Stones and Homegrowns owners Mike Zybert, left, Liz Potter, foreground, and Erin Place, background, pan on their property at Crystal Creek in Norway. Rose Lincoln/The Bethel Citizen
NORWAY — When Phil Blake was near the end of his life, Mike Zybert built him a portable carving station and brought it to his room in his house so Blake could continue carving stones and gems.
By then, Blake was unable to go downstairs to the workshop. He died in April 2021 at his home.
“He was our founder in spirit” his life partner, Erin Place, said.
Place, Zybert and Liz Potter are the team of Stones and Homegrowns, living together as a family and mining stones from the 26-acre property Blake owned and dreamed of developing but didn’t get to see happen.
The trio cut and polish stones and create jewelry. They also do custom cuttings for local sellers such as Dennis Gross, a mineral collector in Woodstock, Leighton’s of West Paris and Darlene Dadian-Gray at Raven Collections in Norway.
Potter and Zybert met in art school in New Hampshire and moved from place to place, sometimes as pig farm sitters, carrying little more than their parrot. They met Place and the three became friends while trading gems in New Hampshire.
Later, in October 2020, while visiting Place and Blake in Norway, Potter and Zybert could see their friends needed their help. Blake had stage 4 lung cancer and Place was ill, too, and subsequently went to the hospital for 13 days, eventually having three surgeries.
Potter is a forager, and as the trio headed to nearby Crystal Creek on the property to pan for gems, she pointed out thimbleberries, St. John’s Wort, oxeye daisies, pineapple weed, yarrow and Bracken ferns. She dries what she finds to make tea or other medicines.
Potter and Place have dyed their hair in several gem shades and wear colorful clothing, often tie-dyed. They proudly say they are the brightest sellers at the mineral shows where they sell their wares.
Besides gems, the trio plans to host classes in ceramics. Zybert is a ceramist.
Zybert bushwhacks trails and builds camping platforms. A neighbor helps with the trails in exchange for lapidary lessons on the art of cutting gems. They plan to sell tea blends and are building a greenhouse.
Their passion extends all the way to Queensland, Australia, where they write to their “rock pen pal.” They send him Maine rocks and he sends ones from Mt. Hay.
But they have local ties, too. They tapped into the world-class Maine Mineral and Gem Museum in nearby Bethel for a virtual talk.
“We only recognized a few of the words,” Potter said laughing about the science and academic lecture. Recently they paid the museum $40 to identify a stone they were hopeful was a tiffany, a rare type of rock made up of several different minerals, but turned out to be a silicate, a salt in which the anion contains both silicon and oxygen.
The Norway property has three seasonal creeks in addition to Crystal Creek.
As Zybert returned to the house he weed-whacked a path to a large feldspar boulder. As he hammered it, Place explained what might be found: mica, black or green tourmaline or garnet are all possibilities.
Stones and Homegrowns owners, Erin Place, left, Liz Potter and Mike Zybert pose at Crystal Creek on their 26-acre property in Norway. “We live as a family and share everything,” Place said. Rose Lincoln/The Bethel Citizen
They have invested $5,000 in workshop machinery that hasn’t been equaled in returns, yet. At the same time, they appreciate everything people have donated in the machine-heavy business.
A diamond band saw arrived as a work trade and “Uncle Jim” Mann, their mentor and former owner of Mt. Mann Jewelers in Bethel, donated a lapidary saw. Mark Theriault, the jeweler at Leighton’s, gave them flat lap for polishing minerals. When the drive motor on the lapidary saw seized, Zybert’s father helped with the repair.
“You have to be a jack-of-all-trades in a lapidary studio,” Zybert said.
“A lot of our help has come from beyond, too,” Potter said, referring to Phil Blake, their “founder in spirit.”
Information for Stones and Homegrowns is available at www.stonesandhomegrowns.com, 207-890-8023 or stonesandhomegrowns@gmail.com.
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