A VERY Successful Hunting Trip!!!

Our property here in southern Colorado lies directly on the olde Santa Fe Trail, in fact, the gallery lies on the exact spot the Olde Madrid Commissary stood in the 1860s. I have very much enjoyed, over the years, looking around the yard for little treasures~ I have found Indian head pennies, clay marbles, and heads and bits from early china and bisque dollys. One of my favorite pastimes tho, each spring, is to go up to the top of the property and look for arrowheads, as it was a known Indian settlement.

While I was feeding Luke his bottle on Saturday, Tressa came over and says 'Hey Mom~ is THAT what I think it is???' as she bent over and picked up a little pink quartz arrowhead......I said~ yep, sure is! To that she squealed with delight and insisted that we go a hunting on Sunday.... and WHAT a hunt it was!

We walked around a little, I remembered the shovel, in case we came across any rattlers, but forgot my glasses, so I couldn't see a thing. I found a nice chunk of moss agate, that was most likely a piece of one, as that would have been a stone the Indians traded for....most of the natural rock around here is sandstone. Anyways, she had ambled off, so I called for her and once she was within yelling distance, I told her to come down a little draw, and you guessed it, I herd the same..."Could this be?????" and what sounded like a stampede coming at me, and just look at the wonderful spear point she found! We have a whole little jar of arrowheads we have found here, but this is the first spear point, so we both were elated!

As we walked home, my son Josh appeared at the top of the hill behind the house, and this is where it got really interesting. As you can see, we have very rocky terrain here, perfect for rattlesnakes, so I do not let the children just mosey about up on the hill...but it was morning, and he was sitting up on the big rock there, where the arrow is, enjoying the view~ so I told him he could sit a while, then come back home. You can see the top of the garden shed at the bottom of the picture~ its just right behind the house.......well, by the time my olde decrepit self got back and sat down in my chair, both he and Tressa came zooming in the house like aliens had finally landed.....screaming and yelling so back up the hill I raced with them...cause Josh looked down where he was sitting, and low & behold!!!!

Look at what was carved into the rock! Can you believe it? We have walked by this rock the entire 10 years we have lived here! There is even a solar light my husband put in the little cave to light the whole big thing up at night....and we never saw the man standing there.

The carving is olde, there are lichens growing within the lines...He has spiky hair (feathers perhaps), what looks to be a shawl ties around his shoulders, and you can see one arm there. Just absolutely fascinating! There were Kiowa, Arapaho, Comanche & Cheyenne Indians in our area, so I will be taking this picture to the archeology museum in town, to see what they think when I get caught up.

See how close this is to the house? Its amazing what you can see, if you just slow down and take a peek!