It has been a long month fixing broked equipment, I rebuilt the trommel and it finaly looks like it will work for more than an hour. The tractor is running rough but it will have to do for now. Have been sampling Peoria Flat and found a few small pockets of flakes. 10-25 flakes or so. I have worked the old tailings with mixed results. Sometimes we will pull a gram or less in 5 hours while other times we pull a dwt or so. Most of the pieces are smaller flakes while once in a while we get a 1/4 gram nugglet.

Starting to feel like I am on gold rush Alaska. Tractor breaks, trommel breaks and so on. Going out in the morning to weld more parts on the trommel. I got it going for about 15 minutes on Saturday then broke a chain and sproket. Took apart parts of the 1957 case 320I and thing I fix the bucket problem but we will see. I guess using old equipment is a bit difficult because of the metal fatigue but I like the old stuff. Makes life a bit more interesting. Lets see what happens on Monday. The truck is loaded with the generator and welder so I will hopefully get some work done and process some dirt for once. Still waiting for rain at the Peoria Flat claims. Downieville is a bit cold this time of year so that is out until spring, Woods Creek is still producing a little gold with a few rare pockets of gold here and there. The season is slowing down so no good stories of $100 plus pockets of gold this week. I hope I have a few stories when the equipment gets working properly. I may be changing the company name soon. It will be Jamestown Gold Prospecting. Same phone # so if you are a regular please take note. My new website will take a while to be noticed on Yahoo, Bing and Google. I hate to do it but things happen.

I went out this morning to look at a few spots near one of my claims. I sampled the dry creek beds and got at least a few specks from every pan. One spot where two creeks meet looked promising so I dug about a 1/4 of a bucket of dirt. I panned it out and got about 20 pieces of dust. There are no signs of tailing piles in that particular spot so most likely it was not rich enough to work back in the 1800's but with gold prices where they are now I think it will be worth filing a claim ont. I have finaly got the tractor and trommel working and hope to have everything going soon. I though I was going to get it all together last week but I got very busy with customers. I have a few this weekend thru Monday so maybe I can get out there for tuesday. A good friend of mine passed last week, he was an old time miner, WWII pilot and engineer, any time I had a question about fixing equipment he was there. He always wanted to get back out there mining but at 86 and a sick wife he never found the time, I would collect the black sands and bring the to his house so he could process them and at least be able to do a little of what he loved. I will miss my old friend. RIP my friend Lucky Throne.

Busy week, Lots of people still looking to gold pan. The price of gold has dropped a little but is still over $1,600.00 The long term outlook on the economy does not look so promising so I think I will keep mining. There is a little bit of water at the Peoria Flat claim and I should be working that with the trommel by mid week if all goes well. I pulled out 1/2 gram in about 2 hours on Friday working the old tailings. I think I will make a little video when I start there. Still pulling a little gold from Woods creek.

Ok, Brandy city was a bust. The Forestry service did not finish the paper work and I sat with a rented tractor for a week. I love wasting money. The customers that I did have up there found some gold. I was hoping for a better set up for them but when mining, things happen. Back here in Jamestown now watching the rain fall. I went to Peioria flat yesterday and pulled out some nice flakes, was not much water but this rain should help. I will be working that claim with the tractor when I finish fixing it. This is a slow time of year so I should be able to take most of the customers there. It is remote and peacfull. It is behind locked gates so we dont have much claim jumping there. See you soon.

Truck is fixed, camper needs a few more things, trommel is still sitting in the woods waiting for me to put on new axels. I will be renting a small excavator for the trip, my tractor is too heavy for a rental trailer. I will be working on gettting the trommel home in the morning and then getting it ready for Downieville. It looks like something out of a syfi movie. Talked with a local who may let me use their land this winter for mining. This area is remote in contrast to woods creek but should have much more gold. It is benig kept a secret due to local politics but should be part of our workable area when I get back from Downieville. Talked with a hard rock mine owner and he asked if I would be willing to work with him when business is slow this winter, his claim produces some of the most beautiful specimen gold in the area. I more area I am tryiong to work is an old mine in Columbia, CA. It has been closed up and the owner wants to open it up this winter. Looks like lots to do when I get back. We have 4 groups for the September special so far. 1 four day, 1  three day, 1 two day and a one day. I think this is going to be a blast. I am stilll working on who will be in charge of my business while I am gone. I have two people who I think will do great. More info later on that subject. Puppies should be happy when we get to the claim, they can get out of this oppressive heat and run in the woods. It will be nice to let them run free and let them play int he pond. Comming back will be hard but when it is starting to snow at the claim it might make things a bit easier. I am thinking of getting up to the claim on the 11th or 13th. I need to reset some of the pvc pipes that broke last winter.

So the heart ache is finaly over. I lost 2 of my pups to parvo but the other five made it. Greatfull but sad.

 

Last nite I went to the Brandy City claim and took about 1/4 ton of cemented gravel home. Got home at about 4am and unpuged the phone. I slept for 6 hours, nice. I started looking thru the rocks and found two pieces wedge in the gravel, I was told it was very rare to find it in that form, after breaking some rocks I found a small nugget. I will be breaking more rock tonite. Shopuld be heading up there for the fall in a few weeks if all goes well but things do change. Woods creek is slowly running out of water. Mocassin is alomost dry too. I hope we can squeeze another few weeks out of them.

It turned out that the pups have Parvo. I vaccinated them by mail order but my vet said that sometimes the vaccine is not good because of handling. Pay the extra money for the vet visit, It will cost you more in heartache and vet bills if you don't. Kelly is being treated and has a 50/50 chance. The others are showing some signs of parvo so I re-vaccinated them as a last ditch effort. If you vaccinated your dogs yourself, please take them in for a booster. This is one of the hardest things to cure and your pet is woth the extra money.

Wednesday I lost one of my good friends. Bear, my 7 month old puppy died of a reaction to medication for geardia. I miss him already. It might be time to move to the mountains to keep the rest of my little friends healthy. Keep your pups healthy they are you best friends.

 

Its getting warm. Temps touched 100 today. Yesterday a customer picked out a nice little nugglet. Today, we had another group pick out a nice little nugglet and a tiny piece of wire gold. Most are getting some small flakes with some roughness to them. We have had a few small pieces with quartz. The archeologist showed up the other day so things can finaly get back to normal. A ugly little troll and her minions took the benches we had so now we have a few nice new picnic tables to replace them.