Water, cool clear water.

Got hotter than hell down here in Wilhoit so Phillip and I headed for the tall timber and some cool water. Phillip set my chair right in the pool and I sat there with my feet in the water and cooled off royally. All I had to do was bend over to pan. It was so nice. Phillip was working in some bedrock he found. Trouble is, it was just about under a boulder as large as a VW beetle and it was hung up on the bank. The water had dropped exposing the rotten bedrock under it. He had found this area the last time we were up there but he didn't have the bar with him. He broke up the bedrock and let the stuff from the cracks fall into the water and sucked it up with the sucker tube. He did real good got some nice pickers and a whole lot of flour gold. The big boulder started to do some moving so he played it safe and he quit breaking up the bedrock under it.

Just take a look at these huge boulders. These dudes are in the creek itself. Makes one wonder what is under them. I doubt if the old times ever moved them. If the rotten bedrock under that one on the bank is any indication, they will be loaded with cracks that have gold in them. The water is dropping fast. We will be lucky to find a pool big enough to pan in before too long.

This is another beautiful weed. These were blooming along side the road on our way down to the river. I have no idea what it is as I haven't found it in the book or on the web yet. It is a cluster of tiny blooms that look like orchids up close. They have long hairy projections s c sticking up out of the top of each orchid shape. No smell and growing in dry dirt that the lupins have keeled over in because of the heat. We picked seeds from the giant pale pink lupins, and some that are a pale yellow. The purple ones are long one but we did get seeds from them.

Its funny how each color blooms at different times.

Thanks Jake, for telling us how to put pictures in with the text and not all of them just at the top.

Granny

Wow! It's the busy season.

Phillip and I got out a while back and headed up the river to do some panning since we had to go up to Prescott anyway.

Phillip put his tools up on the bank and was waiting for his glory hole to clear up so he could use the sucker tube in it. He didn't do too bad. He wouldn't have got a thing with out the tube. He never leaves home without it. Right!!

We both took a lot of pictures and I got this one of a little tree frog perched up on this stump about 3 feet off the ground. He had a dandy climb up I think. I took a couple of pictures of him and when Phillip got back from taking pictures up the river (creek) I showed him the frog. He had climbed all the way to the top and turned around to face us. Phillip got another picture of him but didn't turn out because he was too close so it was blurry.

Looks like Bill has been hard at work. I love the rock work he has in what he calls his grotto, and all the flowers. Wow! and I also love the twin towers arbor. Going to have to get some of the other seeds from him. We gave him some scarlet runner beans a few years back but didn't keep any for myself. I thought I did but nada. I still have to transplant the daisys and the petunias I started. They are almost big enough now. I find we have more daturas and wild alyssum coming up where I planted hollyhocks. I love them both even if they are weeds. Hey Bill! I need you to save some asparagus seeds for me. I would like to get a bed started down here. I'd like to get a rubarb plant too someday. I saw some up at the seed store but they wanted 20 bucks for them.

Jake, you will have to blue your metal gold pan. When you get out and about build a small camp fire and after it burns down a bit, put your pan in it. After it turn blue then rake it out. That helps keep the rust down and makes the gold stay in it better. Softens the metal somewhat so don't quench it. Never but NEVER put oil on it. Clean the rust off with sand if posible before bluing. I dont know how you got by with out a screen before. That's the hard way to gold pan.

I still haven't figured out how to insert pictures in the blog at intervals instead of just at the top. If some one can tell me how I will thank them forever.

Had a brain echo. Dreamed I won the lottery and went to Australia . It was too damn hot down there and I didn't find any opal. Had a tent and the rabbits wouldn't stay out so I had rabbit poop all over the floor. Stepped in some getting out of bed and that woke me up. Now, does that portend to anything but a dumb dream or is it my grandiose karma is going to kick in good for a change? Que sara, sara!

Aching Back Acres

I also recently got off the couch, and returned to the rock pile to work on our fire pit. I made some good use of my highlift, and floor jacks to tip these multi-ton broken granite boulders on end to form the back wall of the fire pit. We want a place where we can build a small fire to cook on, and an area where we can eat, drink and enjoy life on the rocks. [no pun intended] 

A few other pics. One of the area that used to be a huge pit, now showing the new growth of the low grow orchard mix that I planted about two weeks ago. I will bring many tons of granite up to build the retaining wall along the cut bank semi-circle you see in the picture. The teapot short and stout, some marigolds. Also and arbor that I built to trade a man for his brown eggs. The answer to getting farm fresh eggs with no cash. The Barter System! Plus I don't have to take care of stupid damn chickens!

Here is also the first look at my twin towers arbor. We have built at least a hundred arbors in the past several years, most we sold, some we gave away. At least ten couples have been married under our arbors, we get pictures sent to us often of a new couple expressing their vows under one these things. I even know of one that was abandoned after it met with an untimely demise one winter. Sad but true! Until I built the twin towers we have never kept one for ourselves. I will take many pictures of this monster throughout the summer to show the progression of the growing morning glory, and scarlet runner beans we have planted in the whiskey barrels inside the towers. Pictures that I will post here. 

4th of July weekend is off to a good start

I got up at 6:30 without the aid of an alarm clock this morning. This may have been a subliminal effect of my purchase of some new gold panning equipment. Kind of like when your a kid and your folks have to drag you out of bed except on Christmas, when for some magical reason your up 2 hours before your parents. Anyway, I figured the "gold fever" part of my brain was telling me to pack up and head down to the river to try out the new goodies. I bought a couple new pans and a classifier. One of the pans I bought is a plastic job with ridges on one side and that is the one I use for sifting out the black sand. The other pan is a big metal one with two ridges around the whole circumference of the flanged part. The weird thing about the metal pan is that it looks like it is rusting, hmmm... maybe that normal I dunno. Anyway, I love my classifier, I can blaze through 10X more material when I don't have to pick rocks out of my pan. I'll work through the black stuff later on today, hopefully there is at least a pinch of flour in there. Well I hope all is well with everybody and I hope you have some fun adventures this 4th of July weekend!

Here are a few pictures of the last hike Steph and I were on. This time we hiked on the Centennial Cone trail, I had never hiked this before so it was neat to check out some new area.