Gold Is Where It Is

If you can’t find gold in your back yard, look again and again and again.

I’m finally coming to grips with the idea that we may not have a mother-lode on our property.  I’ve spent the last two years searching and coming up with nothing so I finally sent three rocks in for an assay to settle the matter.

An assay is a test to see how many ounces per ton of any given precious metal such as gold is, in the sample. It’s a pretty exacting process that I believe requires smelting the crushed ore to separate the good stuff from the crap and calculating the results.

We have about fourteen grams of gold per ton of rock – at least in the three I sent in. If ours was a major mining operation that wouldn’t be a bad number but for the weekend prospector – not so good. I called the assayer and he said that it is the nature of prospecting to discover a gold vein seven feet under and to the side of where the specimen came from – or not.

I twisted his words into the hope that I could still find that mother-lode. I suddenly found myself power-washing one of our quartz outcroppings today to get a closer look at the parts previously concealed by vegetation.

I’ve taken my metal detector to every square inch of the property in search of anything that sounds like gold – to no avail. Maybe another few sweeps will turn up something different.

With my hopes and behavior, I’m breaking one of the first rules of prospecting: look for gold where others have found it first. And a second rule: if you don’t find gold, don’t waste your time and keep digging.

In my desperation, I’ve come to believe I can will it into existence with the power of my mind.  Just wait.

My Junk

Our property, no matter how hard we try to make it look nice, looks trashy. Until we can upgrade, there’s not a lot we can do about it.

We try our best to keep things organized but it’s difficult to make rusty metal objects, pallets, tarps and trailers appear attractive. One of our newer neighbors is building and it makes us look bad. My prospecting collection of trashy looking buckets, dirt piles, rocks, pots and pans, and holes in the ground doesn’t help.

When we’re out and about though, my husband points out other people’s properties, many of which have old cars, heaps of beer cans and other trash strewn about in order to make me feel better. This is rural America, after all.

I have a large container full of “useful” stuff. Everything’s tangled together in a mass of wire, brackets, screens, hooks, buckets, and parts of old appliances and when I grab something, everything comes out at the same time. It’s indispensable so I keep it.

Two of my homemade furnaces made of clay and old parts.

I regularly go to the farmer’s dump on the hillside to scrounge for more useful stuff. I’ve found mangled tools, parts to household appliances and old vehicles and other treasures I can’t live without. I’ve harvested screen, fencing, bones (not human), marbles, two can openers, and assorted remnants of ancient kitchenware that I might a have need for someday.

Recently I got distracted on my way to repair something. I was already carrying a load of tools when I veered toward the hillside.

My son came home from school in time to see me wandering away from the dump with the armful of tools, part of a shovel, a leftover wheel from a child’s wagon, a long sharp object, an old tractor carburetor, and a candle holder – all possibly useful.

I left the mangled bird cage behind; this time.

Try to beat this.