Wednesday, July 30, 2003

Greetings,

Today, like yesterday, was foggy and overcast and cool this morning and we were due to get rain and perhaps thunder and lightning like we had last night near 1:00 a.m. They had a downpour at the Mine House but we saw naught but a brief drizzle at the mine.

We've been having problems with enough rechargeable batteries and lights for underground use at the mine. The problem has been building since I arrived and my own light is down to just three hours of use and we've no backup anymore. So, I asked Jonina to get hold of Oldham Batteries and order three more T3 lights and batteries and then went off to the mine. When I returned at 4:00 p.m. she had spent four hours on the phone and computer -- no such animal as Oldham anymore and after hours of fruitless searching the Coal Board was able to give her the new name of the company -- something Traction. No way to easily find them but after a great deal of time she had a name and got a phone number and placed a call. Whoever handles underground lights for the UK has so little call for them that they were in a meeting for the day.

I was nearly as frustrated at the mine today. I spent the morning slowly going through the clay and debris in the flat between the North and South West Crosscuts and lowering the floor and putting the waste into a wheelbarrow and wheeling it out to the dump. I must say that trying to dump a wet muddy barrow is nearly impossible, you put it at 90 degree and nothing happens, you actually have to push it out to get the debris to move out. For my efforts I had a half gallon plastic sack full of small hopefully gem twins to about 3/4". Just when I was getting into the area I had been working toward Dave accidentally ran the Eimco over my water line cutting my supply and creating a problem not easily solved since it was a US hose jury-rigged with English connections to an American metal spray nozzle. At that point we broke for lunch.

After lunch I went out ot watch the adder for a bit and found it curled up snagging flies out of the air - doubt he could survive on them but it probably works for a snake killing time. After we went back up to the mine it took Byron nearly and hour to figure out how to get the hose fixed and get me some water to work with. I finally got to moving rock and recovering quite a number of gem twins to over 3/4" and even a few nice miniature specimens when (see first paragraph) my light died. Honest, I tried to work with about 3 candlepower but after a while it just becomes hopeless when you have to get closer and closer to identify a crystal and finally reach the point you are inside the area you can focus on. So I quit, it will still be there tomorrow.

I drove back to the Mine House where Jonina was cleaning up the garage and Kerith was taking a break and working on a puzzle after spending the day wrapping and sorting fluorite specimens. A gritty and backbreaking but necessary job. Back early to Burnbrae in time for a well deserved glass of wine.

That's it today from this place way way north of Lake Woebegone.

Best Regards,

Cal & Kerith

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