MINING FROM ONE WOMAN’S VIEW

Cricket Koons

How many of you gals out there are “miner’s widows” ?

We’ve all heard of football widows, golf widows and fishing widows. Now we have mining widows. Well, I’m here to tell you to rise and revolt! Don’t let your husband or boyfriend go off and leave you behind to watch the kids and wash the dog. Join in!

Let him know that, by gosh, you’re a miner too, and good at it. If you really haven’t tried it yet, come on up to the river and one of us gals will show you how.

I haven’t had this much fun in years, and gals, mining is not just for the young, although we will let them in on the fun too. I’m on the waning side of 50, run my own full-time business, have a couple of part-time money makers on the side, still keep house, help my children (all grown up), and take care of my grandchildren. BUT, I make the time to get to the river or at least the outback on weekends. Now if I can do it, so can you. I know what we gals can do if we just put our minds to it. Let’s rise up, young and not too young, and show these men a thing or two.

We can all watch Dave McCracken’s mining tapes and read his books, or read any of the other mining books available. Now, we know we learn faster than the men folks, and we are more flexible and willing to make a change for a better idea. You know how stubborn and set in their ways some of our old coots can be!

I’m here to tell you, mining is a great way to melt those hips, increase your lung power, and join in the conversation.

Let me throw out a few mining terms for you to think about. How about overburden? No, I’m not referring to what’s on my hips or maybe yours. Overburden is worthless junk, sand, rocks and anything else that covers bedrock.

We all know what material is, right? Wrong, it’s not the fabric we all have sitting on our sewing machines; I think mine is about six months old now…well, maybe someday. Material in mining lingo is rocks, sand, gravel, mud, clay and silt that sits on top of bedrock, junk we have to work through to get to the bottom.

Bedrock…no, it’s not that old faithful thing you’ve been sleeping on for twenty years, or even something inherited from Great Aunt Fannie. It’s the solid rock surface of the earth’s crust which lies under, where else, the material.

Out of all of this, we end up with the concentrates. We all know how to concentrate. We do it with a good book or our knitting and lots of other things. Ahhhhh, but Mother Nature,when she concentrates, she takes this sand, makes it heavy, turns it black, and hopefully throws in a little gold. Then we come along, work real hard, get out all the other junk, and bingo…Mother Nature’s concentrates give us her gold.

This should tickle your fancy and get the old gray matter moving We, the members of the “Female Mining Sorority”, salute you and respectfully request the honor of your presence at our next meeting.

Place: Happy Camp, California

Time: This summer

Object: Get the gold

I’ve got some great recipes, patterns and stories to tell you about; if you have anything to share, drop me a note in care of koonscricket@hotmail.com. I’d love to hear from you and share your stories with the rest of the gals.

So get out the oil can and get your bones moving, grab the kids, that dog and , of course, old hubby, and get moving.

See you on the river.