Opening day is getting closer at the big 3 fee digs while I have already had a customer.  The weather is just dandy. We did have snow for Cinco De Mayo, but it melted right off again in the valley. There is white on the mountains and the top of the Steens. Not too hot and in the 40s at night. The Opal Negra folks are on their way!

In case you missed them.. I’ve put up two more opal videos to Youtube. Google is forcing me to lose my existing accounts and user names to conform to their spying policys.  If they succeed I will have to republish everything on a new account. Thanks Mr Greedy and I appreciate you reading my mail to better target me for advertising…NOT.

A Contra Luz specimen :Contra Luz from Virgin Valley

http://youtu.be/wYAR6EKWiOA Link. The song is the owl and the pussy cat by The Prairie Home Companion. I forgot my camera had sound. New fangled toys!

Her is my best plume play of color that ONLY comes from HERE. And yes, it came from our mines, not any of the public fee digs. None are found in Australia, None in Africa of any great size, but they have some similar patterns, None in Mexico. You really have to be in America at Virgin Valley to find this quality of play of color anywhere near this big of size.

My outstanding black limb cast: Black opal with plume play of color.

No sound on this one as I forgot my camera has sound LOL.

I’ve opened up my premier wood claim in the valley for fee digging. I even found precious opal there, but it was in the tailings. There is only bank digging sold there as the tailings are so rich. They wer going fro precious and threw most woods behind them. If you have been to the other digs you will notice they do not have much wood  available. I have so much there, I have to limit it to 300 pounds a day with the standard fee. I have clean logs at my house  for 1 dollar a pound and up, depending on quality. Black centers are less than the cream or purple woods. Chunks, not rounds, 50 cents per pound.Also have multiple digging sites for custom day prospecting digging tours. Enough of the necessary commercialism….

The freeze pump at the shower will not run. The pond is fine.  We can still fill our containers at the lower spigot by the beaver, I mean McGee fishing pond or at the flowing well at the rest area. I’m not sure what the summer residents will do if the refuge enforces the questionable policy of not letting them fill up water trailers like they tried recently. The showers were still running the last time I looked in there last month. (I tend to soak at a hotter spring a few miles away.) It wasn’t vandals, but the locust tree there by the pond. It lifted the line up and separated it. A job for Friends of the Refuge or maybe even the refuge employees. Membership is free and the work is fun with good company. Made of hunters, miners, and visitors. These folks are responsible for the “small” maintenance there, while the refuge does the large, equipment type, things.

Speaking of equipment, the roads are all graded and waiting to bite your tires LOL. Don’t forget your spare, and a can of fix a flat might come in handy too. I tell people; I have always got at least one flat going over Idaho Canyon (Knott Creek Rd) to the Black Rock desert side. Two times Leah and I had to walk out because of 2 flats.  Well, to the Leonard Creek ranch for help from our friends there.

The fish are biting if the fishermen and the birds are any indication.  The pelicans have arrived to fatten up for the summer and our friends the herons are on their nest. The burros had a several of the cutest little foals already and a couple more look like they are ready to drop. The herds down on Jackass Flats by the Thousand Creek BLM Fire station are big and healthy. Hard to imagine the refuge trapping all the burros and horses off. But, they are proposing no horses or burros, on the about 600,000 acres here.

Seems like they have been here forever, but it has been less than a second to the antelope and deer populations. They hope to increase the native herds by removing the competition. We’re probably lucky the hog herds of the Virgin Valley Ranch in the past did not establish a wild boar population. The re-introduced beavers are probably what caused the extinction of the Virgin Creek cutthroats. Those canyon crreks are now choked with beaver ponds damming up the three creeks.  Well, they SAY they are killed off.  Which is humorous, There’s no fish there, so you are not allowed to fish there LOL. I was surprised at the size of the clam middens by some of the caves up there.

That is about all the news I have for today. I need to get outside and scrub off the logs from yesterday and see if one is the hunk that will make me a millionaire (chortle – snort). If you were wondering if I demand shares of anything, I do not. You will always get everything you dig out without having to give half to the mine. And you will always get to finish the day on whatever you find. Mine closes at 4 and that is final regardless of what mine you are digging here.

A car load of wood to process into specimens and products.

Purple woods from the fee dig

Gotta go. My neighbor is coming over with his tractor to re-bury my septic line where the wind uncovered it last month. Going to put rock over it this time and not just blow sand.

