I grew up in Central New York, in the town over from Jamesville where there is a limestone quarry, also known as part of the Onondaga Limestone Strip. Limestone is sedimentary rock formed from marine life. The rock on our land was shale, another sedimentary rock formed under water, and very hard to dig through, but it splits apart easily horizontally. Every time we split a rock apart, we would find tons of fossils. We also found fossils we called horns. My Dad recently told me that when he and my Grandpa built the first house on the land back in the early 50’s that Syracuse University used to come out for fossil digs. I thought I had examples of these fossils around here somewhere - I’ll have to round them up for you. I just assumed that fossils were everywhere until we moved away and it’s rare for me to find a fossil. Until today. I had taken clothes out of my dryer and put wet clothes in, went to close the dryer, and found something was preventing it from closing. Upon investigation, I remembered that I ‘borrowed’ a fossil of a piece of a plant stem and put it in my coat pocket. So here’s photos of a washed & dried fossilized plant stem found at Onanda Park in Canandaigua, NY:
Here it is on end:
I feel bad because washing & drying it chipped little bits of it off and left shiny spots. But I think this is so cool, don’t you?
The next photo is of the bad boy that was *inside* my home today. He’s the Western Conifer Seed Bug I saw here. Also known as a stink bug. Ewwwww. Now I have respect for things outside of my home, but once they come inside, they’re m-i-n-e. I got out my kill jar, and put him back outside, safe and sound. Here he is on his way outside:
I went looking in my wooden bowl that I keep my dried plant stash in for the fossils that I mentioned above. I didn’t find them here, but I thought I would photograph the bowl for you. I love wooden bowls:
