Dates: Saturday December 14
Saturday January 11
Saturday February 8

Time: 10AM-4PM, may end earlier depending on the number of trees to be worked on

Place: Refer to newsletter email (parking available on the street)

Bring your tools, water and lunch/snack if needed. Dress warm as we will be working outside. In the event of heavy rains, we’ll notify you via an email the day before.

Introductory Class members will be sitting together on each of these days to receive instruction on the elements of repotting. Please bring your ABS Syllabus with you.

All Members may participate in our Holiday Gift “Select or Steal” Game (aka a white elephant game). To participate, bring a gift that is wrapped and valued at $25 or more. Bonsai-related items or Japanese art are usually preferred by club members but other items like wine and chocolate are also appreciated. Please bring something that you would enjoy receiving if you opened that gift. Each member will have the option to select an unwrapped gift from the group of gifts on a table or take an opened gift from another participant. The third person to get their hands on an item gets to keep that item. In other words, an item can only be “stolen” twice. So the second person to do the “steal” on that item takes it home. This enables us to finish the game in a reasonable time frame and adds more drama to the game!

Closer to home in California, Jerry collects multicolored jasper near Esparto at Cache Creek; basalt stones in the Sierras; and limestone (called Murphys Stone) on Camp 9 Road near Murphys; chrysanthemum stones in Neo Valley and even stones near a park in Sutter Creek after a heavy storm.

Before you collect, Jerry recommends to study pictures of stones to get familiar with the different shapes to look for like mountain, figure, pool, waterfall, flower and even hut shaped. A waterfall stone should actually have a vein that resembles how a real waterfall would flow and not just a thin white line. The best time to collect is in the late fall when the water level in rivers and streams is lowest and before the heavy winter rains. He cautioned us to be aware that there is a huge manufacturing industry in Japan and other countries fabricating chrysanthemum stones and especially hut stones.

Above: Jerry brought many beautiful stones and custom-carved daiza for viewing and purchasing, and members enjoyed discounted prices as thanks to the club for inviting him to speak.

Below: Members displayed their own collections in Show & Tell.

To bring out the beautiful colors of a stone which are apparent when it is wet, he applies a special refined linseed oil or a light satin lacquer. Some collectors even use the natural oils from their skin to highlight their stones.

After a slide series explaining attributes of various stones, he moved on to a detailed visualization of how he makes the wooden base for a stone. Jerry is the proud owner of power tools originally designed by George Nakashima and Hirao Tao who were early developers of specialized woodworking tools. Black Walnut or Rosewood is his preferred choice of wood base and he uses a dark stain coating which most stone collectors prefer.

We thank Jerry for donating a beautiful multi-colored jasper mountain stone from Cache Creek which Bryan Morgan won and various stones for sale and silent auction.

If you missed this presentation in November Jerry will be at the Sonoma Botanical Garden Show with REBS and at the SBBK show in June. Jerry invited us to share photos of our stones on his Viewing Stone Appreciation page on Facebook.

Welcome New Members

The club kindly welcomes Carlos Sanchez and Linda Millard, who joined in November.