Blue Mustang Info

The Blue Mustang claim is located in southeast Oregon about two miles west of Three Fingers Butte and the closest town is Homedale, Idaho. The claim can be approached from Homedale on Route 19 to Succor Creek Road and McIntyre Springs Road. It is bordered to the south by the Rocky Butte claim, which produces Rocky Butte Picture Jasper, and is also close to the Owyhee claim. Blue Mustang Picture Jasper is classically described as having "blue skies" and "tan hills." This jasper forms when cracks in volcanic rock is filled with blue jasper. Movement and brittleness in the earth causes cracking, and the jasper itself cracks and fractures, allowing space for other minerals to coat such cracks and soak into the jasper, creating staining.

The mining operation conducted by The Gem Shop was in May and June of 2022 and involved president Veronica Woods, founder Eugene Mueller, employee Kevin Perleberg, and associates Tim Robins, Gary McFarlane, Dale Huett, and Darrel "Jake" Jacobitz. It took approximately 7 hours to "walk" the 320 CAT excavator and its quick-change hydraulic hammer to the mine, with another driver following with the truck and camper. The group arrived just in time to set up and cook some supper. The next day was the first attempt at unearthing some jasper. First, the material is found with equipment and then usually extracted from the host rock by hand. Mueller dug out a large section but found nothing; quite a discouraging start. They switched to the hydraulic hammer attachment and were able to expose a 15 foot vein of jasper.

Of the jasper mined, a selection is made and the jasper judged to have further potential was taken up to camp. The pile at camp then gets scrutinized and cleaned piece by piece. After hammering and removing excess host rock from the jasper with handheld picks, acceptable pieces are relocated into a "keeper" pile to ship back to the shop in Wisconsin. The vein in the lower area produced rock that varied between unacceptable and wonderful. By the third day, about a ton of jasper was brought up to the camp. The next few days were spent widening the trench and hammering rock out of the wall.

With various areas of the pit being worked on, the miners could start on reclaiming some mining areas while others worked on cleaning rock from other work areas. They began to take in some loads of rock in a truck to be palletized to ship back to Wisconsin, however the truck got a flat tire on the way back. This was the beginning of several different complications the miners met during this operation.

A little over a week into the expedition, a storm hit from the west, and there was terrible wind and rain all night. Despite this, some good fortune met the miners when they unearthed a new and promising vein the next day. It was a large jasper deposit on the east side of the upper pit, and they made a ramp down to work on the north side of the upper pit so that they could have room to relocate the excess muck. The group had to quit at around noon due to the rain, but the "keeper pile" sure looked great after getting damp!

The next day was also cold and rainy. After the flat tire on the truck had been fixed, the miners discovered another flat and had to install the spare in the rain. The road and ground dried up quickly the next day, and Perleberg went into town while the rest continued to work in the lower pit to bring out some rock. Perleberg came back with fuel, water, a fresh tire, and pizza to boot.

By June 1st, the mining pit was 37 feet below the original surface. There was much jasper in the upper area of the pit, but only approximately 20% of the material unearthed was worthy of keeping. Another 20% was acceptable but hardly worth the effort taken to extract it. The miners had about 4 tons ready to send to Cedarburg at this point, and they began to reclaim the lower section of the pit. Yet another storm was predicted, right when Woods was scheduled to come help the operation on June 4th. Perleberg had to leave early in the morning to avoid the threatening weather and pick her up on time. The jasper in the upper pit started to improve and the group was able to increase their production, now that they had an extra set of capable hands, even considering the time spent reclaiming other sections and enduring another terrible storm, which entailed strong wind, rain, hail, and constant lightning.

Another load was able to be brought into town while Woods and Mueller worked on getting deeper into the first pit where the rock was increasing in quality. Originally, the upper deposit had only produced about 10% good rock, but as they followed it down, it continued to improve. They had a very productive day on June 8th, producing a multitude of rock and bringing multiple loads up with the bucket attachment, having switched between the hammer and bucket several times in one day. Everyone was tired, but they had yet another ton loaded into the truck to be delivered the next day. Unfortunately, that next day the group hit another snag. They were getting some nice blue pieces of jasper, but when they took the machine up the steep slope to go around to the west side, the track came off the excavator. The miners spent most of the day taking pictures of a broken pin in the track and contacting Caterpillar to try and make arrangements to have it fixed. Dale Huett was working close by on his Rocky Butte and Owyhee claims, and he graciously came over to help get the machine at least up on level ground.

All of the previously laid plans had to shift due to the lack of a functioning machine, so the group focused on cleaning and grading the rock at camp to get it into town to be shipped. They even worked by hand in the pit. With all the work on prepping rock for shipping, they soon had approximately 8 tons ready. Mr. Huett also offered to help the them with some of the reclamation, as he had a larger machine and there was an immense amount of reclamation to be done. Most of the work done on the Blue Mustang claim occurred before 1976, which was before reclamation was required by the BLM. Mueller agreed in his mining notice to the BLM to reclaim all of the disturbance to the claim, which turned out to be a much bigger job than first anticipated.

Five days after the excavator track broke, the group was able to call in some roadside help to begin repairs on the machine. With the excavator fixed the next day, the miners vigorously hammered at the deposit and continue reclaiming sections that had already been cleaned out. They got to spend one more day afterwards mining the west section, digging urgently before closing it up entirely.

Their last day mining was spent on another deposit on the east side of the claim, before loading up the truck once more. They had a terrible windstorm in the evening that buffeted the tents enough to require extra stakes and ropes to secure them down. The next day consisted entirely of reclamation from morning into the evening, and the end result was satisfactory. A considerable effort and expense was made to reclaim all of the past disturbance. With all of their hard work reseeding the entire area, the group left it muck nicer than when they had arrived. They pulled up a 1000-pound boulder and left it near the claim post, thus creating a Blue Mustang welcome rock.

 

On their way to drive the machine to its drop-off point, another pin broke to Mueller's surprise and he nearly drove completely off the track before he noticed. Everything was on hold until the next day, and the machine sat blocking the road about 5 miles away from base camp. In the meantime, they took another load of rock into town. They filled a total of 14 different pallets with rock before they were sent home to Cedarburg: approximately 26,000 pounds of rock. Mueller called Caterpillar again and arranged for them to come out on the day that the group had originally intended to leave. They filled enough containers with fuel to send with the excavator, then gave the rest to Mr. Huett.

On schedule, the Wisconsin crew waved goodbye to Dale Huett and headed towards the machine to meet the repair workers. They took much care and genteel while driving the machine back to the pickup point: the juncture of Succor Creek Road and McIntyre Springs Road. This was over 5 hours of driving the newly fixed machine over bumpy and rocky roads.

All of the rock sent home from this operation was handled several times by several different people, ensuring each piece had at least two colors and interesting pattern, signs of the desired quality Woods had in mind when planning this operation. Considering the amount of rain and repairs, the miners are very proud of the work they were able to accomplish and bring back to the market.

A special thanks is due to Kevin Perleberg, Tim Robins, and Gary McFarlane for their help, along with mining friends Dale Huett and Jake Jacobitz for their aid and hospitality.