Happy Halloween!

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Here is an excerpt from the novel I am presently writing called Blink of an Eye.  Like Big Easy, it occurs in New Orleans.  After the death of his ex-wife, Wyatt is desperately searching for something.  He doesn’t know what it is, nor does he even vaguely comprehend that he is even on a quest.  His journey is back-dropped by the Big Easy’s usual chaos.  Let me know if you like it and I’ll post more tomorrow.

Wyatt Thomas found the large and heavy door unlocked and slightly ajar, just as in his dream.  He felt no compunction about pushing open the door and entering the courtyard, awash in colors of red hibiscus and purple clematises on vines that had climbed up the rough wall to a second story balcony.

            A fountain, topped with a naked cherub, dripped water into a weathered masonry pool burnished by a patina of lichen green.  Wyatt didn’t notice, nor did he pay attention to the gentle melody of dripping water, or the dozen golden koi swishing water in the pond as they gulped air at its surface.  He had something else on his mind, and that something was a faint halo of light bleeding through an open door across the courtyard from him.

            Wyatt passed through the portal, unaware of the clatter the steel taps in his heels made against the courtyard’s cobblestone floor.  He was also unaware of the black cat staring at him from a potted palm on the balcony above him, or the multitude of ferns hanging from every ledge, wafting gently in a hot afternoon thermal.  At that moment, he had only one thing on his mind.

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All minerals begin as hydrothermal solutions.  That is, each mineral remains in a liquid state until very specific temperature and pressure conditions are met, and the mineral hardens into its crystalline form.  While these temperatures and pressures are specific, many minerals solidify at similar temperatures and pressures.  This tidbit of information seems esoteric, but it is very important to prospectors.  Why?  Because when the treasure hunter finds certain “not so rare” minerals, then its “very rare” brethren is often very near.  Such is the case of kimberlite and diamonds.  Find kimberlite and you will often find associated diamonds intermingled in the strata along with it.  What makes kimberlite readily noticeable?  It imparts a blue hue to the earth.  This often rich soil, when plowed, has a bluish tint.

At the Crater of Diamonds in Arkansas, the ground is regularly plowed.  Here is an aerial photo of the Crater of Diamonds.  Yes, the blue spot in the middle of the picture is the crater and yes, the blue color comes from kimberlite.  Are there associated diamonds there?  You bet! More than 75,000 of the king of stones have been found since the 70s, many large and of gem quality.  http://www.ericwilder.com

Here is a topographic map of the famous Crater of Diamonds in Arkansas.  Notice the circular nature of the surface feature.  This is a volcanic pipe, exposed at the surface of the earth.  Also note that there are actually three exposed pipes.  While all three may contain diamonds, only one pipe is open to the public.

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Diamonds in Arkansas, you say?  Real diamonds?  Just ask a recent Wisconsin visitor to the Crater of Diamonds in Arkansas.  Bob Wehle of Ripon, Wisconsin walked away from the park on October 14 with a 5.47 carat canary yellow diamond that looked a lot like “lemon-drop candy.”  This gem, worth about $75,000, is not even the largest diamond found at the park this year.  That record goes to a 6.35 carat brown diamond found in September.

Known by many as the richest 160 acres on the face of the earth, the Murfressboro diamond deposit also is the home of the hardest diamonds found on earth.  This deposit of diamonds is extremely rare because it occurs at the earth’s surface.

Are there more diamond pipes in Arkansas as yet undiscovered?  Read my new book A Gathering of Diamonds and learn the answer.  http://www.ericwilder.com

 Available at Barnes and Noble and Amazon.com, and also at http://www.lulu.com/content/418025 

10) –  We often “see” things, even with our eyes closed.

9) – It is easier to ignore a problem than to try to solve it.

8) - We always lose what we treasure the most.

7) – Old age is not the end zone.

6) – You will only have one friend your entire life.

5) - Delusion precedes acceptance.

4) – Wisdom comes in ten-year increments.

3) – The impossible is something we haven’t figured out yet.

2) – Love is a four-letter word. 

1) - It is easier to scream in anger than to tell someone that you love them.

