With the backhoe in the shop and not much processing happening, we decided to take a day and attempt to do some field prospecting on the other side of the creek.  We don’t currently have good access over there, and as far as we know its pretty much untouched, meaning half our claim is virgin ground.

We started out trying to get there via atv from a power line a few miles away.  It was apparent soon after unloading that the ground was still too muddy, unless we wanted to spend the day winching ourselves out of the muck.  No choice but to hike it then.  Back to the camp, get the waders on, and cross the creek.

Along for the trip with us this day was our good friend Si.  Si has the worst case of gold fever I have ever seen, he’s gone as far as the amateur inventing stage, and as you all know that’s pretty acute.  Hes also the best field prospector I have ever seen, he can find gold just about anywhere.

We had a great time, identified some great dig sites over there, and yes, even found a little gold down by the creek.

One strange thing we did notice is that in some places all the large trees were cut and nothing but old rotting stumps were left.  I’m not sure what to make of that, what were they doing over there?  Getting ready to mine?  What were the logs for? Its not really good access for logging or anything else like that to have taken place.

Rounded the day out picking some fiddlehead ferns with the kid.  These things are great fried or steamed, just don’t forget the bacon!

Here we are guys, back in action.  Can’t really complain about the weather or the early spring, though there have been a few days where those chemical hand and toe warmers have really come in handy.  The start of the season is always a mix of excitement and frustration, and I have to admit that sometimes, the little devil on my shoulder tells me to give it all up and go for the more “average” life.  You know, work for the man, cash a paycheck, watch TV, repeat.

Camp is all set up and as comfortable as we can make it.  The first day we weren’t happy with the sluice box packing up constantly, so we had to take time to dig it out and reset the angle. While we were at it, we used an old grizzly we had welded up and used that to make a safer more comfortable place for the excavator and operator to stand and load the trommel, it worked great and we patted ourselves on the back for our thriftiness.

We had replace the starter in the backhoe. I don’t know why, but this backhoe spits out 400 dollar starters like a pez dispenser.  Shortly after getting it up an running, we lost a hose in that same hoe- thus another trip to town.

And then the trommel got one of those large flat rocks jammed in it (dubbed by our friend Steve as “gatekeepers”) and tore up the lovejoy connection that spins the shaft for the trommel motor.  It’s not fun to replace one of those.

After all that, it seemed like we ran really good, dirt was flying through the trommel, and we processed more in a day than we normally run in two.  We were able to do a clean out.

So our results were a little disappointing.

Though we are still running overburden from what we knocked in at the end of last season.  For safety reasons, we knock in the high wall when we call it for the season, just so some crazy person doesn’t hurt themselves poking around when we’re not there.  Also, we’re not back to the hot spot we were working last fall. We’ve discussed just throwing the overburden out, but it runs hot and cold in our digsite, with the overburden sometimes having really good gold, hard to know what to do.

Lastly, our friendly neighborhood backhoe developed some brake issues that we couldn’t let slide (bad pun sorry), and it was more than we could address out in the sticks on our own.  We’re down for a little bit while the pros take a look at things for us.  We did take a little time to do some exploration and hiking around the other side of the creek, but I’ll post more on that later.

Sorry about the gloomy tone of the post. Mining is a fickle master, some days it’s really great, some days its like hitting yourself in the head with a hammer because it feels good when you stop.  Despite what the little devil on my shoulder says, I still wouldn’t trade it for anything.

First thing is first, before we can really start the season, we had some (ahem) business to take care of.  We needed an outhouse.

Built by our very good friend and wood artist Paul Johnson, and inspired by the by Legendary Jerry Reed, as follows:

“She got the gold mine, I got the shaft
They split it right down the middle
And then they give her the better half
Well, it all sounds sort of funny
But it hurts too much to laugh
She got the gold mine, I got the shaft”

That’s right, the “goldmine” or ladies side of this place has three more inches of space, an etched glass window, and a turned wood throne.  The poor shaftboy’s accommodations aren’t near as swanky.

Only one problem with the install, I scooped a pan of dirt out of the whole we were making, and actually got pretty good gold!  In the end, necessity won over avarice and we put the outhouse in place.  Don’t worry, we don’t plan to be offering and “outhouse variety” paydirt anytime soon, but we may need to dig some test holes in this general vicinity.

Here’s to having a little bit of comfort, and some fun in the process.