www.cooperopals.com - check it out!

The old saying " how time flies when your having fun " has certainly applied to the Coopers at Koroit for the last four months since my last post to this blog. We have been coasting along as usual and the year has just flown so I will give a brief update of what has been happening since April.

On the family side the kids are all well - Mitchell and Zara have found themselves a better home to rent in a much quieter area in Toowoomba and seem to be enjoying their jobs and doing what young people do - we have to ring them to say hello so things must be poking along ok! They came out to the camp for a week's break last month - the first time they have visited since we started mining and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. It was great to have a couple of enthusiastic rock breakers around and we got through a fair bit of stone. Zara took to the mining like a duck to water and did a great job and the pair of them got stuck into a few other little jobs I had sitting around waiting to be finished. There was a time when I thought Mitchell and I would never be able to work together but it is amazing what a few years of having to make your own way makes, if I could afford to give them a reasonable income I would have them both here tomorrow - maybe one day!

Tammy,Trent and Bailey are also all well but a few changes are certainly coming their way - first thing being that Bailey is getting a new brother or sister around mid - October and we are going to be grandparents again which is great. We saw them this last week and Tammy is pretty big already - she is only tiny anyway so is all baby at the moment with a couple of months to go. She looks terrific and all is on track according to the latest tests. They have decided to have a home birth - can't say that I am in favour of this, but they know what they are doing and good luck to them. Lyn can't wait and of course will be there to help out for however long Tammy needs her.

The other change for them and a big one for us is that Trent has been given a transfer with his job in the Airforce. They leave for Canberra in January for three years and even though they are moving away from their families, I feel they are quite looking forward to the change. They have already been down and organised school for Bailey and found a defense home close to the school and central to where both of them have to work. I can see that Trent is looking forward to a change as he has been instructing new recruits during his time at Toowoomba and will now be back to actually doing what he has been trained to do. It has been so easy for Lyn and I to visit them in Toowoomba but I am sure we will get down there as much as we can and who knows, we might actually get to use the camp at Diamond Beach a bit more.

We have also had an addition to our family - we now have Milo - a Maltese poodle. Tammy has had him from a pup and up to a year or so ago has been the only dog in the family. Trent got himself another dog and Milo has not been a happy camper since and started to get quite aggressive. Lyn has always been a great favorite with him whenever we visit, so, with the new baby coming along, Tammy offered him to Lyn and so here he is - the new camp watchdog. He has settled in just great - just loves the freedom of having plenty of area to himself and is a great little watchdog - nobody moves within a kilometre of the camp without us knowing about it. I put a door in for him so he can come and go as he pleases. I have never been one for having dogs inside but he does not shed hair - I never new that poodles have wool rather than hair - the only thing now is, he is getting a permanent tinge of red about him no matter how many times Lyn washes him. He spends a bit of time on the excavator with me and it is a mini dust storm when he shakes himself after getting off. He is living out here with me most of the time and the look on his face when Lyn leaves every Monday morning is priceless - you would think the world was coming to an end.

On the mining front, I have continued working over on Gernot's lease next door, and will do so for another couple of months before coming back here. I have got into an area where we are getting some consistent pattern material - not great amounts but certainly some nice colour. It is very hard ground so the ripper has come into play in a big way - the Equaliser is what I call it - if I didn't have it there is no way I would be digging it with a 12 ton machine. I am doing it pretty easy though and reaping the rewards - I think a few of the other miners with big machines are pretty amazed at what a small machine can do and it is a lot easier when mining on your own, which is what I do the majority of the time. It is also more economical and much easier on me not having to climb up and down a big machine all day. I undertook some major maintenance on the Cat in June - took it to town and put new seal kits in all the hydraulic rams and fixed all the other little leaks on it. The machine was away for about a month but I was able to continue on with the old 18 tonner I have. It has no walking gear but is a great old digger and once in place it does a great job - it is a bit slow pulling itself around with the bucket but it is amazing what I can do with it. I was very glad to see the Cat arrive back though!

I have been doing plenty of cutting and the buyers have been coming through so we have been having a reasonable season so far - the buyers have been after the cheaper material due to the state of the world at the moment, but that is fine, as long as we keep turning a little bit over, all the miners are happy. One thing in our favour is that a lot of miners have stopped working due to fuel prices and harder times, so those of us still working are able to sell our rough quite easily due to a shortage in supply.

The other major thing for us is that I finally have the website up and running - it is still in it's infancy and I am still learning how to use it but I am so pleased to see it is now a reality. The major thing for me now is to get some material on it for sale and to keep producing the stones so that there is fresh material going on regularly. I am looking forward to the challenge of making it a success as it should become a valuable asset to the way we continue to run this as a business.The website is http://www.cooperopals.com/ - so have a look and any feedback, good or bad, is most welcome.

Photos are - the Cat in bits / Zara and Mitchell helping me break rock / Mitchell trying his hand on the Cat / Zara and I checking out the level / the hole showing the nut levels / a pile of boulders still to be broken / Milo starting to blend in with the red background / Milo on the Cat with me / he has his own chair / Lyn and Milo at the bore getting water for the camp