Good evening NOT,

This evening I had the pleasure of carving two pumpkins with my daughter. We carved a pumpkin last year... but this year she is old enough to enjoy it.

The first pumpkin, I let her choose where the eyes, nose and mouth would be. I asked her what shape the left eye should be?... Triangle. What shape the right eye should be?... Triangle. What shape the nose should be?... Triangle... I took it upon myself to carve the mouth as I was certain what shape the mouth would be.

mrs. wallace came down to find us finishing up pumpkin 1... Mrs. Wallace and my daughter were quite impressed with the first one.

mrs. wallace said, "I think this is the best pumpkin you've ever carved, perhaps the best anyone has carved,"...(ok, she didn't say that but allow the author a little freedom.) She was impressed and followed with, you may as well not do the second pumpkin as it will likely be a let down."

I told her I had something special planned for the second one.

As my daughter and wife played, I started to carve.... little by little I etched my place. What I was carving was all from memory... yet I'd seen the shape hundreds of times. Soon I turned the pumpkin to mrs. wallace and my daughter....

Of course, my daughter loved it.... there wasn't much to it, a few very small holes in the side of a pumpkin. A hint, if you put a candle in any pumpkin a kid will love it... it never fails... atleast with children. As for mrs. wallace, she was not impressed. She wondered where I was going with this.

"what is that?" she said.

I said proudly "this is Mcfaulds Lake." ... what a beauty I thought.

"Really. No wonder our stock is doing so poorly... look how small these deposits are." (mrs wallace can be frank.)

I said, "hold on," and had my daughter come closer. With my knife and spoon as a pointer I showed mrs wallace and my daughter "This is Eagle 1, Blackbird 1 and Blackbird 2, and Eagle 2 as well as AT12..." Finally I showed them our Chromite River and proudly exclaimed, "this river will make us all rich."

mrs. wallace was not impressed... she said, "atleast you could have carved the thing so everyone could make out what you are explaining. All you have is very small shapes for each deposit and the rest of the pumpkin is bare. What are you going to do with the rest of the pumpkin? "

that was easy... the rest of the pumpkin is our land base... we have so much land left to drill.

"I'm an explorer," I said without blinking. (and to quote Neil Novak). "I, my company, is going to pound drills into this pumpkin. Jimmy Mungall is going to find the targets, and we are going to find the rest of the deposits. By next halloween, this pumkin won't be swiss chees, but it will be filled with new deposits."

To the new board, good luck and carve our pumpkin, she's the best in the patch.

happy halloween

regards

cwallace