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April 30, 2003.
Opal Mining Update - No 14 Back Mining or are We? |
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G/Day Again Folks, Went to the claim today to repair some of the damage that the water has caused me on the ground with the furrows that it made when the water was running off the hill, but decided that I might as well leave them as is and just protect the shafts as I should have done in the first place, what we do is to put a ring of dirt around the shafts, normally this is done around every shaft, but as the 3 shafts very close to each other I will have to surround them all with one ring of dirt as below.  |
Here you can see it from the front, this is the way I backed the truck on
the shaft, but tomorrow I will have to set it up from the right as I do
not want to disturb the dirt now I have it in place.
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This is just to show you how bad the fly's are right now and today they
were the worst I have had for the past week, without this net I would not
be able to work here for to long, you can see a bunch of them on my hat,
these are little Bush Fly's, we call them Sweat Fly's as all
they are after is moisture.
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Went out to the mine this morning to pull a bit more water and in doing so
I pulled one of the ladders off down the bottom and was blocking part of
the shaft, so I had no choice but to go down and put it back on, there was
also two ropes that were floating on the surface of the water which I
could not see from the top, so I hooked them with my foot and tied them
onto the ladders to keep them out of the way.
You may ask why didn't I bring them up with me as I had them in my hand, well one rope is the one that I let the explosives etc, down with and the bottom of the rope about 10 feet of it, is buried under mud and dirt that was washed down the shaft with the water running in. The other rope is a small one that I have attached to the electric lead that I have down there with the hand light on, the light is still hanging on the wall on a nail, but the lead was in the way of the bucket going up and down the shaft and as the electric lead is also under this mud and dirt I had to drop the lead down the shaft to get it out of the way, this is also tied on to the ladders and out of the way. This how I have to set up the Mining Truck, to keep away from the dirt that I have put around the shafts as you can see it is very overcast and did try to rain a bit last night but only made spots in the dust on the ground, not that I really want to try out the dam wall so to speak.  |
This shot shows you the shaft in the background where I might drill
another shaft, it is the one with the small dump of dirt just over the top
of the hand winch handle and is about 40 feet away.
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We have another business starting up here, this is a NEW Hardware
shop called TOTAL TRADE, it used to be called Lucas Hardware shop, but they
have moved it or what is left of it into there
Food Supermarket, this New Hardware shop is being run buy some of the
Staff that worked at OME and it would seem that they are going to look
after the Opal Miner.
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From today on not a lot will be happing as you can understand, just pulling water as usual, I go
out on the field for about 3 or 4 hours or so until I get bored and P----sd off
with the fly's, the rest of the week is going to be the same, feel like a
water boy for a football team.
Never thought you would get so tired just standing there operating a winch and emptying a bucket, but today is Saturday and I am physically and mentally tired, must be getting old as I have only pulled 139 Buckets which is approximately 3,336 liters, total so far in 6 days of pulling water is 189 buckets and 4536 liters, so I must be getting somewhere near to getting the feet wet. Talking about wet, it has been overcast here all week and has looked like rain, even tried to rain a couple of times through the week, but early this morning, before daylight it was raining and it sounded like a good downpour again as it woke me up, so I hope that if it rained on the field again the shafts are protected well enough to stop any water from going When I finished pulling water from the claim by bucket and I can get down and stand on the floor, there is still going to be about 2 feet or so of water in there, then I can get to the Telescope and remove the clamp from it and the big 90%elbow, then I can put the telescope back up in the pipe in the shaft where it should be, then I have to find the small elbow and clamp plus the extra 5 foot pipe that is down there and set it up as the  |
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Then the elbow is put just into the water so I can suck some water and air
into the elbow, this will remove the water very quickly, will be a bit
messy especially when I get to the mud on the floor, hopefully I will be
able to remove some of this in this way also without to much trouble,
really depends if it causes any blockages to the elbow up top and how
Then it depends on how far the water has penetrated into the walls, as it might make drilling holes for the shots very hard, I will try first with some shallow holes with the opening up auger which drills the 16 inch deep holes, this will tell me straight away, if I am lucky I will be able to make a small shot with this auger which I will then be able to mix dry dirt with the wet stuff on the bottom and get it out, this will cause it to build up on the corners and block them, which is a pain but better than nothing. If this option is not available to me I will have to drill another shaft next to the one mentioned in photo 5 above and open up again, then by the time I have done that and had a bit of a look here and there and drive back to this ballroom it should be pretty dry in there as this will take some 4 months or so at least and who knows we might just find some more opal doing this, at least we hope so. I am only doing what I was going to do in the first place only in reverse, as I was going to drive to this shaft and then would have gone to another on the right that use to be one of the old timer's and is a square shaft, that claim is also full of mud to just under the ironstone level and the roof had fallen down in parts and the last time I was down was after the last storm we had here, which was on the 29th of December 2001, now I should imagine it would be full after this last storm to hit. For those of you who have not heard or do not know how these storms can hit here and cause damage, I can tell you that a lot of Dugouts do get flooded and have to be pumped out, some of the Dugouts that are high on the side of hills, the people cannot get out or in when the ground is wet, as they cannot get back up the driveway due to the tires slipping on the mud and for the Dugouts that are down under ground level as I said some of them get flooded. As for the Opal Fields, it depends which direction the storm has come from and if there is any wind behind it or just how much rain it dumps in a short time, this is the main problem, if you happen to have a claim that is or has shafts in underlying ground, then you have a problem and even if you protect you shafts as we do with dirt, you can still get some water down your claim, as when the water starts to run it makes it's own way and will eventually cut through anything in it's path. As in my case, I am on the side of a small hill or incline as you can from this photo.  |
You can see here that the ground is natural and has been like this for
Millions of Years and there was no marks or furrows to show the water
has run there before, so I thought I would be safe here and did not
protect the holes, Mistake No 1, never trust Mother Nature as she has
taught me this time.
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Well that's it for this week, I will be back out on the field removing
more water until I can get down there, but the first day with sunshine I
will have to stay home as I have to take some Photos of Opal Rough
to put on the Web Site and I also have to chase up some Opal
Jewelry to replace items that have been taken off the Web Site, as you
can see there is always something to do.
It rained today off and on, at one time it really threw it down again and I thought about the claim and if it was raining out there and how much, but there is no point worrying about it, as there is nothing I can do about it, But it made a excellent Sunset here tonight so I thought I would share it with you all. This building with the tower is the new Police Station here and on the far left is the Opal Inn Pub.  |
A view with a couple of our trees in the foreground.
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This is taken just over the top and to the side of our house, the one on the right with the TV antenna.
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This is out to the side of our house.
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This is out to the side of our house.
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This is out the back of our house.
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This is out the back of our house.
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Well that's the end of this week, so thanks for reading all of this and I hope that nexr week I have something better to report to you all.
No Rest for the Wicked, so they say. Hope you have enjoyed this issue and look forward to the next one, hopefully I will have some more good photos to show you in the next issue and maybe some of Good Looking Opal and lots of it, I am still hoping that this will be a good year for us in mining, so stay with us over the next few months and find out what goes on in our part of the world as far as Opal Mining goes. Stay Tuned for the next Issue, who knows what I will have to report. Until the next issue.........  and wish me lots of LUCK.
Cya Later, Stuart Bird. To return back to the Archived Page for more Updates click, Here! |
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