Why oh why did I brag about how great things were going in the last post?  Its the granddaddy jinx of all jinxes!

Great weather this week, up in the 90’s.  Doesn’t sound like much to you guys in the lower 48 but up here in Alaska that’s miserably hot.  The heat caused a lightning storm like I have never seen.  I was up on the excavator, and the air just to feel weird.  We decided to break for a while as I was sitting in a giant orange lightning rod.  Sure enough, an hour later we had a thunderstorm like I’ve only seen in places like Missouri.  For those of you that don’t know, thunderstorms are pretty rare in Alaska.

Here starts the downward spiral, that storm sparked two forest fires nearby.  We’re keeping an eye on horizon, breathing the smoke, and the starter on the backhoe goes out.  Two of us get up early to head to town to get a new one.  When we get back, the others tell us the new final drive on the excavator we just installed has stopped working.  Further inspection tells us that all 9 bolts have rattled out.  As a result the mounting bolts reamed out the holes and have ruined a brand-new 3000 dollar drive.

So here we are, not one piece of equipment in moving condition and a forest fire on the way.  We’ve had better weeks I’ll tell you.  Luckily those firefighters are doing their job and it looks like they are getting ahead of the thing.  Just ordered another drive, hopefully we can get back to work soon to find gold and pay the repair bills!  These are the days we question if it is all worth it, I tell you.