Wednesday, June 24, 2015 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Hunter believes she has a treasure
By diane Goble
Correspondent
You never know what
you’re going to find when
you start rummaging around
in your old storage boxes.
When Cha, the fossil hunter
and owner of Cha For The
Finest Gallery at 183 E. Hood
Ave., started brushing away
at some ugly old rocks in a
box, she discovered what she
believes to be rather unique
dinosaur fossils from the
Cretaceous Epoch, 113 mil-
lion years ago.
“If I had known what a
treasure I had, I never would
have left them in storage for
six years,” she said.
She recalled battling
through thick clouds of chig-
gers and mosquitoes, and
treading over soft, sticky
sand riddled with tunnels of
fire ants in the stifling, humid
Texas heat to get to her dig-
ging site by a huge tree. She
knew her hole was over a
nesting site because of the
petrified poop or regurgita-
tion that surrounded the area,
but what she found weren’t
the footprints she was expect-
ing to find.
Among other things, she
found the “Rosetta Stone” of
embryos. The outer part had
torn away revealing the pink
agatized remains of a tiny
sauropod — a gigantic herbi-
vore. Anyone else might think
this was a fossilized rock, but
the fossil-hunter believes she
was able to detect the nose
and two umbilical cords lead-
ing from the placental mass,
winding around the creature
and entering its mouth.
“When I realized what I
was looking at,” she says,
“I felt like I was seeing the
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Continued from page 4
photo by diane goble
cha believes she has found dinosaur embryos.
beginning of all life sus-
pended in time.”
After this epiphany, she
was able to recognize more
embryos, like the T-Rex and
others pictured, and under-
stood how they formed inside
the egg. She began cleaning
the fossils she has at her gal-
lery, which were encrusted
with dinosaur doo-doo.
Cha has an eye for
finding things most of us
wouldn’t notice in rocks. Like
Michelangelo, she grinds
away what doesn’t belong
and frees the image from the
rock. As she was cleaning and
processing the fossils using
diamond burs and rotary
brushes, she discovered what
she believes are tiny heads,
noses, teeth, feet, eggs, a little
bird with feathers and a tiny
stegosaurus in an egg among
the collection. There were
also skulls, some with flesh,
some dried up heads that had
petrified. Some look like pup-
pies, puffins, eagles, rhinos,
hippos and horses.
She has a theory about the
blood and tissue fragments
she found here in Sisters
covered in dino doo-doo:
A volcano exploded and
blew the local dinosaurs to
smithereens, which petrified
immediately. Other reptiles
came along later and ate the
crispy body parts. What they
couldn’t digest, they excreted.
Their poop, containing the
petrified pieces of tissue,
became fossilized again and
were lost to paleontologists
— until Cha came along.
The intrepid fossil carver,
who came to Sisters via New
Mexico and Alaska, now
invites scientists to visit her
gallery and inspect her find-
ings, many of which she
has cleaned and polished,
and turned into jewelry. She
hopes some of these embryos
will be purchased by organi-
zations and donated to institu-
tions for further study.
Cha also invites local fos-
sil collectors to bring their
finds in to her store where
she will examine them and
tell you if she thinks you may
have discovered something
amazing, too.
samples available.
Studio Redfield will
have a trunk show of Kristin
Cahill’s beautiful and creative
jewelry. She is the owner of
Lux Reve. As she grew up
in the expansive outdoors of
Bend, she was inspired by
nature, giving her jewelry a
chic, organic style.
Old West Collectibles is
featuring the much sought-
after collectable quilt charms
by Peter Hedren. He is not
going to make any more, so
this may be the last chance to
pick one up.
At Gone Wishin’, Sandy
Hinshaw is wrestling with all
of the challenges of opening
a new store. She’s filling it
with an assortment of art and
many things she’s collected
during her life.
Canyon Creek Pottery’s
Ken Merrill has a new line
of spring and summer pot-
t e r y, h a n g i n g b a s k e t s ,
29
wall-mounted pottery and
much more. The colors of
these baskets will bring art to
your garden.
And speaking of outdoor
art – there’s always some-
thing new in the courtyard
at Ken Scott’s Imagination
Gallery. His latest whimsy is
“The Spawning Mantis,” an
organic sculpture designed
to display potted and hanging
plants in their most unique
grandeur. Ken will also bring
in the latest of his lighting
creations.
Last but not least, you’ll
get a song from Western artist
Dyrk Godby as you visit his
work at Three Ponies. Dyrk’s
pop-up gallery is at 178 S.
Elm St. (corner of Hood).
He’s there on weekends and
by appointment.
The Sisters Arts
Association is working with
KZSO FM, 94.9, Sisters’
own radio station, to produce
a monthly (for now) arts-
themed show. Airtime is to be
determined, so stay tuned. If
you miss it, the podcast will
be available on the KZSO
website, and soon, at www.
sistersartsassociation.org.
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