College, Hiking, And A Whole Lot Of Rocks!!!

For anyone who doesn’t know, Northwood Cabs is run by my mom (Laura) and me (Molly). We have had so much fun running this shop together, which has now been running for 7 months!! Every day I would run down to the basement and spend hours of my day cutting new cabochons. I would be so excited to finish them, show them off, and wait for them to be listed. The two of us would sit in the living room together after she took all the pictures and they would be listed. Of course, I would never get to peek at the photos. The fantastic quality of them would always be a wonderful surprise. Those days were always the best!

During the spring of 2022, I took online classes at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. UW Madison is my dream school. I was so excited to have been accepted as I have wanted to go here since I was in middle school. At the end of August, I moved into my dorm and began my first semester on campus. My mom stayed with me for multiple days and we had so much fun together! We watched the ducks in the lake while we sat with our feet in the water, walked State Street, played pool and drank pineapple juice, walked up just about every hill we could find, and so much more. It was so much fun and I honestly think the best thing we did was sit in the lake!

Just because I am in a different state now doesn’t mean the shop is going to stop being updated. The month before I moved, I spent hours upon hours cabbing to create a large stockpile so there would be cabs to put up each week. From now on, approximately every week there will be 7 cabochons listed in the shop. I am already looking forward to going back home and spending hours cabbing!

After a few weeks of living in my dorm, my dad and I went on a trip to Michigan. Of course, this was to buy rocks! We drove to Norway, Michigan to visit Kingsley North, who we have been a customer of for a very long time now. We also visited a local rock shop in Norway called Kelley’s Rock Shop, which was fantastic! We found so many stunning rocks at these two shops and were so excited to go hiking next!

While we were hiking, we found lots of incredible rock formations, beautiful rapids, a waterfall, and so much more. It was a beautiful and amazing experience. We even found a few really pretty flowers and mushrooms!

After we went hiking, we stumbled upon a resale shop where we bought a book and a handmade winter hat made by a local woman. We also noticed they were selling a slab of Chicken Track Picture Jasper which started a conversation with the owner of the shop. She told us about a rock shop nearby called Pike River Prospecting and we knew we had to go. We drove there and while we were there decided that my dad absolutely needed a gold pan. So he got one!

The next day, we went to a gem and mineral show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Kelley’s Rock Shop from Norway was there along with many more of our favorite suppliers! We found so many amazing slabs and rough and met some really interesting people! It was a very busy weekend, but so much fun!

The past month has been a crazy adventure, but it has been phenomenal. A lot may have changed in the sense that I am currently living in a different state and can no longer cab every day, but that absolutely does not mean that I don’t check Etsy every day for what is new from my favorite sellers, or I don’t essentially harass my mom about what to write on each invoice or when the new cabochons will be listed, and it especially doesn’t mean that a day goes by that I don’t miss cabbing. Cabbing is my favorite hobby and if I could, I would immediately throw away my bed and replace it with my machine. I am very excited to come home and return to it!