Deer and Diamond Hunting in Southwest Arkansas
Glenn W. Worthington
Copyright 2012 by Glenn W. Worthington
Smashwords Edition
Sixteen years ago my wife and I moved from Kansas City to rural Arkansas so I could continue my search for the diamonds that naturally occur there. I had unearthed my first ten diamonds at Arkansas’ Crater of Diamonds State Park during the summer of 1978, and I wanted to find more. Now I have found over two hundred diamonds. My largest two are a flawless, 2.04-carat, fancy yellow discovered in 2009 and a 2.13-carat brown diamond I found in 2010.
The yellow diamond was naturally beautiful, and we have not had it cut. But we felt like the looks of the brown one could be improved with cutting. We sent this USA diamond to cutters in North Dakota. When we receive it back from the cutter on April 8, 2010, we were very pleased with it. Typically diamonds lose half of their original weight when they are cut. Our diamond had not lost that much. It still remained a fairly large and heavy diamond weighing in at 1.21 carats. And it looked beautiful! It no longer resembled brown rice at all. It had measured 4.4mm deep X 5mm wide X 10.9mm long when I found it. After cutting, it measured 3.70mm deep X 4.81mm wide X 10.70 mm long. So, it really did not lose much of its size at all.
One of the unexpected treasures I discovered when we moved to rural, southwest Arkansas was the thrilling opportunity to hunt whitetail deer. Growing up in Kansas my dad frequently took my brother and me hunting for quail and pheasant. Unlike now you rarely saw deer in Kansas during the late 60s and early 70s. As soon as I moved to Arkansas, I realized there were whitetail deer everywhere and most everybody hunted them. I was pleased to join in and learn how to hunt deer. I liked the fact that you got so much more meat to eat with each deer than with quail or pheasants. And my wife, Cindy, is pleased that deer meat is lean and naturally organic with no fear of having been injected with growth hormones.