End of July—maybe the last week.

The old men have been pretty busy this spring just doing the “making a living” thing. Not much time for changing the world, but we had a chance yesterday to work at the CND and slowly continue the process of filling around the culvert to enable us to seal up the shaft. It still takes ½ hour to produce a cubic foot of fill. 

The FS is really touchy about anybody disturbing the surface of the ground in their old clear cut (of course, they get to use bulldozers and drag logs, and totally destroy the two inches of humus that took a thousand years to form), and all I get is a little shovel and a bucket. But for some reason my little pile of dirt that already has trees growing on it is a much bigger danger to their “resources” than cutting the trees ever was. I wonder what all those rocky barren patches of hillside looked like before the trees were hauled away 30 years ago? 

Anyway, I want to state here that I have held myself to a much stricter standard for treating the surface than the FS ever has, just as the management plan holds me to a much stricter standard for treating caves than the park service has ever managed to do. I feel a little put upon when either the NPS of the FS preaches to me about “resource management.” 

So...we continue to use the sinkhole deposits to fill in around the culvert. Fortunately we are almost done and in a short time will have the hole filled in and capped. But then again we are just three old men.

Now while working yesterday, Tony and myself were surprised by visitors. We never get visitors. It was an entourage of various levels of government clerks form the FS, even one from the NPS. This was the second time in 12 years we have been honored with such a visit. True, I would have felt a little more honored if they had told me they were coming, as was the case before.

--After all, this project is going on 10,000 hours of voluntary citizen work to help bring the process of cave exploration and discovery into the technology of the 21^st Century. This is happening on an international scale, and I am really trying to convince the powers that be in this county (the FS do own and control most of it) to throw the dogs a bone and allow this project to proceed. So I was awfully excited to have a representative (five of them, a district ranger included) on the site, and to be able to once again promote my dream. It was a hard sell, but I put my heart into it, and if nothing else, this old man got some sympathetic smiles and chuckles. Even a chance to recite a poem, "Outwitted", by Edwin Markham, Oregon’s first poet laureate.

“He drew a circle that shut me out;

A rebel, a heretic, a thing to flout;

But Love and I, we had the wit to win,

We drew a circle that took him in.”

I have sometimes wondered if that approach could ever work on bureaucrats. I hope it does; they seemed really human to me.

For instance, the last time--maybe six years ago-- (remember, I have always been open and honest with the FS and the NPS about the fact that I was working on the cave, and about what I am trying to accomplish) --the last time the FS paid me a visit, they told me that I had the right to be doing what I was doing. How I wish I had that in writing now. They said they recognized that right. How often do you hear that from a government official? And they weren’t even selling me a permit! I didn’t need one at the time. Still don’t know if I do. One says “yes” and one says “no,” but I am starting to get the idea that they are both saying “stop!” until they can figure out what to do with me and my shovel. Sometimes I think I know what they would like to do with me and my shovel. I also think that me starting to get that idea is making some of the local officials a little more comfortable. I have noticed over the years that it always pleases the government when the people voluntarily give up their rights. Saves them the trouble of taking them, I guess. Helps them to secure their jobs, when they assume the responsibilities of the people. 

Anyway, I find this total change in their attitude towards the project to be very human, and I am always happy to be able to relate to someone else as a unique human being. I also believe that some real communication took place. Might have had more to do with my listening and hearing them voice their ideas, but if any kind of communication is to take place, somebody has to listen.

Well, I was able to show Roy exactly what we were doing to close the hole up, but only at the top. Nobody wanted to climb down the ladder. He assured me we were both headed in the same direction, but I think we are still in disagreement over how far in that direction we are going and our final purposes in going in that direction. They had to pretend what they were being paid to pretend and then they left and I went back to work where absolutely zero pretensions are allowed. But then, the cave isn't human.

We were able to bring up a couple more cubic feet of sinkhole rubble for fill. The dig is at the neck of the hourglass, so to speak. The pinchpoint where it either opens up or closes. And although for the last five feet all rocks and walls came with voids, none of the voids showed any evidence of airflow—until just before we quit! A 1” hole bored with an iron bar down into the SE corner made the flame on the lighter waver and dance. Back to airflow at last after what?—three or four years and 25 feet down? I may even be able to crack that bottle of cheap champagne that’s been lying in the creek waiting for the day. 

There used to be two bottles, but one disappeared—washed away I think.

Stay tuned.