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And, chopping wood, impossibly fine splinters, the landlord can't seem to start a fire, needs finer and finer kindling, and so what happens?

I chop the entire heel of my palm off...a bloody mess. Quickly reposition it, tape it on, for the next few days I can't shower until it crusts and scabs, and even when I do the amputated heel wants to peel off.

After a couple of weeks it started to look better.

A few more weeks, better still, it appears as if it's reattached at the top...

And finally, now more or less completely restored. Although it feels a bit odd, crinkly, like I'm feeling it through a piece of wet cardboard. To be expected. But I didn't lose it - which I thought was certain, it grafted completely back on, which is proof you don't need stitches for trivial things. Although at the time, with all the blood and nerves laid bare it didn't look that trivial, I gotta say...
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Garage sales, only a few, the only worthwhile find:
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Cleaning up some old concentrates, precious little gold, thought I'd throw it all under the microscope and see what made up the black sand...

Above, some garnet, peridot/olivine, the dark pink might not be garnet, possibility of other gems...

the orange stones are curious, there's what appears to be a metallic piece left of center above the olivine.

More orange, long yellow crystal of interest

Perfectly framed black crystal in drop of water



Note the good triangular faces, hematite?


And finally, a tiny piece of gold...
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A few places to investigate today - first, an old mine I'd recently spotted on the side of the highway. I've driven by it at least a hundred times without spotting it, it's well sheltered by a tree, visible only for a fraction of a second - if you're looking.


I brought a flashlight but no rubber boots. Next time...
Over the side of the road, on the lakeshore, someone's building some rather interesting sculptures. I head down and check them out.




They're pretty cool, and I'd like to take more time to photograph them better, but he's a bit shy, he's out here to escape people like me, and so I take a few quickly and leave.
The hike up to Loon Lake is long. Maybe only 3 KM, 6 KM all told, but all at 30 and 45 degrees, up, up, up, and I'm not even halfway there when my fitness app on the phone tells me I've done my days walking...before I get to the end I'll have set records. It's bollocks, of course, a side-effect of having taken my pulse with it...
I have hopes for this, the old mining reports mention some possibly interesting minerals around the old mines...

An old cabin on the far side of the lake...
Swamp filled with skunk cabbage

detail of some shrubbery...


...an old mining road has become a waterfall
At the end of the track, remains of an old mine, some small stones that are clues to what might be found, nothing good, the wrecked timbers and cables suggest the mine was probably further up the mountain - along the same track that was a road, maybe in a few weeks it'll have dried out a bit...






















