FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Jordi Fabre]

The lightness of the weight

[Dany Mabillard]

[Tobi]

[cascaillou]

Quarantine entertainment:

https://www.discogs.com/lists/Crystals-Minerals-Gems/576296 :-)
(link normalized by FMF)

[Bruce Friedman]

Thank you Dany for taking the time to translate. Very much appreciated.

Bruce Friedman

[Dany Mabillard]

[Jordi Fabre]

After 43 days of strict confinement at home, yesterday was the first day in Spain that children under 14 years old were allowed outside. There are some rules limiting what children can do outside from now on, and unfortunately not everyone was following those rules. Anyway, here we see Alfredo Petrov's daughter Rumi enjoying her newfound liberty in the beautiful little mountain town of Viladrau (while still following the social distancing rules)

[Jordi Fabre]

Golden wish

[Bob Harman]

You might be surprised how many collectors don't realize that these gold specimens and those similar ones from the Eagle's Nest Mine in California have been extensively etched out of the quartz.
The delicate gold leaf does not ever grow freely like that, so the specimens have to be extensively prepared.
Nice specimen, but not remotely the way it was originally found in the natural state. Bob

[Riccardo Modanesi]

Hi to everybody! Here in Italy the situation is a little better than 3 weeks ago. The people admitted in hospital are decreasing day by day, and moreover the people needing intensive therapy, but still there were almost 400 deaths today. On May 4 we can just walk out of our home, but we can't go out of our municipality, but for job and primary necessity. No restaurants until (at least) June, no museum until (at least) May 18, just some factories and small shops are opening on next May 4. But we are starting to see a small light at the end of this bloody tunnel. Masks and gloves are of course compulsory whenever we go out and we have to keep at least 1 m distance even in our home with our family!
Ok, never surrender! Greetings from Italy by Riccardo.

[Carl]

[bob kerr]

As the temperatures hit 100 deg F here in Tucson, all kinds of desert dwellers come out into the open. Saw the attached today - a rare sighting - my first.

bob

[Tobi]

[Chris Rayburn]

Handsome fellow Bob. I've never seen one in my travels through Arizona.

[James Catmur]

So we three are sat at home coping well, I think. My son got home from university (Glasgow) just in time so all three of us are trying to find a good way to live together. As the house is made up of two 1820s cottages we converted it back into three 'mini-flats'. So we each have our own bathroom, bedroom and office. The common rooms (the fourth 'flat') are the lounge, kitchen and 'rock room', where all the minerals live. We gather for meals and coffee now my son is out of the 7-day quarantine we put him in when he got home (as I have MS)

We have taken the opportunity to do some chores, sort out things and help run the local group that helps people who have to isolate, with a cloud database (I used to write database software many years ago). We have not done much with the minerals but hope to soon.

[Bruce Friedman]

I belive that varmint is a Gila Monster..indigenous to the area.
Any herpetologists out there to confirm?

Bruce

[Bruce Friedman]

Woops, just saw the label!

[Jordi Fabre]

Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines 2020 canceled 😢

[Jordi Fabre]

The care teams

They are working more than 10-12 uninterrupted hours, every day and they have been doing it for months. They (badly) sleep in the Hospitals or, if they are lucky, in hotels enabled for them to avoid going back to their homes and passing the CV-19 on to their family members, and, above all, having to accompany each day to the people on his end and see how the people die without being able to even have their relatives close by.
Has anyone accompanied a family member at the time of their death? it's terrible. Imagine if your workday was to live that experience 10-12 hours every day clad in a kind of diving suit...
Heroes

[Riccardo Modanesi]

hi to everybody! Fully agree: they are truly heroes! In Italy almost 200 of them have given and lost their life for us. But now we are seeing a small light at the end of this bloody tunnel, and one day we will get back and meet one another at the mineralogical expositions or at mines and quarries and research minerals!
Greetings from Italy by Riccardo.