Back Again, and In Style

OK, so for everyone who follows me, I'm sorry.  I have not kept up with my blog in a long time.  Yeah, I know, Bad Blogger.  If you stopped following me, please come back.  If you have not followed me yet, good, because I haven't blogged in a while anyway, but now is the time to start following me because this Blog is about to get really, REALLY good.

Truth is I have been busy rockhounding, traveling, prospecting, paddling, backpacking, building my businesses, and devoting time to some other stuff- and I kind of forgot about my Blog.  But here I am, back again, and in style.  And gee whiz, do I have alot to tell you.

So, let's catch up quickly on the past year so I can just go ahead and start blogging again.

My jewelry business, Soaring Eagle Designs ( http://www.artfire.com/ext/shop/studio/soaringeagledesigns ) is growing very fast.  I am pretty much sold out of all the finished pieces and cabs I had at the start of the summer season (that's a good thing).  I have done a whole lot of rockhounding over the past year, and now I have to start cutting and polishing rocks that seem to accumulate faster than I can make them into stuff.  Funny how big of a difference there is between the number of rocks I can collect in a day, versus the number of rocks I can polish in a day.  Fortunately, in addition to my rock saw and polishing wheel, I now have a rock tumbler.  So I can let the tumbler do the work while I'm off paddling, hiking, or finding more rocks.  And it's a good thing because I am currently in Utah doing some more rockhounding.  Today, while hiking, I unexpectedly came across a great find:  petrified wood.  Not actually on the agenda, but, hey, I'll take it.  I have two more rockhounding trips before I head to Arizona, and two Rock and Gem shows once I get there.  Then I will be open in Quartzsite for the winter.

My other business, EarthWealth, has taken on a life of its own and is growing by leaps and bounds.  Exciting times.  Gold and silver is on the rise, and that has been very good for business. I've gone prospecting for gold in several states, with various degrees of success, and will be doing some more of that again in the spring.   I still have some buckets of dirt from my last prospecting trip that I need to process.  I've been hauling them around in my trailer.  I went to the GPAA show in Vegas in March and learned alot of cool stuff.  But meanwhile, this winter I'll be focusing more on prospecting and lapidary equipment, tools, books, and stuff that I sell.  There are also a couple of new and exciting product lines I'm carrying through EarthWealth, in my online store http://stores.ebay.com/EarthWealth.    I'll be posting more about those in the future, too.  I will be opening both EarthWealth and Soaring Eagle Designs in Quartzsite at Rice Ranch space C11-12 sometime next week, and I will be there until sometime in March.

Throughout the past year I have paddled, hiked, climbed, canyoneered, and done all sorts of other types of outdoorsy-type stuff as much as is humanly possible, in between everything else I have been doing.  I'll be posting some highlights of that stuff in the future, as well.

I am still completely solar-powered, and I have added a small wind turbine to my system.  Last year at this time I was having challenges with my inverter, but since then I have gotten a new one, and a new fridge that runs on 5amps and can be run completely by my 12volt battery system.  Since I am completely solar and wind powered, I can live for indefinate periods of time out on BLM land, National Forest land, or wherever else with all the power I need.  Right now I am living in a canyon in NE Utah writing this blog post and listening to my CD player. It's a good central location for all the places I wanted to go in this area. The only problem I have is that my wifi signal is rather slow- but hey- that probably has something to do with the fact that I'm in a canyon.

So that's what's up with me.  I will be a better Blogger from now on, I promise.  I will be posting so much stuff you will probably get tired of hearing from me... well, I hope not.  Meanwhile, you can follow me on Twitter @EarthWealth, or Friend me on Facebook at Jedidiah Free, or Like my EarthWealth page, or Like my Soaring Eagle Designs page
...or do all of that- and then I won't need to bother you with my blogs.  I can bother you with all the other social media stuff instead.