me of the places visited, and looking at them brings up the memories of those places. And, just think, those rocks will be biding their time in whomever's hands long after we head on out. I have opals from Mexico, geodes from Wyoming, a piece of petrified wood my telephone line-laying grandfather found in the desert when working, some old regular rock from family homestead in Canada, on and on... And, then there's the Shells....collected from beaches on both Coasts and Mexico. I suppose that we just love nature, in all it's beautiful form.

Have a Merry Christmas, John, and a good safe trip back!

Best,
Lauri

I made it back with all my treasures intact! Had nice weather the entire weekend which made it go by quickly.

I bought way too many seeds and dug way too many plants out of my dads garden - it will take the rest of winter to pot every thing up or sow them. I dug up some white lilacs that seem to handle the conditions in OK better than most so I hope they will handle NC just as well (all store bought lilacs have failed for me including Miss Kim - now if I could find a vendor for Syringa oblata like they have out at the arboretum...). I also dug up a ton of the standard pink Garden Phlox - dad's handles the drought just fine and blooms all summer without mildew so I'm hoping it likes my yard just as well. I dug up some dormant Snowberry bushes in in the woods and will try them in my dry shade - I may regret this move since they are kinda weedy and hard to get rid of. And I dug up some of the remaining asparagus roots from a 40 foot row that I helped plant when I was in highschool. Asparagus does fine for me in my part sun garden so I plan on expanding the space devoted to it (asparagus is one of those plants where I couldn't grow enough of it no matter how big my yard was - that and garlic, I could eat it everyday).

I went seed shopping and found some rare and exotic seeds to try - Olive trees, one of the freaky passion vines, a tropical iris relative, Protea (I know, I know, impossible to grow here....), and some of those Rhodochiton 'purple bells' vines (Brenda, didn't you say you were looking for some???), not to mention all the herbs and salad plants.

Symphoricarpos or Gaultheria? Is the Snowberry edible? Aren't they native here too?

Have you considered buying 50 acres or so? I imagine that you must have plants crammed into every possible nook and cranny at your place. And you're bringing home more?? Don't blame you though for transplanting those things with memories. I have a truly ugly, very bent, white flowering redbud that I won't ever get rid of - It got run over by a 20 ton log skidder when they de-pine-d my forest. It lives on! That's how I see myself - living on just for spite no matter how many tons run over me.

Nancy the nancedar

Nancy - this one's Symphoricarpos. The wild one, not the new hybrids you sometimes see in garden centers (I like them both, the hybrids have larger berries). When I was a mere pup we called this plant 'Buck Brush' but no one remembers this but me. It is slow to grow, takes two winters for the seed to break dormancy, spreads by runners, requires a sharp chain saw to cut through - in other words is one tough plant. But is looks great in dry shade, even deep dry shade. It should be found somewhere in NC but I haven't checked.

I used to own 13 acres, but I was dirt poor in those days and never got the entire place developed. Though I learned a lot living primitively/remotely I will never do it again unless I have money. Raising livestock when you don't know how you will afford to feed them isn't much fun.

Actually, most of my plants are small so they don't take up much room. I have learned to take lots of cutting during the heat of summer and overwinter the cuttings and let mother nature take care of the larger, original plant. This is one of my reasons behind collecting violets - they stay small and are completely winter hardy. I've also learned to grow a lot of shade tolerant bloomers so that I can leave what little sunshine I have for the food crops. My veggie plot is small but compact and I grow stuff kinda intensively with lots of compost and heavy rotation. My yard doesn't have a lawn, it is all carved out of the forest. The only open spot is in the back where the veggies and herbs are grown. I do sow a lot of seeds but so many die or get traded that in the end I only have to find a spot in the garden for a few of them.

Oops! this one is Symphoricarpos orbiculatus Coralberry or Indian Currant. It is native to Wake County NC as well as most of North America.

Hi John,
I`m glad you made it home safely. This state would be a poorer place without you.
I was thinking about your statement that your dad did not care to eat.
I`ve spent some time at Hospice with elderly friends as they went through the dying process. One thing I found interesting is how the will to eat, or drink, often goes away. They get little chips of ice to moisten their mouths and that`s it. One of the nurses I worked with told me that forcing them to eat can cause discomfort, and that the body knows what it is doing as it shuts down. We Americans are often uncomfortable with the notion of death. I have seen dying people experience things that make me believe when death comes we rejoin our loved ones that have gone on before us. I`m looking forward to that!
You are a wonderful son. My thoughts are with you and your siblings as you go through this. You might find comfort in speaking with some of the Hospice folks if you haven`t already. They are wonderful.
After winter, comes the spring.
Best wishes!
Ferndottar

I'm not really sure what dad's prospects are. There are five of us kids and we can all be in the room when the doctor talks to dad and each of us will walk away with a different interpretation of what was said....

