My Yowah Nut Disappointment

I had planned to tell y’all about Australian yowah nuts tonight, but I’m afraid I counted my nuts before I cracked them. The three I cut were all pretty much duds. I’m sure there are some great ones out there, but as we all know, first impressions are lasting ones.

Now that I have made y’all curious, I suppose I should tell y’all what yowah nuts are. I will, but I can’t promise I’ll be as excited about them as I was before. That statement may be a bit exaggerated, they are Australian opals after all. Y’all know how I love Aussie opals.

I’m sure some of y’all know exactly what yowah nuts are, and if I’m saying something that’s not quite right feel free to correct me. I know just enough to know that I don’t know it all. You can now contact us. By the way, I don’t mind constructive criticism. Now for you guys that are like me, you are probably asking, “What the heck are yowah nuts?” Well let me tell you about them.

Yowah nuts are a rare boulder opal found exclusively in the Yowah region of Queensland. Australia. They are nut shaped rocks that sometime contain an opalescent center. They form within ironstone nodules as silica rich water percolates into cavities depositing opal over time. They are like thunder eggs with opal in the center. The ones that do contain opal are highly valued by collectors and lapidary artists. They are extremely valuable.

I first heard about yowah nuts about a month ago. We were at the flea market selling rocks and things, and a guy was looking at the opals. There’s a small brown one in the collection. I cut a very high dome on it, and it has vibrant, flashy colors all around it. It’s a beautiful opal. He asked me if it was a yowah nut, and I replied, “A yowah what?” I’m sure my ignorance didn’t help me make a sell.

The guy didn’t give me much info on them, but the moment he walked away, I googled them. I pretty much found out what I just told you, and I went looking online for them. Surprise, surprise it didn’t take long at all. I have to be honest now. I was looking at them. I hadn’t really made up my mind to purchase them when my Parkinson’s hand pushed the buy now tab, and they were on the way. That happens with my hands sometimes. They just do whatever the hell they want, but this time I agreed with them. I took it as a good sign.

Before I knew it, I had three medium sized yowah nuts on the way. It took a good month for them to get here, and in that amount of time, I had pretty much convinced myself that at least one of them would be full of beautiful opal. And in my mind, it had to be. I was envisioning the nuts about the size of baseballs with a lot of red opal inside.

The mistake that I made, and I knew better, was to try and guess what’s inside a rock. You’ll set yourself up for disappointment every time. I generally expect the worst, and am pleasantly surprised when it turns out good. This time, I suppose I developed, “opal eyes”. Lesson learned.

Finally they arrived, and the first bad sign was the box that they arrived in. It was gosh awful small. I quickly dismissed the box, because as we all know it doesn’t take a large rare opal to be valuable. I was still pretty sure that at least one of them would contain what I was looking for. I don’t know why I was so sure, but usually when I get a gut feeling like that something’s going to happen.

I rushed home and immediately opened the box, and my hope diminished a little. There were three little rocks inside. They were no more than three inches long and two inches in diameter. That was the bigger of the three. It was then that I thought about perspective. I realized that I didn’t know the size of a large yowah nut, much less the size of a medium one.

My hope was diminished, but not destroyed completely, because one of them really caught my attention. It was jumping up, saying, “Look at me! Look at me!” It already had the shape of a perfect oval, and I instantly knew what I would do. Better yet, I knew what I wouldn’t do. I wasn’t going to split it. I decided I would polish it whole. I would follow the natural shape, and once all the iron stone was gone, I would be left with a perfect oval shaped opal. Simple. It shouldn’t take no more than a few hours. Right? Wrong.

Let me back up a bit. When I went to the mailbox, which is a good 300 yards from the house, it was storming. I new the nuts were in there, but it was lightening pretty steady for like an hour. Finally it slacked up enough to make a run for it. The lightening slacked, but not the rain. I was soaked by the time I got back. I guess in hind sight this entire adventure started badly.

Back to the perfectly shaped nut. I couldn’t wait to start cutting away the outside of the rock, so I grabbed my things and headed for the barn. It was still raining pretty hard, but the thunder sounded further away. The barn that I’m in is pretty old, and has a dirt floor. It’s not grounded, and it’s pretty damn foolish to have your hands in running water during a thunderstorm. Water that is coming directly from a well. With a polisher plugged into an extension cord, but I had to know what the opal would look like.

These little nuts didn’t start out brown. They were white, which I assumed was limestone. Whatever it was it was coming off pretty quickly. Within 20 minutes the nut was brown, and still maintained it’s perfect shape. I was sure in about another hour I’d have the perfect opal. I went to work.

That next hour passed, and all though the nut was now smooth, it was still brown. The ironstone was much harder than the limestone. No matter. It was coming off. It was just going to take a little longer. I had my headlight, and I didn’t care if it took all night. I had to see that opal.

Then it happen. A bolt of lightening struck very close. I’ll tell you this. As much as I love opals, I fear lightening just a little more. I called it a night, and all I could think about was what was hiding inside that rock. Bright and early the next morning I was ready to find out. I picked up right where I left off and began cutting away at the ironstone. A few hours later I’m still cutting away at the ironstone. One more hour goes by, and yes I’m still cutting away ironstone.

Now I’m becoming discouraged, and reality is beginning to kick in. I was getting close to the center. Where was the opal? I should have been seeing something by now. It was about then when I decided to split one of the others, and see what’s in it. I did that and no opal. I cut the other, along with my finger, and it was a tiny geode. No opal. I then decided to split the one that I’d been cutting down for hours now. I did, and you guessed it. Nothing. Just like that, the yowah nut adventure ended.

I can’t blame the folks that sold the nuts to me. Like I said, nobody can tell you what’s inside a rock. The only way to know is to look. There could have been a perfect opal inside. It just wasn’t my time to win the lottery. The next time I’ll fully expect nothing, and try again.

In a nutshell, that’s my disappointing Australian yowah nut story. I apologize for the length of this short novel, but I do hope you enjoyed it. Have a great night, and I’ll write again soon.