Australians have told me that emus, being very curious, will pick up and swallow anything shiny or unusual. They say aborigines will kick and pick apart any emu poop they see to check them out for nuggets.

Well, the last time I headed out, I decided to go alone. Big mistake. Since I first started my prospecting adventures, I have had both knees and one hip replaced…

Because waiting for spring seemed to be taking forever, my 15-year-old granddaughter Grace and I decided to pan for gold sooner. The thought was…even if we did not find any gold, we would set a new record for absurdity—gold panning in the coldest weather!

My next strategy was to walk anywhere and everywhere that I had been inside this home and garage. I looked on the floor, in the bathroom, I checked the bathroom trash can, and I even pulled the shower curtain back and looked in the bathtub.

What are they? They are too hard to be lead, and are not tarnished like silver should be.

It all occurred when Gus and I returned to a remote placer gold area where we had previously found really good gold. The problem was that it would take about an hour to walk through the desert to get to it.

I saw a big brown hind end of what at first I thought was an elk, about 75 yards away. I was standing behind a large tree and stopped and peeked around the tree to see what it was.