In March, we headed back to the Dust Devil Mine to see if what we could dig up. This time, we brought one of my son's grandmothers...and lunch. We were prepared to give our son as much time as he wanted to find as many sunstones as he could.
Unfortunately, in the spring, the mine does not supply tools. My husband had a maul in his car toolbox, and this kept my son busy for quite a while. Grandma and I worked with shovels and a shaker table. We found quite a few stones. My son, however, had was determined to dissect a 24-inch diameter boulder. He could see a large stone on one face.
Henry worked on this for about an hour when the man who was watching over the facility showed up and began to give him some good advice on how to delicately pull the boulder apart. He also retrieved his five-pound hammer and the chisel from a jackhammer. The boulder was pretty quickly reduced to many smaller rocks.
By the time the boulder was apart, Henry had a bucket full of specimens (rocks with sunstones not yet removed) and sunstones. Some of the sunstones were fairly large. We spent quite a bit for the stones (more than the market value), but it was worth the expense for the experience.
I asked Henry this morning if there was any sort of an adventure he would like to go on this summer. He wants to return to the sunstone mine.
