Thursday, June 12, 2003

Good Morning. The weather - dark, ominous clouds are drifting past, though patches of sky can be seen. The wind has come up a bit and things are definitely cooler than last week's brief summer episode. Yesterday followed the pattern established this week of being heavily overcast with some rain through mid-afternoon, then clearing for a nice evening. The wind does have a couple beneficial attributes around here - it dries everything off nicely, including wet, filthy miners just emerged from a day underground, and it keeps the midges at bay. This latter effect allows one to enjoy the evening outside without being hounded by swarms of small biting gnats that come out during the summer around here.

Yesterday was a mine day again. We had a full crew and then some as, along with local collector Lloyd, Peter Hart, a friend for Byron and Jonina's from San Diego showed up in town. Peter is originally from Hartlepool, a town on the N. Yorkshire coast that is famous for the story of its now deceased monkey. The perhaps apocryphal tale of this poor monkey's untimely end is recounted somewhere in the 2000 reports, though just which day I do not recall. Should you care to search for it, the reports are all posted on the UKMV website. If you find it, let me know. Anyway, Peter is over in the UK for a bit, helping take care of his elderly parents who live down on the Essex coast now. Being a part-time miner himself, he was interested in seeing what we are doing, and we were happy to put him to work.

At the mine, Byron got back to excavating his now not insubstantial hole leading northward from the second West Cross Cut. Dave set to timbering and cleaning out the southern part, which had dropped yet another large rock from the ceiling overnight. Peter offered to be a grunt for the day and took up the working end of a wheelbarrow hauling rock and mud out of the drift while Dave put in the supports. I got Lloyd set up collecting in the little alcove where I had been busy before getting sidetracked by our rail-salvaging job last week. While pointing out to Lloyd all the modern conveniences that this collecting spot afforded the diligent digger I dislodged a loose rock that was had some not-so exciting fluorite crystals exposed on one face. The rest of it was covered in a thick layer of our famous mud so I handed it to Byron for the hydraulic wash. As suspected, the fluorite that was showing turned out to be nothing to get excited about, but the underside of the rock emerged nicely coated with gemmy, large, undamaged crystals. I could see this enliven Lloyd's enthusiasm and he quickly set to poking around in the muck. Byron had the water hose in his ever-expanding cavity so Lloyd had to collect "dry", and soon discovered how difficult it is when one has no idea whether the rock you have carefully extracted from the wall is a specimen or just a muddy lump. Regardless of this, he managed to collect several good specimens through the day, which seemed to make up for the fact that what he came away with on his last visit would have best been used for road-fill.

Despite his best efforts, the roof of Byron's newly excavated cavity remained firmly intact, and the far reaches, though easily extracted had become rather barren by the late afternoon. The nice large specimen I spoke of yesterday is still there and will have to wait for another day. Dave managed to get the southern alcove stabilized and cleaned up enough that he thinks we can turn Byron loose there again today. Dave has come to the conclusion that his job with us essentially comes down to letting Byron make a mess of an area in the mine and then cleaning up after him. Not being a collector himself, he seems perfectly happy, though sometimes amused with the arrangement.

After a quick stop at the Lion for a debriefing on the day's progress, Lloyd took off for the long drive home to Norfolk and the rest of us returned to the cottage for dinner. Upon arriving we found our landlords Bob and Mary out front playing with Bob's newly arrived bright red rider-mower. Despite the fact that he had mowed the entire place last weekend, Bob set off to do a part of it again. Today's photo is of the proud owners with their new toy.

On today's schedule I will be likely spend the morning trying to tie up any loose ends with Jonina before I head back to California on Saturday, and hopefully get to the mine in the afternoon. Byron, Dave and Peter will have at the mine again, hopefully to good fortune. Tonight we have been invited to dinner with Bob and Mary, and David Rennison has another appointment.

Forward in all directions…

Cheers,

Jesse, Byron and Jonina

Go Back