The storms have been blowing gustily everyday and the wind chill has been going up and down like a Yo Yo. The Nascar and F-1 seasons are underway. Not that I could get final four off their TV. If we went walking out there today; either the snow or the mud would be sticking to our feet, “walkin’ tall” and it feels like you are on Neptune. (No, I don’t think I’ve been there.). Part sunny so that the mud is on the move. There are interesting Rams Horn Selenite crystals, about 1″ not optical, that grow in certain layers.  The wind is blowing dirt sideways. On days like this you get wind burn and sand blasted; LOL. That’s a good thing as OPALS are coming to the lowering surface to find later this year. Here’s a picture of what we are trying to see in the dirt, on the dirt, and under the crud in a piece of potch,  in that mud wall, or the silver pick pile of bank.

Ready to Rub - $5 a gram pick; in person.

This is how summer starts. When will the wet stop long enough to dry out for as long as I will be there? Welcome to some new miners into the valley. Not having got permission to disclose their interests, I’m not naming their names. Needless to say; New players, agents, and partnerships come and go. Opalholics are always seeming to come, and come again, LOL. I’ll probably be buried in this valley too, but it won’t be from digging in un benched banks. There’s a few new players in the wild west hoping on the fee dig market and more than one digger hoping to hit the next big one. Some of the best ground here is going to get mined. Hope they don’t go and bull right through the deposit hoping for more than there is and in the process ruin it for everybody with the Wildlife Refuge personnel. Not to mention not find the opal. In the past; the miners would just take a bulldozer to the top and spiral down the faces, hoping to hit a pocket and see it too.  We’ll be the first-est with the most-est, if I can just stop this devil box worship – and selling the remaining ground waiting for the digging to start. Oh, that went away too. I’m doing tours but the claims are ALL spoken for, if not signed off on. Formal announcement later on the website when I put the reworked pages back on.

I KNOW I don’t find all the nicest things here, I’m not a hundred other people digging in a thousand other spots. Some save a lot more materials than I do. I just get my share exploring where the mine is going to be this year. I’ve never been one to leave opals laying on the ground. My friends (and neighbors, if you are starting to define your life in Facebook terms) have some killer things posted on their pages from last year. Soon there will be a new Swordfish in the Valley, and it has a Kokopelli riding it. There will be buckets of tailings and concentrates, I’m thinking and I know Kokopelli is playing up a quality fee dig.

http://www.wix.com/kokopelliopals/kokopelli-opals

Summer is coming...

Off to the endless drudgery of paperwork.

If you are not loving,  you are not living.

Peace out.

They forecast snow and more snow tomorrow.  Probably just evaporate, but not always. The weather was nice in Quartzsite, AZ this year.  No ice, no horrible winds, even though we did get dusted badly and will have to completely reclean all the cases. This is the real reason deals are had at the end of the show; the prospect of cleaning everything so it can be taken inside somewhere, is daunting.

I did get to go walk around the show as I was again lucky and had great neighbors by my booth. Everything is in motion for next year again, lots won’t be coming back to sell or could not afford the space rent up front, and it is 20% higher for next year, town jacked the tax rate over 10% now too.  I shuffled my space down the west side right next to Bill Carmona and out of under the power pole. I lose my sign posts but gain 45 feet to the dog walk and outhouses. There was more than one friend watching this years show from some hole in the ground somewhere. Most were able to get out and come if they had so desired, (I think they stayed home to catch some rockhound highgraders during this time of year) but a few were back filled and missed dearly.

In other news. I didn’t make enough cash to go invest it in future sales prospects in Tuscon. I wish the dealers there luck, but I heard their crowd was from the same being milked by the rulers economy ours was. Lot of competition from overseas and fewer buyers compared to tourists. Our neighbors at Sunstone Ridge got their stock of Faceted sunstones, beads, and rough, stolen from between shows. Know your sellers. I hate to be protectionist as I do business around the world and they are my friends too, but…this whole industry is fraught with scam artists and unscrupulous sellers who prey on the uniformed. If you are at an established venue, dealing with a mine outlet of distinct material or any artisans, who use the same materials, you should be assured of genuine articles and truthful information. This is where knowing your seller becomes the ethical way to support folks more than make an extra nickle. In this business it is cash and carry, so try to give the cash to those that carry the expenses. My cutters have more than one UGLY American that never paid them for their work.

Walking around I did see higher prices on the “new” no longer new Ethiopian opals, but there was some higher qualities available for that. I actually ran across Mr Massey (Shewa Opals; for the locals back during development.) looking at the display cases early on the morning I signed up again and got to say hello. I didn’t sell a single “close out” parcel to the few buyers i entertained. I do have faith folks will realize that gemstones are much better hard assets after food and home than money and start investing in Colored stones and jewelry that is NOT poised to collapse like the housing market. i.e. NO colored gem is stockpiled like diamonds. I’m putting rarer things away than diamonds because the chance they will ever appreciate is almost guaranteed by their scarcity. Not that I have any money outside of my holes in the ground, so I’m limited to the collection I find and create. LOL. Enough talk, here’s what I found for me this year. I have simple tastes if refined.

.

