This is our new wash plant at the gold mine set in place and ready to run. Grandma and Lyra are trying it out. We got about two half days of running in this first three day weekend, we ran into some hiccups but we were able to devise some work a rounds. I will talk about more of that later. Lets get to the Meat and potatoes, what you really came here to see GOLD, this lower picture is what we hauled out of the ground our first weekend there. It is just shy of quarter ounce of gold.
This is a photo from the first hole we started digging in at the gold mine. You can see the different layers in the gravel very well. The almost black layer seems to have a large quantity of gold in it. Other locations that has deposits of gold are found are in the clay layer and in the fractured slate(bedrock). This hole was dug completely by hand, we used a Keene High banker to process the dirt from this hole and we pulled 3/4 of an ounce out of here.
This picture is a typical day of running pay dirt that is about a quarter ounce of gold if we run all day. Lots of people ask me the question, “Does your Mine Pay for Itself?” I always answer with,”Heck no no it does not pay for itself, but my family and me sure do enjoy being out there mining either rain or shine.” I cant put my finger right on the exact reason we like it out there, maybe its working together, or running equipment, or playing save the puppy with my daughter(there always seems to be a puppy stuck in a tree). I guess all of this can be summed up into to two words, Gold Fever, and we all have it. People always use the term gold fever in a bad way, but that is not really what it is to us. Everyone gets gold fever a different way, some cant get it at all. My family and me are running a fever of 104.0 Degrees, and we don’t need any doctor to look at us. A few more sunny days would be nice though.