I thought the doctor said that due to the damage caused by the infections - he would most likely not survive long. If he stayed infection free (so far, so good), ate more (he needs calories!), drank more (to help his kidneys) and increased his strength (doesn't look likely) he could possibly beat this thing and survive for years to come. He would never be able to run a marathon and would most likely be homebound or bedridden. But, the infections he suffered caused massive damage to most of his organs, any normal human would not have survived the first round of septsis or the second time with pneumonia at his age. But rather than die quickly his body wants to drag things out for a long long time. Which means that there is always a glimmer of hope that he might actually improve somewhat.

I do think that having a trained professional taking care of him will give us the best shot - he knew how to blow off us kids, but a total stranger can talk him into trying harder.

I'm not sure what he wants to happen. Sometimes he seems content to exist the way he does today other times he is frustrated and wants things to improve faster. He doesn't talk much about the future but he doesn't talk about dying anymore either - maybe he got tired of all the doomsday stuff.

My mom has also stopped eating much. It won't surprise me at all if this is one of those double whammy unhappy endings. None of us know what to do or say but because we have been watching this situation deteriorate for more than a year we are ready for anything.

Hi John, glad you got to make the trip home and spend time with your folks. Hope your Dad continues to improve. Docs are good, but they don't know everything. Many times the docs gave up on my FIL and he'd rally and amaze them all. The one thing that would pull him around was seeing the grandkids. We'd race home (on the doctor's advice) and within an hour of getting there he'd make a complete turn around. He was always such a happy person and I think it just delighted his heart and gave him the will to want to live.

Anyway I wanted to tell you that there's a place where you can buy the chunks of glass in TN off I-40, is that the one you go to? This one is at Hwy 66 (I think) going into Severeville before you get to Knoxville. He gets his glass from one of the glass manufacturers (vases and so forth) I think out of Virginia. I checked them out but they don't sell it from there. He also carries rocks from various places. Last time I was there (Christmas) I got a beautiful rock from Canada. The name escapes me right now but it's a dark blue and gorgeous! They have a good bit of the dark blue glass too. I bought a nice piece for my tank and they also have a clear glass with tiny bubbles in it which looks good in a tank. My husband's family is from Maryville so we go thru there a good bit and we almost always stop to check it out. As I buy new pieces I end up rotating the older glass ones out of the tank and into my garden.

Hey Deborah - I once stopped at a rock shop that had a lot of glass in that area but I thought it was in Maggie Valley NC.

The guy in Oklahoma (also on I-40) implied that they would no longer be selling glass wholesale because they have more than enough retail business. He refered me to a place in Marietta Ohio, but I can't find a website or listing in the yellow pages. I have to go to Ohio anyway so I plan on snooping for them.

My dad/families problem is that dad is very much alive in his head. He talks fine and comes up with charming stories to keep people by him. His body is just damaged. He could improve somewhat and live for a few more years but he doesn't think the doctors know it all and he doesn't really wanna work hard at it. He is also receiving an antibiotic shot every day for his pseudomonas infection. A nurse comes out to the house and gives it to him. Without this shot his infection would take over and kill him. With the shot he runs the risk of more damage to his kidneys (and its the only antibiotic for his level of infection - nothing else works). Because of this shot and his type of "do not resuscitate" living will (his ask's to be resuscitated in certain circumstances), the local hospice people will only come out and talk to him and won't provide care. Even though he qualifies for hospice and under hospice all the costs would be covered by Medicaid, as long as he gets that shot and asks to be revived, they can't help us. Also because of the shot, he won't be accepted at any of the nursing homes. He only has enough money to keep his live in nurse for a few more months. Insurance and Medicare won't pay for home health in his case. So he can only live in two places, a private home (his) or the hospital. He wants to stay at home as long as possible and keep getting that shot because he doesn't want to die from a massive infection (painful and messy). None of us kids has enough money to pay for his care and none of us are willing to move back home permanently though my little sister is willing to stay there for many months at a time.

We have been told many times that this could go on for years. If he ever catchs a cold or the flu that may end everything and if his kidneys react to the antibiotic (this has happened a couple of times before) he will be out of options. Of course at that point the shots will cease and he can either move into a nursing home or have hospice caregivers come out to the house.

I'm not aware of the glass place in Maggie Vally. The one I know about is on the way to Gatlinburg on the left just before you get to the turnoff for Dumpling Valley, What names, lol... If you ever want to go by there (or anyone else) let me know and I'll get you better directions. I think once we get that close to home the car just knows the way so we don't pay much attention to the technicalities of where we are, lol. It isn't too far off the interstate. It's also on the way to some of the most beautiful parts of the Smokies (I can give tips on where to go). Dollywood is out that way, which doesn't do a thing for me, but Cades Cove, Townsend, the Sinks and some other areas are very worth a trip. I've spent hours in the Cove and you just need to know the right times of day to drive the loop to see the most critters and be sure to let the townies pass ya and take it slow :::vbg:::. They have campgrounds but we never needed to camp there as Don's family lives close to it.
Sent you an email......

