It all started with a pretty, white rock..

My story begins last March when the trees were still bare and the grass was still cold from the winter's chill. I had taken my babies Piper and Buddy (cocker spaniel and jack russel terrier) out to do their business. We strolled down to the edge of the property where my back yard then turns into the wooded abyss, now keep in mind I do live in town, in city limits and only a stone's throw from Main St so wooded may be a bit strong- let's say lots of trees and some brush.

 Ok, back to the story, my little darlings had done their business and as I was calling for them to come play, I noticed a bright flash of white and at first I thought it was an early spring flower but it wasn't it was a rock and so I tried to wedge it out of the ground but this little sucker was not moving. So, I did what anyone would do, got on my hands and knees and started to dig in the clay and dirt because now, I just wanted the rock and nothing was going to stop me not even the onset of rain and it did start to rain and the more it rain the harder I tried until finally it popped out of the ground as if something was underneath it and was pushing it to the top of the surface. Well I was just tickled and ready to go in with my treasure and then I noticed another flash of white to the right of me and then to the left and in front of me and essentially all around me. It was the strangest thing I had ever seen, the more it rained the more these white rocks were blooming as if the rain was pushing them to the surface so that I could see them and rescue all of them.

My eyes could not believe what I was seeing, I ran Piper and Buddy back to the house and called for my husband, Scott to come look at the blooming of the rocks. He came outside and walked with me in the rain to the back yard and the more we dug in the mud and clay, the more white flashes we saw. But the beauty of it was not that my yard contained hundreds of white rocks but hundreds of snow quartz, a truly amazing site to see. They came in all sizes, from bite-size to loaf-bread size, and I even have some that ended up being the size of a laptop. It was a few hours of digging in the rain when my long suffering husband turned to me and said, "We're going to do what with these?" and I really didn't have an answer just yet because all I knew was I had a field of quartz and that had to good, right?

I spoke to many people over the next few weeks about my wonderful find and most of them said that the quartz was an indicator of gold and since McDowell County was once known for it's "Gold Rush" (http://www.mcdowellnc.org/video_gallery/) and veins of gold have been discovered running right through the city and the many mines spread all over the county have been mined for over a hundred years or more, I took this to mean that there is gold in these hills of mine. Ok well a very small hill and more like a downward slope but anyway I have the prospect of gold but I think I was and still am more fascinated with the prospect of having quartz in them hills.

Quartz has many qualities, it draws energy and holds energy and all my little "rocks" have made a protective boarder around my home, they have outlined my flower garden and they have brought so many creatures to my property that sometimes I feel like I live in Wild Kingdom. Keep in mind, I live in town and I mean downtown but with that being said, here are just a few animals that call "me casa su casa"....
We have the lovely red bird or cardinal- now that is not that unusual you would say but when you have on average 10 to 15 of these things hanging out, it freaks you out.

We have had a family of silver foxes.....

Screech Owls...

Red Foxes..

And did I mention the Mountain Lions?

Now the above pictures are not those from my property obviously and we are trying desperately to get the cameras up and the night vision rolling because when you have seen what we have seen, you kinda have to ask, "why?"  why here?, why our property? and all I can say is,  I blame it on the little white rock!

Blessings,

Rena Harp