Part –I : The Dig Begins

“It Looked Like More Fun on the Website!” (me)

DAY 1

Well, to begin, I waited and first arrived at the field area around 11:30 a.m. because it was in the high 30s in the morning! Now it was hitting the 40s!! But at least it was sunny!! 🌞

I had my bucket, chair, kneepads, little rake, screens, trowel, gloves, hat  drinks and snack. I decided to ditch the shovel. Still a bunch of stuff to carry! 

The Visitor Center is the entrance to the diamond fields. It is really nicely done. Staff are very friendly at the counter, give you whatever information you need, and sell the tickets. There is a very nice gift shop and then a very informative history area. I didn’t spend too much time in there, because I wanted to start looking, but I will go back.

They also have samples of the other kinds of rocks/gemstones that are found in this volcanic field, so I took pictures of them for reference.

It is quite a walk to the field, and once there, you are greeted with this sign.  Pretty neat! Fills you with hope!

         

Which is good, because once I saw the field, I thought, “Oh my God, where do I even begin?!!”  Finding a diamond in this field is literally like finding a needle in a haystack. Are you kidding me? This is crazy! 🤪 But here I am. Can’t find one if you don’t look… kind of like playing the lottery. 🤞

Photo of field

So first off, where to start?

Rains often wash diamonds down hill (and everything else!!) so I looked for the low areas. Then I wanted an area that had not been heavily picked over, and perhaps an area ignored, like corners. (Thanks to my friend Roxanne for the corners idea!!) So I headed towards the area I scouted out. It was a lot muddier than I expected, and it was clay! It really sticks to your boots and gets heavy!

I started with some plowed areas where the turned over areas had not been disturbed as yet. It was so wet, I would just scrape with the edge of the trowel and watch as the ground fell away. It didn’t take me long to realize how absurd this whole process was!! 🤯 In this gigantic field, here I was scraping away soil from one clump of hundreds in one row of hundreds to find a tiny diamond that my not be anywhere around here! Really? And what if I missed it in the clumps that didn’t break up as they fell?!    

Photo closeup of field…

Eh…it was a nice sunny day, and others were doing the same thing, …. kids were playing in the muddy water…so…I’m here…just enjoy it. 

So I did! 😀Focus!

The nice thing about a volcanic area, is the huge diversity of stones. All colors, combinations, types, etc. So I began collecting stones that appealed to me while looking for that sparkling, elusive diamond. 😂 I think I found some Jasper. 🧐 I was particularly intrigued by the stones that had been chipped open. The insides often had quite a different appearance, so I collected a few of those, too.

I really wished Paula (my daughter-in-law’s sister) was with me, because she could identify the rocks I tried to google without success! There were so many interesting ones!

When my back had enough of bending over (too muddy to kneel, even with kneepads) and I was tired of all the mud, I moved to a drier area. Then I could put out my chair and take a respite from troweling. Eventually I moved in an area that I could sit in the chair and just rake the flat area near me over and over and look at the stones. 😳 I put them on my screen and sifted them on the spot. 

The raking process almost became as relaxing as those little Buddha sand and tree desktop things with the tiny rake. Remember those? You rake the little sand with the little rake and get lost in it for a while. ( it was a thing about 10 years ago. I loved it!! ). Anyway, I found it very relaxing. Since this was hour 4, I was getting lazy.

I talked with some others who were passing by on their quest. There were probably 50-100 people there. Lots of room to move from place to place. Very spread out! I cannot imagine what it looks like in the summer pre-Covid days when they max out at 1500 tickets a day! They must be on top each other!

 I looked at the people who were up at the sluice trays sifting with water. No way was I putting mud in a bucket and carrying that heavy thing all the way up there, putting my hands in that cold water and sifting it! Nope, I’m staying dry! I can imagine it is a lot of fun in the summer when it’s hot, but it was just nearing the high 40s. That water had to be cold! No way.

 (Listen to me! I’m turning into a wimp!!)  🤪

So, at the end of the day, I had a bucket of rocks… 🤣

…got a good dose of Vitamin D from the sun ,fresh air and was tired. I had to stop twice walking back because everything I was carrying was heavy. Especially the rocks!! I drove into the town of Murfreesboro ( 3 miles!!) to a Sonic and ordered supper. Drove back, ate and took a long, hot shower! Done!

