And a bright, lovely Sunday morning to you, Option luv: coffee, tea and fresh, hot sweet rolls?

Since this is becoming just about the deadest room in Agorocom, I will post a little story on the life of prospecting or lost mine hunting in ole Mexico, maybe it might spark a bit of interest

As you know in most regions, including where Jim is working his tail off for the company, there are no roads, just an occasional airstrip. When a promising prospect is developed a road (?) will be made to bring in testing equipment. Then as it progresses successfully, a real dirt road is scrapped out.

In any event in the primary phase either a helicopter, or that old luv of mine, a mule, is used for transportation. This is the story of the start of one of those trips to check on a lost Jesuit mine, always solo - it was successful, but is still just as I found it. World conditions are just not right yet, who knows when?

Maybe the next generation of miners will refind it from my notes and open it up.

In any event here is an example of the problems an initial seeker will find, despite ourbeing in the 21 st century.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

good morning: your remark on saddle horns triggered a curious memory. On one occasion I had to rent a mule at Chinapas, Chih. He was a big white one and was accustomed to being rented to different grades of riders, some competent, others --sigh..

I had no spurs, but being spoiled by my Pinta, thought that I didn't need any - big mistake no. one. Well I managed to get an early start and could plainly see that he wasn't too happy about the idea. Everything went normal for about 3 hrs, we had climbed steadily up out of the flatlands of Chinapas and had finally reached the crest where I stopped to allow him to rest for a bit.

The view was beautiful, I could look out over hundreds of sq miles with a few scattered Indian ranches, but with no other signs of man. A small mesquite tree cast a long shadow, which felt nicely cool. I decided to eat some of my tortillas with beans and chilis while we (he) rested. I offered some to him, minus the chilis of course, He seemed to enjoy them. I thought "this is going to be a nice, relaxed, companionable trip together. I noticed that he kept eyeing the small Mesquite tree , which was curious, but I thought no further of it.

I then saddled him up, got seated, and indicated "let's get moving thata way". He simply stood there with his ears back and his eyes rolled back watching me as well as he could.. hmm. I then gently nudged him with my heels to go, he simply backed up a few steps. I repeated the nudging and he repeated his backing up a few steps?

This went on a few times, always backing up towards the Mesquite tree. I finally, out of patience, gave him a good nudging with my heels and he once more backed up, I suddenly found myself bent over the saddle horn. The mesquite tree had a low hanging branch, and he had deliberately backed into it, which upon striking my back had forced me over the saddle horn..

I was actually trapped, since the saddle horn was pushing into my tummy enough so that I couldn't simply slide out. hmmmm The cottin picking mule had deliberately planned this. To be sure, I 'gently' nudged him again, he moved even further back, I could hardly breathe. Now what?

He rolled his eye back at me to see what I would do now. We simply gazed at each other for a few minutes, then I suddenly had an idea. This was the pass out his home, if he went beyond this point, it mean that he wasn't going to be home for a while. To test this idea, I changed the rein pressure to home direction, he relaxed the pressure quite a bit letting me breathe more easily, so I decided that this was the key.

I decided to "go for broke", and turning him towards home I gave him a big kick. He shot out from under the mesquite branch headed for home. However, his mistake was that he wasn't accustomed to OIRISH riders, so as he happily stormed home I put him into circles, and after several, I headed him in MY direction, he hesitated a bit, sorta shrugged his shoulder and away we went - in my direction..

I never had any further trouble from him, especially when I constructed simple wishbone spurs out two tree forks directly in front of him, which he watched very interestedly. It was obvious that he knew precisely what I was doing.

I often have wondered if I shouldn't have used the same technique in my marriage ?? Hmm, then again, did she-----?

sigh

Don Jose de La Mancha