FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Jordi Fabre]

Although we normally associate Hibiscus with a bush it can be grown, even in the city, as a tree and can be very attractive.

[Enrique Llorens]

More flowers

[Jordi Fabre]

On limonite a Castle grows

[fena kuiperi]

Your music made my day , thanks!

[Jordi Fabre]

It seems that, slowly, the (relative) normality is coming back, at least in Europe.
Who also seem to come back with force after all that wonderful diversity of all kind of birds during the confinement days, are the inevitable seagulls.
Scavengers of the cities close the sea, always with pretensions, like this one that seems to say: "the fireplace is mine"

[Philippe Durand]

better times

[Jesse Fisher]

And, of course, there is now plenty of time to work on photographing and cataloging new minerals. I acquired this Mexican apatite last February in Tucson from the Rock Currier collection. I understand that he got it in 1972.

[Joan Martinez Bruguera]

One of my walks in the countryside, a few meters from home, within the Montseny natural park,(Barcelona province), I have the mountain nearby, we have been lucky to be confined in this environment,

[Tobi]

[Riccardo Modanesi]

Hi to everybody!
Here is the situation in what is now the 4th most affected country in the world as a number of deaths. As you know, Brazil has recently overtaken us in this very sad grading. What about today? In Italy we had 65 deaths (32 in Lombardy, my region), 283 currently hospitalized with intensive therapy (107 in Lombardy), 4729 currently hospitalized (2708 in Lombardy), 34730 currently positive to virus (19319 in Lombardy). As you can see, the most serious situation is here in Lombardy and we all have to be careful (but unfortunately the biggest majority of people aren't). But we can see a small light at the end of this tragic tunnel. The large amount of military lorries containing mortuary coffins and going to the middle-south of Italy in order to burn all of those poor bodies is not fiction, it really happened! No ceremony, no one last greet, no burying! Incredible but true!
Ok, let's hope it will come to an end as soon as possible, so that we all can meet at our mineral expositions!
Greetings from Italy by Riccardo.

[Jesse Fisher]

One of the things about being stuck at home for around 11 weeks now is that one finds lots of chores around the house that need doing. One that I've started working on is sorting through years of accumulated stuff in our garage and throwing things away. A couple weeks ago I came across a box of old Rogerley specimens, likely from around 2001-2002. Most were very low quality, and are likely things that I did not think were even worthy of trying to sell in wholesale flats. Among the lot was a cluster of untwinned purple crystals of the sort that we would occasionally find in small cavities while driving tunnel on the main vein. These cavities were usually in solid rock, as opposed to the flats where the green fluorite came from, which were fairly broken up and easier to collect. We never got very many of these purples, largely because by the time we would discover a cavity the nearby use of explosives would have already turned the fluorite crystals into cleavage fragments.They weren't worth nearly the money that the greens were, so we didn't worry about it, too much. But here was one, still coated in it's pocket mud.After a bit of cleaning I think it turned out fairly well. A nice little souvenir from times past.

[fena kuiperi]

Our laptop in lock down, guarded by the cat, haha, In the Netherlands slowly (and wisely) measures are eased, but this dreadful virus is still around.
Nnevertheless nature is changing from springtime to early summer. This butterfly was warming up in the sun, the name in Dutch is: little fox. Wish you all the best, stay strong and healthy!

[Jordi Fabre]

That's how the light gets in

[Joan Martinez Bruguera]

We are approaching summer. Nature is wonderful...

Images of some of my walks, close to home, in the vicinity of the Montseny Massif, Biosphere Reserve Natural Park.

Wheat and barley fields, Stables, snapshots before night, full moon and last rays of the sun in the Montseny mountain.

[Dany Mabillard]

Sunny day after a lot of rains.

Walking among other persons is part of my recovery process. Like many persons I'm a collateral victim of the covid-19, unable to go out where there are people even with all the recommended precautions and with an under control pandemic. It's going to be a long process.

Have a nice day and keep safe.