It has been nearly three weeks since my last post - I can not get over how quickly the year is going. I intended to post at least once a week when I started this blog site and will endeavour to get back to that from now on. The last couple of weeks has been a bit hectic because the boss had an accident at work in town and a nasty one at that. One of the places she works at has a storeroom on top of the shop and Lyn was going up to get a box when she missed the top step and handrail and took the express elevator to the cement floor three metres below landing on her side and getting a nasty bump on the head as well. Ambulance was called and he then called the fire brigade to help get her onto a back slab and to hospital for x-rays. Cunnamulla only has one doctor and being a Saturday morning he just happened to be having a coffee at the coffee shop just down the street and arrived to supervise the whole show so Lyn was very lucky there. X-rays showed no breaks thank goodness but she had three days in hospital and was in a lot of pain. Of course I was out at the mine when the fall happened and got the message when I came in for lunch so it was pack up and off to town to visit one very sore, distraught and doped up wife.

We have our resident " miracle man " here, a real bushie who studied acupressure techniques many moons ago and knows more about healing the human body naturally than anyone I have ever talked too. Lyn and I have been visiting him regularly over the years so as soon as she was out of hospital it was out to visit him. Lyn had a job to walk when she got out of the car but half an hour or so later she walked back out much straighter and stronger. Ian soon realised that a rib was out and the cartilage torn on the spine causing the grabbing pain and, using the acupressure put the rib back into place relieving a lot of pain almost immediately - it was amazing to see and a great relief for Lyn. The last ten days has seen her getting slowly better with me being chief cook and bottle washer and plenty of sympathy and tlc thrown in!! She finally got sick of me though and after another trip out to Ian she has now gone back to work and sent me back to the mine to find some opal. Torn rib cartilage takes some time to heal completely so she will be going a bit slower for a while but the old saying " you can't keep a good woman down " certainly applies here because the boss is back.

On the mining front I have gotten busy moving more dirt and have reached a very good level of stone as the photos above show. The level looks like a solid sheet of stone but is actually ironstone nuts packed tightly together - it comes out in a block but once hit with a hammer the nuts separate quite easily. This level so far has been a dry one with only the odd trace of colour right in the corner where the level is cut off by a fault line - you can see in the photos the level being split right in the corner. Another major fault cuts across the end of the level as well and this can be seen by the difference in the ground either side - the ground above the level is more tightly packed with clay looking much different to the blocky sandstone to the right of where the level ends. This side of the fault line is the better opal bearing ground and where I have found most of my opal so far but I can't help following that level just to keep an eye on it. Another major fault line running parallel with the way I am working could change things in a heartbeat - for the better I hope.

I said on my last post I would show some of my cut stones and the process of getting them to the finished product - with looking after Lyn the cutting got put on the back burner but with the first of the opal festivals coming up this month I have to get moving on it. I have a number of stones half done so will hope to show some over the next few weeks. The Yowah opal festival is on this month and plenty of buyers turn up there so I will be working on getting as many stones as possible cut and ready for sale.

The vege garden is going well as the photo shows and won't be long before we are eating home grown goodies.The other photos show the level discussed above and the side of the hole I am taking out at the present time.