Monkeys and keyboards aside, one Random + CSS still doesn't make poop.

My first attempt at a fully constructed coin bra is almost done. I'm pretty proud of it. I'm also trying to crack down on the dreadfalls for Tekko. I'm not sure I'll have as much stuff to bring along as I'd hoped, but something's better than nothing.

~~

My meanderings a few days ago took me on a drive this time, following the general direction of the train tracks in an attempt to figure out what other nearby mining locations I've missed. I now have four places to try to research/get into. I also have pics of what happens when a flooded mine spills into the local waterway.





There is absolutely nothing left alive in this creek.

The coal company that owns the remains of the old mine nearest to me put up big yellow Keep Out signs all along the railroad tracks closest to the colliery. The people who ride their bikes and ATVs there still don't seem to care. This wouldn't be so big a deal, too--except for how I saw these exact same big bright yellow signs on the side of the turnpike a few days ago. Instead of effectively telling me to keep out, the company's just told me where to look for more neat things.

Is this new neat spot within walking distance? No. Does it have big visible-from-space shale piles like the one nearest me? No. Sadness. But examining google's maps & satellite pics of my immediate area showed a strange sort of change to the nearby creek, maybe a mile or so down the tracks from me. The creek around here meanders. When it suddenly goes in a straight line, something's up. And the area surrounded by this oddity didn't have big gray visible shale piles . . . but it did have some weird treeless spots and a complete lack of houses, roads, etc.

It might be a mine; it might not be a mine. There was only one (fun) way to find out. You know me: I grabbed the dog, the camera, and my cell phone, and started walking.

( A few big pics, some prattling. )

More specific research tells me this little guy ran for around thirty years in the 1800s, topping out at about twenty thousand tons of coal a year but ceasing function as a mine right after the Civil War. It also tells me that the "little" mine down the road from me, started about a decade before this one's closure, likely mined the rest of its coal.

Seems my "little" mine isn't nearly as little or one-directional as I'd thought. D: That's a hell of a lot of undercut and definitely goes under fun things like homes, playing fields, the creek, and possibly the railroad.

The company that put up the yellow signs supposedly has a center nearby. I shall be in their base, pokin' them have to go visit sometime for more information.

I took Kabuki and the lovely new camera zen_of_nihilism bought for me and went on a walk in the woods. I intended to get more pics of the grates/vents that are all over the area, but ended up getting distracted. See, I took a wrong turn, meandered down a grassy path instead of the shale ones the ATVs tear up, and think I found the main part of the old colliery's remains.

( Just a few! )

So the shale/slag/culm piles I've been taking pictures of are from a mine that ran from 1872-1953--which is right about the time my house was built.

So the mine's still right there. I've walked past it and around it and over it a number of times. I might even be living on top of it.

Suddenly my crooked floor and sad, still-cracking cement porch make a little more sense.


And the tons of cement things with manhole covers on top, that are all over the place on the other side of the tracks? I thought they were for the sewers. They're for methane, to keep the mine underneath from blowing up.


I started link-hopping and found citations of how this mine's helping nuke the local water supply (with acidic mine runoff) and then found a citation from the early 1900s about how mines legally need to have two entryways. wingedrivers and I may have found this other entryway last week while we were lost wandering. (Look familiar, wingedrivers?)


I have a day off tomorrow. I'm supposed to finish writing out my summary of the current book project for my crit group for tomorrow afternoon . . . But expect a massive picpost anyway. :D



I hope my house doesn't fall in. D:

I snagged wingedrivers today and we went on a rock hunt. For some reason the rocks were heavy, so we ended up wandering around the area taking pictures and being eaten alive by mosquitos.

( Not many, but large. )

Whoops! I forgot the entire reason we took cameras out there--the moon field!

I'd somehow spent a few years wandering the trails of this area without running into this thing . . . but a couple weeks ago I was walking a mutt, turned the corner, and ran into something that looked like the surface of another planet.

( MOAR PICS! )