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Because of the mining equipment that we have and use, we try to "batch" to make the mining more efficient and also save some wear and tear on the equipment. The excavator is used to dig the raw material out of the ground where it is hauled with a gravel truck and dumped on the ore pad This hoe has metal tracks that wear quickly when walked across the many round rocks that are so common on so much of this property, so we try to move it only when necessary.
Once the we've found a good source of raw materials, we'll haul enough to keep the plant fed for several days or weeks before moving the hoe back to the ore pad.
One of the difficulties of placer mining is that it's hard to tell how much gold is in any piece of ground until the mining process is well underway and the cleanup is done. Most miners use a "testing process" where many smaller holes are dug, often by hand, to determine the richness of a piece of ground. Once a promising spot is found, production is ramped up and the materials are dug out for processing.
Scott also tries to de-rock the raw material as much as possible at the source. This has a couple of benefits - firstly, the rocks that are separated from the material at its source don't have to be transported, so the hauling process is more efficient. Secondly, only smaller material is dumped into the gold plant, saving it from the huge shock created when dropping boulders into the mud box.
The hoe is slowly feeding a bucket full of gold-bearing gravel into the mud box at the top of the plant. Water is blasted into the gravel creating a slurry of water and mud that will travel trhough the plant. The water and gravity's pull direct the smaller materials to fall into the plant while larger rocks and small boulders are ejected out after bouncing off of the "grizzly". The mud box was fabricated out of an old dump truck box by Scott, and has a reinforced steel floor to help protect it from the abuse created by loading it up with gravel.
Most of the mining is done during the day, but Scott has lights mounted all over the plant. When the Wizard is fully lit, mining can continue well into the evening when required.
In fact, evening is a nice time to mine. The darkness helps the miners focus by taking away some of the day's distractions - the lights only illuminate the pieces most important to the process. The air is much cooler so the equipment runs better and doesn't have to work quite so hard. Sometimes, if you're really luck, the bugs will also not be quite so vicious at night, although a good stiff breeze is really the answer to the bug problem in this part of the world.
It takes Scott a couple of minutes to gently dump the de-rocked material into the plant. The feed speed depends partially on how much water can be pumped to the plant.