Part II-Rain 

DAY 2

Today was supposed to be my second day in the field as I bought the tickets online ahead of time. Well, it never got above 45 and rained all day. No way was I going to go out in the field and freeze in this rain! 🌧️ Took a pass…ticket or not. (Could not transfer it to tomorrow.) 

This evening it rained pretty hard, so tomorrow should be a great day in the field . The recommendation after rains, is to just walk the field and look. If it’s washed to the surface, you’ll see it. Apparently soil does not stick to diamonds! And its reflective nature makes it easy to see.

The first diamond found here in 1906 was by the new owner in his field while on hands and knees. He is quoted as saying “…my eyes fell on another glittering pebble…I knew it was different from any I had seen before. It had a fiery eye that blazed up at me every way I turned it…”   Turned out to be 2 & 5/8 carats blue white diamond! 😮 As he was on his way to leaving with it to town, on horseback , going down his lane, he spotted another glitter. Got down and picked up a blue white diamond of 1 & 3/8 carats! 😯Both were later verified in New York City. Didn’t say their value.

But, they’re that noticeable. Amazing!

So we’ll see! I want to see that fiery eye!! 

I cleaned up my bucket of stones. As you can see, I have some pretty big ones in there! Not diamond size!

Part III – Walking the Field

DAY 3

After all the rain, the field was pretty wet, with standing water between some rows. I knew I wouldn’t use the chair, knee pads or even the screen I made to sift. It was still in the mis-40s when I went out around 1:00 p.m.and I knew I wasn’t going to use the sluice area. Still overcast.

The plan I used was just to walk the area and look for the small, white, shiny stone that no soil sticks to. The rain had really filtered off soil. I first looked to all the little streams that had flowed toward the drain stream to see what was exposed. Nothing that I could see.

I just kept moving from stream to stream, row to row, to any areas that small stones accumulated and were exposed. I reminded myself that no matter where I moved to, I took my time and looked on the way! 

Sometimes the diamonds had been found serendipity. Look at this lucky person’s find!

Talked a bit to a woman that came to the field when I did. They had flown in from California to do this. Their 3rd day. They are leaving when I am, Friday. We both laughed at the absurdity of it, but oh well. It’s a real treasure hunt. 

I saw another group had purchased folding shovels they were taking out of the boxes in preparation. The young guys were all about digging. Apparently thinking you can’t find a diamond unless you dig down about 6’ 😅!

They had buckets, but no screens, so I don’t know how they searched through what they dug out! But they had fun. 

This is what you are looking at while searching for diamonds. If you can spot any diamonds in these pictures, Don’t Tell Me!!! Too Late!

Here are some photos of the sluice area. They have tables you can dump your sifted stones onto to look through. Some tables had quite the piles! 

I washed off a large stone I dug up in the water. Yup. Cold!!

Photos of sluice rows

As I looked in the field ,I couldn’t help but add more pretty stones to my bucket. (It’s a thing! 🙄But it made it more fun! ). I also got quite a bit of exercise carrying all this clay along on my boots! You can’t begin to get it off. They have hoses with serious power you can use to wash off your boots at a clean-up area when you’re finished. Worked great.

I pretty much walked and picked up stones for 3 1/2 hours. I knew when I started thinking of what I was going to order at Sonic again today (my work treat) that I knew it was time to wind it up. 🍔

I did walk to another part of the field and found out a little more of it’s history before I left. Saw the reproduction of this mineshaft shed. This is the highest part of the field, and the soil was quite different. The lower part I was in was more clay. This was almost a silt. Still no diamond.

Field photo

After cleaning off my boots, I entered that blue building. There is a counter where you can have your stones looked at. They can tell you if you found a diamond. They can also tell you what your stones are. I have a lot of Jasper! All colors and combinations! Cool. 👍

They keep score of diamonds found on a board nearby. In the last week, 3 diamonds were found. They were all tiny. 1 and 2 point diamonds. ( 100 points in a full caret) But who am I to judge!! 

After two days….$20 worth of stones, fresh air, exercise and talking with people. All having fun initially….like me.…then trailing off… but ending with realizing they at least gave it a shot. Better than the lottery. A treasure hunt!!

Damn. I thought I could find a diamond and pay off all my bills!! ☹️😱😢