Hi Jim,
Thanks for the excellent report. As a novice collector and never having
gone on a hunt, your account was inspiring.
Greg Lindh
----- Original Message -----
From: <jbaxter...@pol.net>
To: <meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Sunday, March 01, 2009 11:20 PM
Subject: [meteorite-list] Hunting in West,Texas - thanks to Mike Farmer and
his team!
> Hi Folks,
>
> A few thoughts and a BIG thanks to Mike and his team regarding my first
> and only meteorite hunt this past Thursday.
>
> As I was reading on the list, early this past week, about everyone's
> adventures hunting in Texas I realized I had a day and a half off work at
> the end of the week. On a whim checked out Southwest's prices to Texas and
> saw to my surprise that I could get out there and back for about $200. It
> seemed like too great an opportunity to miss; a fresh U.S. fall! I was
> especially motivated by Mike's earlier observation that with ploughing
> imminent many of the stones not found in the near future will be gone
> forever. I e-mailed Mike Farmer and asked if I could join his team for a
> day to which he kindly responded, "I'd welcome that."
>
> I arrived at the search site around 8:45 just as Mike Cottingham's son,
> Christopher, found a gorgeous oriented complete stone. Good omen, I
> thought! I was so psyched I launched into hunting without changing out of
> my street shoes, to the amusement of the pro's.
>
> Mike took me under his wing and gave me a quick tutorial and off I went,
> eyes to the ground. I was getting a picture from Mike as we walked about
> how they had gone about their hunt in the past ten days. We were in flat
> open fields with lots of clumps of taller grass with more open areas in
> between with shorter grass. Surely many fine stones were hidden way beyond
> sight within the taller clumps- no way to find them at this point. The
> stones were there, though, some peeping through the shorter grass, some
> just sitting on the surface. I saw Mike Farmer, Greg Hupe, and McCartney
> Taylor find stones. The stones were, however, very widely dispersed. I'd
> say the ratio of pitch-black, roughly meteorite shaped 30 gram hunks of
> fresh animal dung to meteorites was about 1000 to one. The four finds I
> witnessed were hundreds of yards apart from each other. McCartney showed
> me how he grids an area adjacent to a find to try to systematically look
> for other pieces(many thanks, MT). I walked continuously except for a
> couple of 5 minute water breaks from about 8:45 am until sunset. I'm sure
> I walked at least 20 miles. Alas no stone for me!
>
> Mike was kind enough to stick with me and keep looking as the sun was
> setting. He was rewarded by finding a stone in the dying light( I think
> his third of the day). It was really disappointing not to find my own
> stone but it was an amazing experience nonetheless. I had talked to
> several 'pro's' who had had days with zero meteorites found so I knew up
> front that getting 'skunked' was a possibility. On the plus side, I got to
> meet Mike Cottingham and his son, Christopher, Eric Wichman and his wife,
> and Greg Hupe. McCartney and Robert Ward who I knew from Tucson were there
> in the field. At one point in the day, Mike, McCartney, Greg and I talked
> to the lady who owned the property and who was kind enough to give us
> permission to hunt there. She gave a great account of hearing a
> house-rattling explosion and going out to see a smoke cloud overhead with
> spirals extending from it. Overall a super educational experience.
>
> In the fading light I shook Mike's hand and thanked him for his generosity
> in letting me join them in the hunt for a day. I was sad not to have found
> one but felt the experience itself was well worth the effort and money
> spent. I would recommend it to anyone if there is a fall anywhere near
> you.
>
> I was shocked when Mike reached over and handed me a bag containing a 5.9
> gram gorgeous fully crusted meteorite he had found earlier and said,
> "Here, I can't let you leave here without a meteorite." I couldn't believe
> his generosity. As I told him in an email thanking him again, based on
> both the experience of hunting and the good heartedness of his gift, if
> bad times arrive and I have to sell off every other meteorite I own, that
> one will definitely stay with me.
>
> Best wishes to all,
> Jim Baxter
>
> p.s. I now really have a visceral understanding about pricing on these
> stones. In a strewnfield like this where they are small, well hidden, and
> widely dispersed a full days hard work may just yield a few grams and many
> days yield none. A realistic price would have to be at a minimum, to just
> break even, the cost of travel, lodging and vehicles divided by grams
> found. And here the denominator is small leading to a high price by most
> ordinary chondrite standards. If these guys were scooping up bushels of
> them the price would be quite low but that's sadly not the case. Too bad
> because the interior of this one has fabulous fine brecciation and, as I
> learned here, there is nothing to compare to the texture of the crust of a
> just-fallen meteorite.
>
> p.p.s I've posted a few images:
>
> Stones as found before being moved:
>
> http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v614/CaneySprings/?action=view¤t=MikeFarmersstonefoundinthemorming.jpg
>
> http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v614/CaneySprings/?action=view¤t=GregHupesstoneinsitu.jpg
>
> http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v614/CaneySprings/?action=view¤t=MikeFarmersstonefoundnearsunset.jpg
>
> Mike Farmer photographing Greg Hupe's stone:
>
> http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v614/CaneySprings/?action=view¤t=MikeFarmerphotographingGregHupessto.jpg
>
> and videos:
>
> Christopher Cottingham moments after finding a gorgeous oriented stone:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbOkrUhxv-w
>
> One of many meteorwrongs:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zw8McUss7pc
>
> sunset near West Texas:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MD1d6gpnang
>
>
>
>
>
>
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