For the past few months, I have been trying to think of ways of presenting the information within TumbleStone Blog in a more systematic and accessible way. This was prompted by a number of questions that arose in my mind. For example: How easy is it for someone to find an introduction to Gemstone Beach on my blog? How would someone interested in a particular stone, like orbicular jasper, be able to find the Posts that refer to it? For a beginning tumble polisher, how would they be able to find useful information on my blog? There are some Posts that provide a good introduction to a topic, or a good overview of it, but they get buried in the chronological layering of Posts. Furthermore, the “Categories” tags for topics down the righthand side of the Blog don’t discriminate between introductory Posts and Posts that might simply include reference to the topic. Using the “Categories”, each Post so tagged is shown in its entirety and it can be daunting to read through them all. The “Search” function (just below the banner on the right, near the top of each Post) brings up all the Posts using that word, and in abbreviated form, so that can be an improvement. But the mobile phone version of the Blog does not show the Categories list or the Search function. And Google doesn’t always solve the problem either.
So, just recently, I decided to try to develop a website within the blog to overcome these problems and make my material more accessible and useful. A home page will be the key – it will provide links to three main sections, Fossicking Beaches, Beach Stones, and Tumble-Polishing. Links will then be made to different beaches that I know well, to beach stones I have some familiarity with, and to information about tumble polishing beach stones. All of this will reflect my own experiences, the range and limits of my knowledge and understanding, and my own preoccupations and biases. Lists of relevant TumbleStone Blog Posts will be compiled, along with the re-packaging of Blog information and the preparation of new material. All of this will take time – it is a project in progress, with newly constructed pages posted from time to time, interrupted by the distractions of fossicking trips, tumble polishing, and everyday life.
Glimpses of drafts of eight of the “TumbleStoneTwo” pages I have been working on are provided below. The first (see below, left) is the top part of the current draft of the home page, with the key function of the page being to provide links to the three main sections – Fossicking Beaches, Beach Stones, and Tumble-Polishing. The second (below, right) is part of the main page for “Fossicking Beaches”, with links envisaged at this stage to nine beaches (or areas) that I know well. These are, in alphabetical order, Birdlings Flat, Gemstone Beach, Kaikoura Coast, Kakanui, Leithfield Beach, Riverton/Aparima, Slope Point, Timaru, and Ward Beach.
Below (left) is the main page for Gemstone Beach. One of the links on that page will be to a page about Gemstone Beach in the context of the Te Waewae Bay coast (below, right).
One of the pages on Birdlings Flat will list Blog Posts on my fossicking experiences at that beach (below, left). It is intended that the main Beach Stones page (see below, right) will link to pages on types of stones that I have collected and polished, that I have found on the nine beaches mentioned earlier.
The first beach stone I have been working on for TumbleStoneTwo is hydrogrossular garnet:
I will probably post the Home Page sometime over the next few days and then add other pages progressively over time as they become available.
Wow ! That is a big accomplishment! We are so lucky to get to use this resource that you’ve put so much into. Thank you!
I hope the end product proves useful. Thanks for your encouragement.
As a new subscriber (aka: stone fossicker / rock tumbler owner) from Papatotara, Southland (just down the road from Gemstone Beach) and a part time website designer, I’m excited to see how this process evolves for you.
Your blog has been a great resource for a beginner rock tumbler like me and I have spent many hours pouring over all the valuable information you’ve shared via your blog – so many, many thanks for sharing your finds and your tumbling processes! The identification of my “rock/stone pick ups” is still a mystery to me so I find your before and after photos and your thoughts on what they are incredibly insightful!
Hi Chrissy. Thanks for your feedback and encouragement. Glad my blog has been useful to you. I guess we’ll find out over the next few days if what I am intending to do actually does work.