We recently went to hike around one of the many abandoned mine sites in Mojave National Preserve. I believe this one is Evening Star Mine. There are multiple mine shafts, a few old buildings, and a lot of Joshua trees. And a big rock that smacked the bottom of our car.
Michael and Darcy explored some of the infrastructure while I took pictures. I did not see it happen, but Michael carried Darcy up the first flight of stairs and said they were pretty solid, all things considered. I'm glad I didn't see it.
I know nothing about mining, really, but I assume this was a chute for loading up -- buckets? barrels? carts? -- of ore.
This mine shaft was particularly deep. Michael was demonstrating this fact to Darcy by dropping rocks down the shaft to hear when they hit. We had a difference of opinion about whether we could see the bottom, or if we were just seeing a debris pile being held by fallen beams. Either way, this is deep.
I can't really imagine going to work every day by climbing down ladders into the ground. I know that they were no doubt more stable when they were in use, but even so, it would be a depressing start to a work day.
Michael recently started reading a book about the history of Cima that he really brought home for me, but I've been ignoring it in favor of fiction for a few weeks. It turns out that we don't really live in Cima. We live in a "residential suburb" of Cima called Hockersville. Four families had homesteaded four quandrants that meet at the corner of "our" property where there is a sort of intersection of two dirt roads. They all built their houses on the corners so they would form a small community and the Hockers (two brothers) owned two of the four quadrants, so they were honored with the name. All but our quadrant were still owned by descendents when the book was written and at least two still are, we think.
Three houses are still there (although I think the one on our property was a replacement for one that burned, but I can't remember who told me that) and there's a roof that may be the remnant of the fourth, so I might try to put together a photographic essay about modern day Hockersville.
Darcy has stepped up as the number one garden assistant this year. She has her own shovel and hoe. When she uses them, she says that she is "just like the Care Bears" because she has a book in which a Care Bear works in his garden with a shovel and hoe. She doesn't quite have the concept yet, but she tries and she has fun doing it, which is the most important thing.
I made a solo shopping trip to Las Vegas this "weekend" and visited, um, several Starbucks locations to collect used grounds. It looks like a lot, I know, but it just disappears once it's in the garden, I swear! My soil has its pluses -- hardly any rocks -- but also minuses -- not much organic matter. The coffee grounds are really upping the organic, water-holding content.
So that coffee got split between two beds, one of which I had done nothing to yet, and the other one has significant amounts of cow manure, grass clippings, and some coffee grounds already. This somewhat prepared one got a good topping of coffee grounds. Looks like a lot, right? Darcy, as you can see, LOVES the coffee grounds. She likes to crumble the individual discs. It makes her coffee-covered from head to toe, but she's washable.
But after five minutes of turning the soil over, you can hardly tell it had that many coffee grounds earlier. It's the one in the middle. The whole garden is smallish -- about 11 by 14 feet in total, but it's a good start and I have modest hopes for production this year: greens, herbs, tomatoes, snap peas, and maybe some hot peppers and/or cucumbers.
