Working 12 hour shifts (actually, we get paid for 12.66 now with our new, even more faraway pit, though we are away from home for more like 15 hours) doesn't give me much time to update. And when I do I am usually so tired from the 12.66 hours that I don't make much sense. And the coal mining life, as fascinating as it is, doesn't always make much sense to the non-miner. But maybe I will tell the odd story here and there to teach you guys the language.
Today I got to be a refugee, off on my own a bit. Sometimes I like to pretend I am actually a prisoner on a penal colony- an airless asteroid or moon somewhere. Where all our machinery are really big robots except for me. The minesite could certainly pass for an alien world- the stark black-and-white landscape, especially at night, really helps the illusion. But today I saw a decidedly terrestrian sight- a group of bighorns stampeding away from either a very large coyote or perhaps a wolf. The canine wasn't exactly chasing them, per se, being too smart for such a waste of energy, but was more testing the waters to see if there were any stragglers, as any good predator would. Luckily for the sheep, there weren't any today.