John, we once lived near I-40 in the Knoxville, TN area for a couple of years and enjoyed both rock hunting and fossil collecting. The better places for rock hunting as I recall are in western NC because most of Tennesse was under water at sometime in the past resulting in most of the rock there being sedimentary in origin. I looked up Symphoricarpos orbiculatus in "Vascular Flora of the Carolinas" and it is as you indicated native from Wake County westward throughout the piedmont and foothills and in a few mountain counties, but no where in the coastal plain.

Its been a while so I thought I'd post an update.

Believe it or not my dad is still alive and kicking! He is back in the hospital (a place he ends up every once in a while it seems). I suspect he's taken a shine to some nurse.

My other sister is there now and reports that he is stronger and eating better than the last time she visited (Christmas 2006).

He has gall stones but is too weak for surgery and the doc's don't think it is a pressing issue. As long as he eats enough he will have the strength to mend. He's actually walking with a walker again! When I left in December I felt he would be bed ridden for the rest of his life so I'm surprised.

I will probably go back home sometime in the summer. Hope its not too hot.

Well, things haven't gone as planned. Dad got released from the rehab hospital and sent home to recover (they always say that - we're sending him home to get stronger! - yet it never happens. He improves when he is at the hospital and goes downhill when home). The other day he suffered a mild stroke and lost the ability to talk so he was rushed back the big hospital where he is at this moment. His prognosis is good and he is already starting to talk again. They said the stroke was so minimal that it didn't even show up on any of the normal scans for strokes.

He has lost a lot of weight, down into the very scary category. They believe that the stroke impaired his ability to swallow. We are going along with that even though we've been screaming at them for the last year that he damaged his swallowing ability when he took the initial fall. So they now want to insert a stomach feeding tube which is kinda tricky because tubes going in was how he caught the staph infection in the first place and because he is on blood thinners it will be difficult to safely make a port for the tube. But we all want the tube - even dad! Everyone agrees that the only way to get his weight up is to get thousands of calories into him and there is no way he can eat and chew and swallow that much food.

The most difficult thing about this whole mess is that I always thought that at the end of someone near-and-dear's life, they would begin to drift away mentally which would make the tough choices a little bit easier. But dad has remained alert and aware through all of this. Its his body that has given out - not his mind. I also always thought that after a certain stage a person should just be sent home to face the end of their life in bed at home surrounded by their family - which is a nice thought except when they go home and don't die. They linger in this very gradual downhill spiral. Nothing quick. Very drawn out. Its easy to consider stopping all medical treatment if it brought about a quick and painless end. But in this case that doesn't look like an option. There is nothing quick about any of it.

John,
I'm sorry to hear that your dad continues to struggle. Hopefully they can successfully get some weight back on him. That can't help but make him feel better.
Dana

John, Is there anything we can do for you? How are his spirits? I hope he still has his sense of humor. I am thinking about you and your family. Shannon

Due to the stroke I haven't bothered him with a phone call. My mom says that he gets embarassed about slurring his words. But he calls her off and on throughout the day and claims to feel fine.

I don't know anything about this type of stomach tube. It sounds like some sort of port in his side. When he asked for some pain medication they supposedly just pushed a pill through the tube (his description). Anyway it seems to be working and they've been packing him full of din din.

My dad is an odd character. Very non-committal. He never complains or frets about anything. So none of this is bothering him. If you ask him he'll say "if it happens, it happens" and things like "it's out of my hands". Which is the truth. I remember once when we were on one of our father/son road trips and I was bored out of my skull. I asked him repeatedly what he wanted to do for fun that evening. He never said anything beyond "Whatever you wanna do is fine by me". He got a little panicky when I brought up the volleyball championship at the nearby nude beach or the female impersonator competition down the street... that'll teach him. So, he's fine in his own way. He is very religious and content in the way he's led his life. He doesn't mind all the medical stuff. He is very weak so its not like he's frustrated with not being able to get up and walk around. He's not in any pain or discomfort (that I know of). When I did talk to him on the phone it was like the old days before his accident. Which is why this is so grueling for the rest of us, he seems so normal, he's just suddenly very fragile.

As far as what you can do...... how about coming over and pulling weeds????? bathing the dog????? washing my car (which is even dirtier than the dog!)????? just kidding. I'm fine - just way too busy. On top of my regular 9-6 M-F job, I have to get ready to sell plants on Saturdays at the Wake Forest Farmers Market, in my precious spare time I'm writing gardening articles for that on-line magazine AND in whatever time is left over I am illustrating a gardening book for Timber Press!! yep! the candle is not only burning on both ends, the whole dang thing is on fire.

I can bring marshmallows and bring you some plants lol. I do need to swing by sometime and give you some things to lighten my load before the swap if it doesn't cause you more burden. I'll check with you on your schedule, probably sometime after Easter and the kids go back to school.

So who won the nude volleyball championship? ;>
Shannon/Dirtrx