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After washing away trail grim from our garments, we spread them to dry on the bank and eased up to our necks in the hot water.  When Amber switched off the lamp to save batteries, we got another surprise in a day already abundant with surprises.  Lichen, growing everywhere on surrounding limestone, lighted the area around us with multi-colored phosphorescence.

       "Magnificent," Amber said.

       "It's like a fairy land," Mary Ann said.

       Their words understated how I felt.  Languishing in the luxury of the moment I reclined until only my eyes and tip of my nose protruded from hot water.  My muscles relaxed as I breathed the lusty mixture of sulfur and orchids.  Sometime later, Amber aroused me from the lethargy of my relaxation.

            "I just had a bad thought.  What if the whole valley is foggy like this?  What happens if we can't find the trail and our way back up the mountain?  It could happen, even if we go no further than we are right now."

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Arkansas is geologically unique.  You can stand on a rock formation deposited 600 million years ago or wade in a stream filled with present-day alluvium.  You can find single quartz crystals that weigh a thousand pounds.  Don't believe me?  Visit the museums located on either the University of Arkansas, or University of Oklahoma campuses and see for yourself.  Oh yes, and there are wonderful fossils and many varieties of minerals that are found in abundance.  Is there a giant eroded caldera hidden deep in the almost impenetrable forests of the Ouachitas?  Will you see giant butterflies with one-foot wingspans and lizards the size of alligators?  Read A Gathering of Diamonds and find out.

http://www.ericwilder.com

Yes, you can find real diamonds in Arkansas.  The state is a geologic wonder.  There is a place near the tiny town of Caddo Gap, where you can literally see the very center of the eroded Ouachita Mountains.  Do you like quartz crystals?  You can dig them out of the loose earth on the side of the road.  Take a trip to Magnet Cove, Arkansas and find minerals found no other place on earth.  You can dig for diamonds (yes, real diamonds) and keep what you find at the State Park near Murfressboro.  Part of the premise of A Gathering of Diamonds is a previously undiscovered deposit of diamonds.  Really possible, you say?  Yes, it is very possible.  In fact, it is likely.  The Ouachita National Forest encompasses hundreds of square miles of wilderness area.  Read A Gathering of Diamonds and learn what else lies within the forest.  Available at barnesandnoble.com, amazon.com, and lulu.com.

http://www.ericwilder.com

I love animals and grew up with many pets – dogs, guppies, parakeets, tarantulas.  Well, you get the picture.  Still, I was 32 before I ever owned my first cat.  Maybe I should say that I was 32 when a cat first owned me.  His name was King Tut, and he was a big orange, longhaired, full-blooded something-or-other.  Tut was as regal as his name.  Other adjectives also well described him – haughty, picky, possessive, etc.  Tut and I were together almost 16 years and somewhere along the way, he decided that he liked me.

Since Tut, I have had more cats than I can count.  You cat people out there know where I’m coming from.  You can’t own (there I go again) just one cat.  Cats sense when you like them and they start appearing at your doorstep from out of nowhere.  Well, all this explanation brings me to my latest cat Duke.

I must digress.  Before I inherited Duke, I had a kitty named Bob, a yellow tabby with no tail.  Bob was a wonderful cat, but always pitifully skinny.  He was that way when Shannon, my stepdaughter, left him with me.  I think he may have had cat AIDS.  I was afraid to take him to the vet because I had once had a favorite kitty named Silky with the incurable malady.  The vet wanted to put her down because she was so contagious.  It broke my heart and I didn’t cotton to repeatinf the experience with Bob.  Yes, I know, you can’t hide your head in the sand.  Well, yes you can, at least for a while.

I found Bob stuck in the fence, too weak to pull himself our.  He was dead and I cried when I found him.  I was writing Big Easy at the time of Bob’s demise and I somehow incorporated his story into the plot.  This brings me back to Duke.

Duke, like Bob, was skinny when he appeared on my doorstep.  He was also a frightened little mass of kittyhood.  There was nothing that I could do except feed and pet him.  Well, in the last week he has killed and eaten three squirrels and goodness knows how many birds (thanks to Marilyn, my house is a bird sanctuary.)  Yes, and he is chasing and terrorizing my other kitties.  I think that I have created a monster.

After 22 years as a cat person, I find that I have a kitty that I don’t understand.  I don’t know what to do.  Please, you cat whisperers out there, help me!

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