Hard against the wind

I'm a rockhound, of sorts. I can't help it. I come by it honestly, at least: my dad would bring home interesting stones or pieces of turquoise or arrowheads he'd spot from the cab of the tractor as he plowed the fields; my mom still sticks her hands into the frigid pools of mountain streams to fish out shiny or unusual rocks; my mother's father collected interesting rocks and stones to cut and polish and turn into lovely jewelry. I grew up not half a mile from a large gravel pit where we'd all happily while away the time searching for (and finding) petrified wood, moss agates, and the occasional geode or mastodon tooth.

The result of this, aside from my Geology degree, is that I have a hefty rock collection of my own, comprised of interesting stones from all the places I've been since college. If and when I finally move, my honest answer to the inevitable question, "what on earth is in those boxes, rocks?" will be, "why yes, actually."

I'd frankly like to do something with some of these rocks, rather than have them all just sit around and collect dust (dusting them is a pain, by the way), but in an apartment setting my rock tumbler is too loud and obnoxious to run 24/7 for the several weeks required, especially given that I can hear my downstairs neighbor snoring on quiet evenings. And many other of my crafty visions won't be realized until I own a garage or other workshop space.

One thing I can do in my apartment, though, is convert a few of them from one useless dust-collecting object sitting around taking up space to a slightly different useless dust-collecting object taking up even more space. The result of my first such attempt is shown here (with one of my less-interesting rocks). I dig doing this sort of thing, but I'm not sure what good comes of it.