Brekkie (breakfast) is often a couple of googs (eggs) and a snag (sausage) or bubble and squeak (leftovers from the night before fried in with a lot of leftover mashed potatoes on toast) or low fat stewed tomatoes ( pronounced tomahtoes) on toast. I buzz over a half block to have a morning cuppa with my opal cutter friend, Gwen. She shouts to me from the backroom of her camp to have a look as she flips on the halogen lights in the opal sorting room and spreads out the gems she has freshly popped off their dopsticks (the small sticks that roughly shaped opals are waxed onto in order to handle the opals with deftness in the shaping and polishing process). As usual their variety, color, and personality keeps us gasping with delight and surprise. These Yowah nut opals, a form of ironstone boulder opals, capture our interest as we move them around and make their colors and patterns dance in the light. Just the day before they were buried in the brown ironstone rock and looked only like brown rock. Hence I named my book on these opals, Fire in a Plain Brown Wrapper . Now they are gems with every color of the rainbow twinkling back at us, displayed in never ending every changing patterns; little apostrophes of bright electric color, swirls in concentric circles, speckles of fire, and bubbles of crystal opal. There's nothin' like a cup of coffee and opal in the morning.
To see what I do and why I do it visit me at www.parchedearthopals.com
Major Opal Addict
Me shoveling 70 feet below ground into my rickshaw.
About Me
- Parched Earth Opals
- Mayer, Arizona, United States
- I hunt for treasure and I find it in wild, rough as guts, crazy places. The booty I have unearthed includes gems, gold, and big oil pipeline paychecks. I have worked with the crackle of the Aurora Borealis overhead and the crunch of Arctic ice beneath my feet. For the last twenty-five years, I have mined opals below ground and camped beneath the Australian sky. This considerably skewed my city girl perspective of life. Because I lived without electricity 6 months out of the year for so many years, I had plenty of time to observe, write, and cartoon the saga of the thrilling side of my dual life. I am Barbara McCondra, mother, teacher, commercial real estate agent, Arctic oilfield worker, Aussie opal miner, gem dealer, and freelance writer/lecturer. I live with one foot each in two hemispheres. When I am asked, “How did you DO that?” I always respond,” If I dress it, speak it, and walk it, I become it,” Simple and exciting. My life is a perpetual adventure. I love it.
