Took a trip out into the valley over the weekend. The weather was very patchy - lots of hail and fat raindrops but occasionally sunny. You could always see it raining somewhere else though. One moment a foggy cloud would descend into a valley and the next it would be clear.
We spent a bit of time out on the gravel bars on the Fraser River near Mission, looking for agates. Seemed like there weren't very many out there to be found. We need a good flood to shake some new stuff up to the surface.
I know part of that is that my attention span has changed because I use computers so much. It takes a lot of walking very slowly, concentration and scanning. It's like a kind of directed meditation, I guess. If you're doing it right, they just appear in front of you like magic. You know them when you see them. They glow.
When I was little, there were agates everywhere and I could fill my pockets easily. When my dad was little they were everywhere and they were big. Now it's a lot of work because the sandbars have been pretty picked over. I still like doing it though. It's nice to slow down and spend some time outside.
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