Agate Collage

Ever play with Flickr Toys? Sure you can do this with photoshop too but bighugelabs is quick and easy if you've already uploaded to Flickr. Love you, "fd", whoever you are. (Am I the only one who thinks there's some geek out there with the initials fd? Maybe it stands for some acronym I'm supposed to know. If you know, let me know.)

These shots come from the picture of one agate slice, about 7 by 9 inches. I cropped the one shot 9 times in 300x300 pixel increments at various points around the picture. I rotated one of those crops 90 degrees, too. (A dollar if you can tell me which one.) Really, who needs drugs?

What comes to mind when I see a rock like this, broken open to reveal its innards? I think, where did mother nature learn her color theory? I think, how long has this been here, hidden away like this? I think, how long does this take to make? I think, of course, the inside is the best part. And, maybe I should start going around with a hammer.

I bought the kids each their choice of rocks in the gift shop at the TX Natural History Museum today. Here's what they chose:

Katie -- an agate "healing" necklace
Willie -- a minuscule red agate hippopotamus
Henry -- three uncut rock specimens

If your town has a natural hsitory museum I highly recommend a field trip (with or without kids). I brought my sketch book but didn't really have time and the quiet to sketch as I like, but maybe I'll go back one day. I fondly remember sketching at the University of Nebraska's Morrill Hall when I was a student there. That was when they still had laser light shows at night on the weekends ((dark side of the moon, etc.), but I digress. I'm delighted with our museum experience today. We came home and had blueberry snow cones and everyone's tongue turned blue, like witches. A memorable day.