Eric and I are both geologists. One of the things that you do as a geologist is travel around and look at rocks. Another thing that you do as a geologist is find cool rocks to bring back home with you. Here’s a quick inventory of the rocks that I can see as I sit here and write:
- Eocene fish and plant fossils from the Green River Basin, Wyoming
- Precambrian Uinta Mountain Quartzite, Utah
- Olivine sand (green sand) from Papakolea beach on the south end of Hawaii (forgive me Pele)
- Huronian dropstone from Ontario (Gowganda Formation)
- Recent tuff from Mount St. Helens
- Cretaceous corals turned river cobbles from the north slope, AK
- Recent volcanic rocks from Iceland
- Pennsylvanian Potsville sandstone from West Virginia
- Precambrian granite reworked in a glacial tunnel channel, from near Wausau, WI
- Proterozoic gneiss and quartzite from Utah
- Representative Canadian shield rock garden – from Point Beach, WI (Lake Michigan)
You can see the rock to book ratio is higher than the average bookshelf.
These rocks have traveled with us from Madison, to Houston, and back to Madison. In fact, when we moved to Houston in 2002, our moving company really screwed up… and did not inventory our belongings (long story short – the guy in charge was given a permanent vacation). I received a call from the newly appointed guy in charge of our move – he was trying to locate our boxes. The question I’ll never forget is “Ma’am, do you have a box of rocks?” I knew he’d found our stuff.
Many of these rocks are bookshelf-sized hand samples that have been re-purposed as book-ends. But one in particular – that fabulous piece of Gowganda (see photo below) – has been dragged across the country and back for a higher purpose. We had decided a long time ago that this rock was to someday become tile. The original idea was to cut 4 good sized tiles out of it to craft into a table top for an as-yet-to-be-built end table. But the longer we hold onto it, the more ideas that I get. Maybe it’ll be inset into the floor of our new kitchen? Or the new entryway? Either way, it’s massive carbon footprint will not be for naught.
Here's the chunk of Gowganda destined to be tiles.
While I’m on the topic of rocks and real estate… let me just vent for a moment.
Granite = an igneous rock, made predominantly of quartz and feldspar
Marble = metamorphic rock derived from limestone
As an HGTV junkie / geoscientist, it gets under my skin when when I hear ‘granite counter top’ as a generic description for all counter tops made of rock. “Oh, I like the granite counter tops, and the stainless steel appliances, I could really see myself entertaining in here”. But I digress, this is the subject of another rant post. Sorry – just had to send that out there into the aether.
When you leave your mark on your home, it seems appropriate to incorporate your passions into your design. ‘They’ might not advise that for re-sale – but what do ‘they’ know. Besides, you don’t buy a house for the trim or the wall color or the tile… right?
How have you brought a piece of yourself into your design?
I think you are to home improvement as I am to gardening, so I bring myself and my story into my garden. There’s the placenta planted under a plum tree seedling the year my son was born, late beloved pets buried here and there, plants laboriously dug up and brought from the old house to the new, plants that remind me of my mother, my father, my brother, my grandmother, plants transplanted from the house where I grew up… my whole story is right there outside the door. Moving can be heartbreaking.
When you love a home, you put your story into it, into the walls and the floor and the interior and exterior space, and it carries your story for you. It used to be that house-story was carried across generations, but that doesn’t happen so much anymore, does it.
I like your blog.
I love how your heart is in your garden… it must be a great place to linger. I hope that I can make my gardens feel like home too! I’m ready to eliminate the pre-existing hastas (apparently there used to be shade back there – a big old pine tree was struck by lightning – opening up the backyard to sun)… and plant tall grasses and things that look awesome in the Fall.
You do touch on a very valid point – not every granite counter top is actually made of granite. Jeff and like to point this out to realtors and friends when the need to arises. Drives me nuts.
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Meredith:
The rock specimen shown is Precambrian Huronian Tillite.