Rain Dancing for Fossils

Another old post: In one week, my little neck of the woods received well over 6 inches of rain. It came on three different days from severe late summer thunderstorms. Each of the storms were two days apart and were accompanied by strong winds, lightning, power outages, downed trees, the whole works. Being the opportunistic hunter, I walked to my local neighborhood ditch to collect the goodies that surely awaited the lucky first patron. Each day was the same – abundant sunshine, heat, and humidity thoroughly soaked my clothes on the walk to the ditch. When I reached the ditch, a lush canopy provided a relatively cool refuge from the direct sun for a swarm of mosquitoes and yours truly. Armed with the most DEET per square inch allowable by law, I braved the buzzing menaces. Within minutes, my pouring sweat rinsed away my chemical shield and I faced a full-on assault. I sprayed the air every few minutes to cut the cloud of ravenous blood-suckers so I could see the fossil laden ditch bottom. I would hack up a lung as the foul repellant invaded my nasal cavities, but at least that expelled the mosquitoes from my mouth. Every few seconds I would bend down to pick up a tooth, and the airborne demons would seize the opportunity to bite me through my sweat soaked shirt as it stretched across my back. The first day, my reward was the most flawless Isurus desori I have found all year. On the second day, I was granted respite when a deluge came during my hunt with visiting Fossilguy and Fossilgirl forcing the mosquitoes to seek refuge or drown, leaving us to hunt the waist-deep rapids. Since that hampered my view of the bottom, I used the high water level to erode some layer and expose some nice great whites. As the water receded, I found a near flawless yellow Isurus hastalis right in front of my guests. I'm so rude. The third day wasn’t as successful with quality teeth, but the quantity almost made up for my chicken-pox-esque appearance at the end of the week.