Fresh from the quarry to your garden.

While the quarry at Sydney Peak is about as 'green' a quarry you can imagine (in California this is very important), it occurred to me that it is also very much a growing operation - growing not just in size and output, but in the way they access the stone material too. It's as if they are growing the stone. On my visit to the quarry this week I was taken by how similar some of the extracting and preparation operations were to farming and processing food, and how some aspects even looked the same.

As we walked into one section of the quarry, there were a dozen or so workers bent over picking the product the way you might see fruit or vegetables being picked in a field. It was being gathered and sorted and after being put onto metal crates it was then carried off by machinery in the same way you might see a large farm operation run.

The stones that the labourers were picking were literally popping out of the ground because the land had first been 'plowed' by one of these heavy pieces of equipment.

The huge cat goes back and forth over the same couple of acre quarry plots with the big prongs at the rear ripping up whole new layers of chunky bedrock for extracting. After all the stones are picked, the plow goes over it again.

Next, in the same way food is 'processed' so too, after being picked, a lot of the the quarried stone goes though a process too .

The stone processing plant

Specially cut stone packed in wooden crates and ready for market.

Here in the Sydney Peek plant the material can be cut and trimmed, sanded and/or polished and made into more refined products and specialty items. In some quarries the cut stone is flamed to give the sawn edges a rough natural look. After it is graded, it's carefully packaged and often, as with food, it's even shrink wrapped.

A piece of highly polished 'archalyte'

from a shrink wrapped crate of processed stone

The final product is shipped to market where consumers like you and I come to choose from a selection of the 'fresh cut' produce (or maybe some processed stone, but never the synthetic, artificial stuff ) and then we take it home and cook up some wonderful things with it.

Tomorrow let's look at what we might consider filling our 'pallets' with, and see what special stone dishes (served on stoneware perhaps?) a stone lover might come up with.

Pointing and Peaking

Yesterday we took a field trip out to the Mojave desert to Ridgecrest California. They tell me this area is called the 'high desert' as apposed to a low desert, an example being the Colorado Desert, which confusingly is actually in California as well. The Edwards Air force Base is located here too. Some of you may remember the 'stuff' about Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier over 60 years ago and the stories of the early US astronaut program there, 'right' ? Anyway at about 6 in the morning we were flying past the base on our way to visit Sydney Point Quarry. It was still dark and the desert looked like Manitoba at night.

When we arrived there T.J. the manager, kindly showed us around the quarry. Here he is pointing at the actual Sydney Point Mountain which Blakes Quarry is named after, but that's another story. For anyone interested in learning more, their website is www.sydneypeak.com

Anyway the quarry is a very busy operation, running at its peak, you could say, employing over 40 people. On their brochure and on their website they proudly state - At Sydney Peak Stone we are striving to become California's first green quarry, adhering to the most recent changes in California's State Law. Natural Stone is 100% usable, can be recycled and emits no volatile organic compounds.

They have lots and lots of quartzite schist material. It's very durable, nice looking, splits like a dream and comes in a good number of thicknesses. Its not like the soapy flaky stuff that you sometimes get from other stone suppliers. As with most schist however it is very hard to chisel across the grain. You pretty much have to find their natural faces rather than try to make a face.

TJ is really into 'production stone' making cut cobbles and stone bricks and veneers of various styles, all of which are geared for various architectural residential and commercial applications

We were looking more at what kind of dry stone wall material was available. They sell pallets of really nice 2 and 2 1/2 inch 'copes' as they call it, which is an excellent material to use in a dry laid application in a wall or garden feature.

Here is another look at that gable wall incorporating a lot of the Sydney Peak cope for the diagonals. They usually sell this size and shape stone for using as flags in patios and the tops of walls, but it's great for building an entire wall. Unlike a patio or cope, the side face of the stone not the flat surface, is all you see in the wall, of course.

Tomorrow I will post pics of what goes on at the quarry and explore some similarities I was intrigued to discover between stone quarrying and farming.