Digging It Out

Part of my life these days is spent as a volunteer miner at a local gem mine: the Oceanview mine near Pala in north San Diego County. On the 5th of December, late in the afternoon, Jeff Swanger (the mine owner), Steve Carter and I opened up a newly found pocket and extracted some of the finest kunzite unearthed in the Pala District in many decades. Kunzite is the pink to purple gem variety of the mineral species spodumene.
This photo was actually taken last Saturday when a number of visitors were present and more gems were being hauled out of the expanding cavity. This is one of those pieces after it was briefly rinsed using the water supply we have underground; it is being lit by one of the miner's lamps.

Digging it out. This title does not really convey the effort, the time, and the money it takes to bring these gems to light but, suffice to say, these are considerable. One must think about whether or not it is worth it. However, if we ever had doubts, the absolute thrill of being the first humans to lay fingers---albeit muddy, bleeding ones---upon these beautiful works of natural art, would lay those misgivings to rest.

"Digging it out" also had another meaning for me recently and involves a decision I am still making. For those that know me, it is hard to believe, but I allowed myself to be in the position of having almost everything electronic I have ever done to reside on a single hard drive (I normally have everything backed up at least four ways). Four days away from going to buy a new back up hard drive; my last remaining electronic repository stopped cooperating with any computer I plugged it into. Hence my lack of posts of late.

After trying several methods to recover the data, I am left with one more possibility---a very expensive one. Some think not, and better to move on. I see the logic and can even envisage mustering up the detachment to do so by imagining a house fire in which all is lost and one is forced to accept a new beginning. I mentioned this to my wife and her response was "It is not like a house fire. It is more like an earthquake where everything got buried and may still be intact under the rubble."

The only question is, "Is it worth it to dig it out?" My mineral field collecting buddies agree...you won't find anything until you've made sacrifices to the rock gods---a bit of blood-letting.

Is it worth it?