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.
We have started selling dirt as you all know. Selling through amazon is a bit of a challenge since they wont ship Items back to Alaska if they are damaged in shipping. I would like to share a story of one of these damaged bags of paydirt.
Amazon gives us the option of either destroying the bag of dirt or shipping to somewhere in the lower 48 states. My dad happens to live in Arizona and he has never panned for gold, so I thought shipping it to him would be the best idea. He did me the favor of video taping himself in the act of trying to find gold where gold flakes come in a little golden package, I will give you a little spoiler on the video, he didnt read the instructions. This is a two part video, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did, maybe I can get him up to the mine this year so his granddaughter can show him how to do this.
We went up to the mine on Super Bowl weekend. Teresa needed more dirt for her Panning kits and bags of Paydirt, so with the help of this little machine we were able to make it up the mountain. We had to break up the frozen mound of Paydirt with the bull dozer.
We did end up staying the night at the bunkhouse and believe it or not we just about cooked our selves out. Our little electric heater really puts out the heat. The hot dogs were forgotten but we were able to manage.
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Well this post is not about gold mining it is about Mining Diamonds, obviously. I had a business trip down to the states and I had a few days between meetings, so I hopped online to see of there was any recreational mining sites near by. To my surprise I came across a public Diamond mine in Arkansas. The mine was call the ” Crater of Diamonds National Park. ” It was a very nice establishment. They provided me with everything I needed to begin my quest to find diamonds, for a fee of course. After I got my equipment I went out the back doors to the mine to find it was a just a plowed up field. I spent all day, from when they opened to when I realized that I had gotten a very bad sunburn(Unfortunately late in the afternoon). So, I got Sunburned and skunked. I was just really excited to do some diamond mining. It was a ton of fun and recommend you check it out if your ever in the Arkansas, if all you have is the internet here is the link to their website – http://www.craterofdiamondsstatepark.com/