Opal is a Time Altering Drug As Is Mining

To we opal junkies, opal is a time altering drug and eventually it dawns on us that there is more opal in the dirt to be dug, and in the "rough" buckets to be processed and cut if a new batch is to be here to enjoy tomorrow morning. My Parched Earth Opals.com partner and I sort and price the opal and she then retreats to her cutting room with a shout to remind me to sign up for an appointment with the flying doctor on Friday, which is his usual day to fly in from Charleville 400 miles away. I march off to my truck with the pick and shovels we'd gathered back from her mine the day before in my arms quoting loudly my marching verse, "I hurt in the dirt as I flirt with Lady Luck. More for the love of the opal than a chase for a buck!" This I chant in sing song instead of Disney''s Seven Dwarfs song, "HI Ho HI Ho" which I grew tired of years ago when mining black opal in Lightning Ridge, Australia. I spend the next couple hours shoveling dirt into a trommel that turns using a little Mitsubishi motor. The trommel is made of heavy duty metal mesh and the dust flies as I process the dirt to shake the dirt off the nuts (ironstone concretions) that are in the old stow dirt that has previously been pulled out of and open cut mine. I empty the nuts, sticks, gravel, sandstone chunks and whatever other rubbish that couldn''t pass through the mesh into old used 20 gallon grease buckets. The buckets are hefted onto the back of the truck, the fine dust that has built up under the trommel has to be shoveled off to the side and a new batch of dirt shoveled into the trommel once again. If the wind is blowing in the wrong direction, even the hardy, persistent black bush flies that annoy all my facial orifices gives up in the onslaught of choking dust.. The buckets of nuts need to be washed clean of dirt that has caked on it and wasn''t knocked loose by the trommeling. This is done back at camp in one of several methods. I could spread the contents on an old bush bed frame (consists of frame and metal mesh) and hose down before sorting, sort out the nuts without washing and perhaps miss some, or do a thorough wash in a cement mixer, garden size, for ten minutes, then hose off and shovel onto a sorting table that has a trickle of water running over it to facilitate sorting out the rubbish and beginning the pre-sort of the actual nuts. This sorting process takes another couple hours depending if you have help or not. It is the custom in Yowah, that if friends stop by for a visit that they help sort while talking (similar to a quilting bee). Then I break for a cuppa or at lunchtime, "tea" which also stands for a meal. The hospitality in Yowah knows no bounds. The town is only about five blocks long and we all know each other or soon will. The population runs from forty to two hundred depending upon the time of year and the number of regular tourists that return each year camping and fossicking.

To see what I do and why I do it visit me at www.parchedearthopals.com