Videos from the south

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.

This next video concludes the first video and demonstrates that even the guy new to mining can come up with innovative ways to find that yellow gold!

Sneak Peak

This is a sneak peak at our new, improved and bigger wash plant.  The sun is out the snow is melting and soon you will be able to see some photos of this beast in action.  As you have seen, if you have been following the blog, we have been up to the mine this winter.  We have done some snow clearing to hurry along spring melt so we can set up our new equipment.  Stay tuned for 2013 mining season news and photos, ITS ALMOST HERE!!!

Its always something.....

So there I was...on the dozer...I ask, "is there gas."...response is,"Yes, just topped it off."  As operator I should have looked and since I did not we spent many hours bleeding air and recharging the battery, over and over and over.  It was another wonderful and exciting weekend at the gold mine.  We learned a lot about the old John Deere 1010 Bulldozer and we managed to dig 22 buckets of Pay dirt out of the frozen ground, with the help of a propane weed burner.  You can't pay for day of adventure like that!

Mining in the Winter?

This post is to show all of you interested in the Pay dirt we are selling on ebay that it is not purchased from the Home Depot.  We had not figured it would be so popular and we were getting close to running out so the wife and I had to go back to the mine and chip at our mound of pay dirt.  We got six buckets and we are going back next weekend with the Dozer to break up even more so we can handle the popularity of our dirt.  Thank you all, those that purchased and those that are just browsing.  And remember it is not Home Depot dirt(sometimes i wish it was).

Super Bowl Weekend

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.

The new (not so new) dozer

Well we just picked up the newest edition to our equipment fleet a 1960's John Deere 1010 crawler with a six way blade. It's amazing, runs great, pushes great, hopefully it will do a great job helping us find gold next summer. This photo is Teresa taking it out for a test run.

Can you tell me?

Alaska is an amazing place to live, work, play and raise a family it.   Every day is full of new experiences.   There is almost no way to describe the wonders every day will bring.  You could go outside on the deck and find that a mother moose has calved twins and get to see them take their first wobbly steps in this fantastic place.  You could be driving home at night and have to pull your car over to park so you can watch the northern lights dance through the sky.   When the trees have the hoarfrost on them and they look like they were pulled out of some fairytale book, you just have to stop and admire.  The photo in this post I was just driving to town to pick up some groceries and I had to pull over and take a picture, if you look close you can see the double rainbow.  Go ahead and write a comment about your favorite things that you experience where your from.

What happens in the evenings?

We are going to try a post without a picture today.  At the end of the day, after all of our equipment has run out of fuel.   We perform our clean up, eat dinner, then it is time to sit around the fire and talk about events that took place during the day.  My Mother-in-law usually wants to do an evening exploration trip to an area of the mine we have not been to in a while.  When she heads out she usually takes my wife along with.   My father-in-law and I sit around the camp fire and discuss ways to modify our equipment to make it work better, places we think that we need to dig test holes.  We discuss how we are going to run the operation more efficiently with our small crew.   Once my mother-in-law and wife return from their expedition we will then start the wine tasting, the in laws make their own wine.  Most of the time it is great wine, sometimes you just have to spit it back out.  After a couple glasses of wine it is usually time for everyone to hit the hay for the evening, then rinse and repeat, we do it all again the next evening.

What is a Gold Miner?

The Gold Miner is not always searching for gold.  There are things much more precious to him.  Those precious things require much more attention than the ground under his feet.  In this photo a little girls feet left the ground while in a flat out run, ending in a very painful fall.  The Miner is first and foremost a father, then a husband, a son, a brother.  The gold miner may have hard hands, but they are comforting hands, hands that heal wounds and will pick you up when you fall.   A Gold Miner is a friend for life and will always be there if family or friend is in need.  I am a gold miner.

It Finds Gold.

This here is our little trommel wash plant that we use to run samples in. It a bit clunky, not quite round, but hey nobody is perfect and it works just fine just the way it is. How it works, we will set it up at base camp and after I have dug a sample Hole I will fill my backhoe's excavator bucket up with the dirt of interest, carry it back to where the trommel is located and then shovel the dirt from the bucket into the trommel. Once we have run the whole bucket through the trommel the we perform a clean out, it is never a lot of gold, but what it does is give us a snapshot of what the ground contains, gold wise, and depending on what we get out of the trommel we will decide to dig or not to dig?......Boy, that seems like a recurring question in this blog. This trommel seems to have very good gold recovery. We did have some grounding issues when we first started operating, if you would touch the trommel you would get a nice electric shock from it. As you all know electricity and water does not mix well. We have since solved that issue because getting shocked every time you touch the machine, just won't do. These photos are prior to having any of the pluming installed. I will try to find a picture of the complete unit to show off.