Hidden Valley Tank

If you look close at the picture with the roof over the canyon you can see a cement wall below it.  The wall is a dam that is supposed to hold water back and form a small reservoir of water for the bighorn sheep that are up in the KOFA mountains.  The dam was leaking and needed to be repaired.  Jim and I went up to help with the work.  It was a thirty mile drive in to the area with the last 6 miles being barely a road.  Where the road ended we had to walk another mile in to Hidden Valley because no vehicles are allowed on the refuge where there is no designated road.  There was a forty foot ladder to climb up to get to the tank itself.  Once up there we worked hauling rock and gravel out of the tank so we could get to the bottom of it and find the leak. 

We did have a gas powered pump to pump the water out which helped but we had to do a bucket brigade to get the rock and gravel out.   Jim did four days of this work while I went twice.  The tank was cleaned out enough to get to the bottom and sealer was applied to the bottom and walls.  The last day they were pumping water back in to the tank.  Jim had laid out a mile of firehose to pump the water through from the water truck up to the tank.  The picture of the valley between the rocks shows the firehose at the bottom winding through it. 

Fruit & Veggies

We visited friends in the rv park we stayed at in Wellton two winters ago.   Most sites there have fruit trees.  We got some grapefruit from one of the trees and the fruit was excellent.  It was so sweet you can just peel it and eat it like an orange.   There are also orange, lemon and lime trees in the park so if you get to know your neighbors you can enjoy all the different kinds of fruit. 

The fields are doing well now that the freeze threat is over and its getting nice and warm again.  It is amazing how fast they can grow a crop of lettuce.  They plow up the field and plant it (using seed), water it and then take a hoe to all the plants at about a week and half to break up the soil a little bit and then harvest the lettuce on the 21st day of growing.  They aren't even done picking the whole field before they start plowing the picked part under to get it ready for the next crop.   Its a $5,000 fine if you pick anything but some farmers allow you to take the leftovers out of the field once they are done picking.  

Red Cloud Mine Shaft

Yeah! I figured out how to get pictures back on the blog.  The picture with the tower is where the mine shaft is of the Red Cloud Mine.  At ground level -- can't really see it in the picture-- there are gates covering the shaft.  The gates have open grids so the bats can still fly in and out of the mine.  The last time we tried to visit the caretaker here he was working down in the mine so we missed seeing him.  This time when we got to see him he was all cleaned up -- scraggly long beard cut off and hair neatly trimmed.  He had to look good because he had to go to court.  He had shot his gun off on some trespassers.  It turned out the trespassers were border patrolmen out of uniform.  He must not have had to go to jail if he's still out at the mine.  The property has been shot up by trespassers in the past so its no wonder he's touchy about someone trespassing. 

If you look closely at the hole in the side of the hill you will see the chimney stack sticking out of the top.  Its hard to believe that miners actually lived in these caves but there are quite a few dug into the sides of hills in the area. 

Its been cold here at night this last week with temps dipping just below freezing.  They are very nervous about the lettuce crop freezing.  Its quite devastating to the local economy when large acreages of crops are lost.  The flu has hit here but so far we have remained untouched. 

Red Cloud Mine

Can't seem to upload pictures at the moment.  Google changed something and hoepfully they will fix the problem soon.  If not I will have to start using Picasa Web Albums for pictures.  Not sure how to do that but I guess I can learn.

We have a new intern that will be working at the refuge for 10 months.  We took her up to Red Cloud Mine to meet the caretaker.  He has a very lonely job being out two hours from the nearest store, etc.  He showed us the new doors they put on the mine shaft.  The doors are bat friendly so bats can go in and out of the mine as they please.  The shaft is over 500 feet deep.  The mine started out as a silver mine and then when silver prices took a dive the caretakers over the years discovered wulfenite.  A very pretty orange crystal.  Not sure if its good for jewelry or is just pretty to look at and very rare. 

The current caretaker told us that the mine is now being leased by a mining operation out of Nevada.  They want to go after silver again but have been too busy mining for gold in Nevada to get started here. 

The miners back in the 1800's used to dig holes in the sides of hills and make a cave to live in complete with a hole in the "roof" for a stove pipe.  There isn't a lot of wood to build with and the caves were nice and cool in the heat.  If I get the chance I will post the pictures I had of the mine and the miners cave.