photosWe left here on Thursday and arrived around 2:00 pm. We set up camp, ate some lunch then down to the river for a swim after hauling the mining equipment down the hill. The thunderclouds moved in in a hurry and then the wind and rain came with a vengeance. The six of us cuddled in the trailer and waited it out. After dinner, bed was a welcome thought and sleep came without issue.
After the storm ....
On Friday we both were anxious to get started but decided to walk up river to check out another area for possible exploration. It looked really good but we were set up down below and headed back for a fun day of mining.
Dave doing a final check on the gold separator that he built from snowmobile parts and other "junk" .... this machine works better than either of us could have hoped.
Dave panning out the first bucket for the test run .... he places lead shot painted red in different sizes to see where they fall while traveling through the different stages of sizing. The smallest being the size of a pin head. Yes, he recovered all.
Dumping buckets of freshly dug dirt / rock into the separator. I'm working very close to the machine .... Dave is bringing up stuff from the bottom of the river at bedrock.
Doing that mining thing ..... !
Pushing the freshly washed gravel into buckets to haul up to the trailer site for a really cool little patio that Dave is building around the trailer. I can honestly say my back has not hurt this much in a very very long time. But worth every bit of pain. So much fun.
Final stage of separation. The finest bits of gold will fall in this last bit of the machine in whats called miners cloth. This will be collected and panned at the end of the day or after a few buckets .... depending on how anxious I get to see whats there.
Bath time at the river. I've got my washcloth and my biodegradable environmentally friendly body soap (for all you fish lovers out there). Dave sneaked up on me here.
Coaxing the dog in. No stick or ball to tempt him with ... I'm just not enough for him to want to come in .... lol. But I did have baby fish nibbling on my legs, and a bull snake about 5 feet long swim by ..... not to mention the biggest bull frog alive swim by as well. All in the same swim. The snake scared the living shit out of me. I didn't see him coming and he literally was inches from my leg as we swam by.
Looking up at the trailer from the river.
My camping kitty. He is really enjoying this stuff. He now goes outside and wanders when we can watch him and he just loves it. Becoming quite the spoiled kitty.
Dave got up to go potty and came back to find his spot in bed gone. Petey is in here too at my feet. He made coffee ....
Sunset through the trees at camp.
Still won't come in ..... actually he had to swim to that side of the river to get to where I was .... but he won't come back across where I am .... he'll go back where he crossed first .... where its shallow and more sandy.
And that is it for now. There were so many pictures this time I just narrowed it down to this.
Dave left camp to come home for a few hours on Saturday and I made some pretty cool bead anklets but still don't have photo so will do that later. Trying to get laundry done and the house cleaned so that when I pull out of here on Friday things will be caught up. The river calls ....
Sunday was spent exploring the new area we found earlier with a few small pieces of gold showing their faces. But not like where we started first so I'm going to stay and work that hole for awhile longer.
Hated to come home yesterday but did .... got home around 8:00 pm. Today I'm tired ..... needing to go to bed early.
I'll do my catching up on my "? days to 50" posts tomorrow. Guess they will have to be done in groupings since I won't be here everyday. Will do what I can do. But really want to keep it up.
Have a good week all.
Peace. J.
