Hunting

During our last week of summer the kids and I spent a lovely day on Nine Mile Point. (Nine Mile Point is located between Petoskey and Charlevoix on Michigan's lower peninsula.) No day on Lake Michigan would be complete without hunting for Michigan's state stone, the Petoskey stone.

Petoskey stones are actually pieces of  fossilized coral (Hexagonaria percarinata if you're curious.) When the stones are dry the don't look very interesting, but when they're wet or polished, the shape of the coral is easy to see.

In just a half an hour or so, we found quite a few. Our next step is to get some different grits of sandpaper so we can work on polishing the stones (following these directions.)  Hopefully, once they are polished, they'll look something like this one.

Not my picture (this one is for sale on Etsy for $65.00,) but it gives you an idea of what they look like polished.