Rocks & Pebbles

[Corrupted Unicorn]

Not necessarily a post about crystals, you can post about them too if you have a collection, but today I would like to draw attention to the humble pebble 

Do you have a special pebble you found on a lucky walk? Maybe more than one? An entire collection? Are you a rockhound? A beachcomber like me? What do you do with your rocks, pebbles and crystals? How do you organize them? Do you paint your rocks? Do they help decorate something else?

I like long walks on the beach and looking for shells*, not rocks, but from time to time I'll pick up some interesting pebbles. My favourite is a simple oval one that just feels nice and smooth on my palm. I've considered painting it, but I'm worried it would affect its texture. Beach pebbles always look their best when wet, but I don't wet my pebbles too often.

*For those concerned about unethical beachcombing: there's no shells of endangered or "marketable" species in the beaches I live by, or at least I never came across any. I also don't overdo it when picking shells: I specifically target ones with holes in them, and rarely if ever end up with more than a handful per walk. I also return shells back to the beach if I end up with too many, and pick up trash along my way! I've only found trash worth keeping once, a lost "phone cord" bracelet floating by the shore.

[grubbyfox]

I was nuts about collecting stones and pebbles as a kid. Would have my pockets filled with big chunks of asphalt, rocks, pebbles, stones, etc. Idk it was def not normal, lol but I stopped. I would sometimes keep a piece of pebbel or twig though, if I found one that was exceptionally good when playing hopskotch and such. It needed to be kinda flat, but not too "skippy", so it needed a bit of edge to stop from rolling or skipping etc. It was a whole thing.

I do collect one if I find a cute one, and I also collect like broken, sanded down, glass at the beach (veryyyy rare to find), or maybe a shell or similar (the empty, clean picked ones. we dont really have those critters that uh swap shells or whatever?) We dont have that many shell types here tho, and I dont dont like to collect double of these, so if I have a nice one, I leave whatever I find. I dont like to hoarde natural resources, lmao.

My fave "pebble" tho to collect, is hardened slag. lol. I live in an industrial town where they use uhhh, like the spillover/foam/idk of molten slag?? or something?, to let it solidify and then use as filler around where they'd normally use pebbles/rocks/whatever. I cannot with english today it seems, sorry, hahaha. They have a really nice smooth surface, like glass, and are often in different colors, like black and torquise striped etc. They look absolutely gorgeous. I sometimes see tourists pick em up if they find them (you kinda gotta know where to look lol even if they are everywhere).

We also have a lof of rocks with "mica" (??) or whatever type of glittering/shimmer in rocks. Which makes for nice trinkets... but as someone who doesnt want to spend a fortune on safe rocks for aquariums, it sucks hahaha.

[Waap.]

I have a rock that is one of my favourite objects in the world. I pulled it out of the ocean while on holiday up the Coromandel peninsula as a child or early teen. It was very hard to get because it is around 6 or 7 kilograms and was a bit buried in the sand and I wasn't very strong.

It's bean-shaped, grey, and speckly. It has a thin layer of paler mineral in it that forms a loop around the outside longways, and in its beanish divet there's an orangey patch that I suspect is iron. Its surface is smoothed from the ocean, but it's full of little holes. It darkens in colour dramatically from the slightest bit of moisture, and I live in a very humid place so sometimes it will be dark just from the air moisture.

I like carrying my rock around like a baby. It is very comfortable to hold even if I only use one arm. I also sometimes sleep with it in my bed like it's a soft toy. Sometimes when I have very bad menstrual pains I will use the rock to put pressure on my abdomen to relieve the pain a bit. I've also used it to hold the door open, though it chips the paint a bit and I haven't needed that much since getting a heat pump installed.

I also have a collection of little tumbled gemstones I've bought over the years, mostly from the local spirituality shop. My friends and I used to go there a lot to look at the pretty rocks and ornaments and enjoy the pleasant atmosphere, and it felt kind of stink to leave there empty-handed. My favourite of that stone collection would be the iron pyrite.

I don't believe that gemstones are magical healing tools and never particularly did, but I still liked to get the ones that were associated with stuff important to me. Iron pyrite is meant to help with memory, and having both ADHD forgetfulness and full-on amnesia that seemed like something I'd want, and it's very pretty, so I bought it. I liked it a lot and moved it around more than the others, which lead to me forgetting where I put it. I bought a second iron pyrite because I forgot I already had one. At some point I was given a third iron pyrite as a gift, though that one was rough instead of tumbled. I'm pretty sure my memory's even worse now.

Alongside all those tiny gems I have some larger rough stones that my mum gave me once, which she got from someone who was going to throw them away. There's two halves of a clear quartz geode, something that looks like jet or obsidian maybe, something purple, what looks like maybe citrine, sulphur (my favourite of this collection), and a colourful rock I don't have the skills to identify but looks a lot like certain photos of granite.

On top of the maybe-granite rock is a pretty seashell my brother bought me for my birthday once. The gift came with a note that I found so meaningful I folded it up and kept it inside the seashell so that I could re-read it from time to time. Unfortunately, it seems that at some point the note fell out and got lost, likely when I was moving out. Unfortunately the note also had the name of the shell in it, so I don't know what it is anymore. I don't have a shell collection, so it's an honorary stone.

[theadr]

Ya'll I love a good pebble. I choose pebbles mostly based off of how they feel in the hand. I love to fidget with them and keep them in my pocket or purse.

My entire rock collection is from places I've visited. I don't usually collect rocks from my hometown because I don't have time to stop and observe the small things.

the first rock on the left is from Radio Beach in Bimini. The other two rocks are from Gatlinburg, Tennessee. I went down to the river when I saw it was lined with all kinds of rocks, and I picked out these two. The camera does not do the one in the middle justice it literally shimmers under direct light.

[Ducky]

While it's not something I'm able to do often, I do enjoy rockhounding a lot. Geology in general is awesome and something I'd love to look into more.

I first became interested when I went to Nevada with my sibling a few years back. We visited Red Rock Canyon, and they would stop and show me a bunch of cool rocks we'd stumble upon. We didn't bring any home not to mess with the nature there. Sometime after, I decided to do some rockhounding at a nearby area where we used to live.

Sadly, I don't have access to the few rocks I've collected, and also haven't been able to do it since then. I now live in an area where there aren't very many opportunities to do so. However, I'd love to go out and do it again sometime, maybe near a beach.