45th Annual Quartzsite Improvement Association POW WOW in center of town.
JAN.18th to Jan. 22nd. http://www.qiaaz.org/page0002.html

That’s where everybody in town goes during the 5 days it is open from their own booths.

Everywhere else:

DESERT GARDENS 10th ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL GEM, MINERAL & JEWLERY SHOW
JAN. 1st 2012 – FEB. 28th 2012

PROSPECTOR’S PANORAMA
Nov 1st 2011 – Feb 28th 2012

TYSON WELLS ROCK & GEM SHOW
JAN. 6th 2012 – JAN. 15th 2012

HI ALI SWAPMEET
Nov 1st 2010 – Mar 28th 2011

TYSON WELLS SELL-A-RAMA
JAN. 20th 2012 – JAN.29th 2012

The Main Event
Jan. 7th 2012 – Jan. 22nd 2012

Gresewood Swap and others also have spaces.

Hope to see you there.

I’ve put in another handful of claims. I am preparing to change Swordfish Mining Virgin Valley Opal range of operations again. I am working in association with a new startup called Kokopelli Opals. Our partnership should bring more stones to light. There is a store on Opal Auctions with my name on it too. YAY. Now if I can learn to play like an adult haha. I just need the time to prepare the offers around my rough.  Funny how life gets in the way of life.

When my Swordfish Mining Virgin Valley Opal is in major production; there will be no more tours or claim sales;  I will be mining and selling only and you should have hired me last year.  It’s not like the opals are not there waiting for us to find. At this point I am still taking claim tour reservations for the 2012 year with deposit only. A limited days Fee Dig (Like Spencer or Morrison Ranch) will be announced for 2013 when claim sales end.

I should warn visitors with play vehicles. The road to Mc Gee Mt thru the Bonanza millsite has been chained off; no warning signs or reflectors. So, if you are buzzing down a public road and miss that 90 degree turn down another way and get cut in half by a chain, they bad, they warned, they lose in court.

I also humbly submit my first gemstone auction on Opal Auctions. I can use the money. It’s one cute little stone located at http://www.opalauctions.com/auctions/usa-opal/virgin-valley-opals/item-283895 . Not a tops gem (this is an auction) but whoever wins it will love it for the price I’m sure.  360′ multicolor.

I hope the Postal Service keeps our local office open. How much can we whine that we live 100 miles from next town and parcel services. Until next time here is a little more eye candy.

33 gm Virgin Valley limbcast

Been a late night here. I started early doing a tour in Virgin Valley for a Gemologist geologist which ran long. Then the required game of scrabble at the Opal Queen which I barely won, blackout. Up came, well, not quite up, I had been ignoring threatening skies while digging for 2 hours LOL. Had a real “hot” lightning storm walk across our neck of the woods. I only know of the one fire so far. The one here burnt to the side of Denio Summit as seen from the Jct looking south. The Pueblo Volunteer Fire Department kept an eye on it and BLM crews arrived to 4×4 crawl around on the hill to knock it out.

08-24-2011 Lightning fire by Denio Jct

Other than that boy did I find a pretty opal. I had to even make a poor Utube video of it.

Say no more here is the link.

Well actually,  to say more there is another post with still pictures at the Opal Auctions forum. I do need to get around to having more auctions for some of the gemstones I’ve cut from some the stable material that comes from here.

http://forums.opalauctions.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=1958&p=26224#p26224

By plume play of color we mean the Play of color in the opal appears to be on the surfaces of sulfide growths that look like leaves or ferns inside the gemstone rough.

The Klamath Falls Rock and Arrowhead club came out for the annual dig I host for them. We did not find any precious opal on the new claims I bought that we went to. We did prove we were digging in the right direction.

Julie from the Peacock Mine thinks traffic may be down a little or at least is not up. I would guess so. How many times have you seen gasoline prices go down in summer. It’s nice to know we are still an E ticket vacation destination, with travel time being the highest cost. I was hoping to work in after a black opal pocket but ended up trying to find the corner posts of a new development in the works here. The BLM has sent surveyors to find the real corners of the mining district boundaries, but it seems they do not mark them like they used to. Now you have to go on their website and get GPS coordinates instead of looking for the stakes. Mining maps are not allowed to use those easy to get numbers tho’ thanks for making my job slightly easier. To find where I have to measure off the angled distance instead of taking the numbers from where we stand.

Until next time here’s a core video.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjG0evpDLI4.

I’ve heard tell of some nice things out of the loads at Rainbow Ridge too. I’ve found a few small things digging, but I’ve been more busy with my claims and buyers this year. I have also acquired a property I will escort fee diggers too. Custom parties, 150 a head, prospecting in the right new places. Common woods and opal guaranteed in the bucket from work and tailings even if you don’t get blacks in the bank.