Larkin and Emile (their dad) took a field trip a few hours east of our home this weekend to dig at a public mine for Oregon fire opal! They stopped on the road for some pretty epic eclipse viewing, too.
Fire opal is gorgeous stuff-- they got one really nice, big hunk-- the matrix is actually quite thin so there's a lot of workable stone in this piece.
Larkin will cab up some of the small stuff, too, and we'll probably tumble the rest.
Importantly, they learned a lot about the area and what the stone looks like in the wild! Apparently serious miners show up with a jackhammer to expose a seam, then extract chunks with picks and chisels. Not having a jackhammer has never felt like a scarcity in our lives up until this point, but here we are. 😅
Using ethically sourced stone is very important to Larkin, and you can't do too much better than finding it yourself!