Happy Holidays to all

One of the agate slabs waiting to be shaped and polished.

We are hanging out in Deming, New Mexico waiting to start our workcamp jobs on Jan. 2. Last Thursday I went to the Gem and Mineral Society workshop to learn how to operate all the equipment used to shape and polish stones. After our trip to the desert a while back, we have a 5 gallon bucket overflowing with rocks we picked up. They are mostly agates that polish really well. Some of the bigger ones are sawn into slabs about 1/4" to 5/16", then sawn and ground into the shape you want to make a piece of jewelery out of. The workshop at the club has a bunch of grinders and saws to accomplish this. The folks in the club are really helpful and willing to answer all the questions one has on how to turn a dirty, ugly rock into a beautiful stone. They can also tell you what is a good rock to work on and what will never polish to a usable stone. Some rocks just will not take a polish, so are not worth the time. I have a lot to learn about all this, but it is really fun to watch something so plain turn into something so pretty.

I have been doing a lot of carving and woodburning. The "hand holding the cross" I carve seems to be a favorite. I carved 2 more last night, as I had given away or sold all I had made up. Glad people like them. We went out to the desert to gather more yucca shafts to make walking sticks out of. I woodburn them instead of carving them. Different for me, but fun.

For Christmas, Louise and I both got new phones. We also bought ourselves a new rock tumbler, the old one was not big enough to handle all the rocks we are picking up....lol. Louise received a Kindle from the kids as well as a book of Christmas stories that she read and enjoyed a lot. Gift cards for restaurants and book stores were also received. I used one to order the carving and woodburning books and videos I have been wanting yesterday. The Ohio family sent dvds of the second season of Kung Fu and our favorite potato chips and Ester Prices candy....YUM YUM. Pictures of the grand kids were also sent our way. THANK YOU EVERYONE!!!! Our hope is that we can get all the kids and grandkids together for a Christmas in the future. With all the pressures of jobs and the distance between them all, I don't know if it is even possible. Six kids in 3 states and us living on the road, makes it very hard to work out all the details. Maybe some day. We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas day with our Escapees friends here in the park. As with most Escapees events, we ate way to much...lol. They are having a New Years Eve party here that we will go to, should be fun.
Yesterday we went to the local movie theater to see the movie True Grit. We both thought it was a very good movie and would recommend it. Don't know about taking small kids, a lot of killing going on in it. We both really like westerns and this was a good one. The movie complex here has bowling lanes and video games as well as the movie screens, all in the same building.
Till next time

Duane and Louise