I hadn’t played Minecraft for a few weeks, what with GDC and family members being sick and wanting to finish off the Pro Keys songs, but I found some time to play some yesterday. I’m still not quite sure what I want to do next: do I want to embark on another construction project, and, if so, what? So I fell back to my current default activity, namely mining. Which I find strangely soothing…
![two diamond blocks](http://scenes.malvasiabianca.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/two-diamond-blocks-435x243.png)
Two diamond blocks
![diamond and iron](http://scenes.malvasiabianca.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/diamond-and-iron-435x244.png)
Diamond and iron
![gold on back wall](http://scenes.malvasiabianca.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/gold-on-back-wall-435x243.png)
Looking back and noticing gold
![loot from one good lode](http://scenes.malvasiabianca.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/loot-from-one-good-lode-435x243.png)
This loot was almost all from a single lode
I’ll spare you too many pictures of yet another ore block. Though I did find one lode that was pretty amazing: diamond, iron, gold, and redstone all right there in one place.
![another encounter with waterfall](http://scenes.malvasiabianca.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/another-encounter-with-waterfall-435x240.png)
Another encounter with the waterfall from last time
![water water everywhere](http://scenes.malvasiabianca.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/water-water-everywhere-435x241.png)
Water, water everywhere
![trying to dig around water](http://scenes.malvasiabianca.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/trying-to-dig-around-water-435x244.png)
Trying (and failing) to dig around the water
![accidentally flooded an old corridor](http://scenes.malvasiabianca.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/accidentally-flooded-an-old-corridor-435x243.png)
I accidentally flooded an old corridor in the process
I’m trying to maintain my regular pattern of mine corridors; and I wasn’t quite far enough over to be safe from the water I encountered last time. I ended up mostly just going back into an old corridor to bypass it before continuing to dig.
![looking up into hole left by gravel](http://scenes.malvasiabianca.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/looking-up-into-hole-left-by-gravel-435x243.png)
Looking up into hole left by gravel
Periodically, you run into gravel that falls down as you dig it out, which means that you end up having a much higher ceiling in that part of the corridor than elsewhere. Which looks rather nice, actually.
![second mine corridor](http://scenes.malvasiabianca.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/second-mine-corridor-435x244.png)
My second mine corridor
At some point, I got bothered by the fact that I didn’t have a standard length to dig my branch corridors off of. So I decided to just pick a distance and dig them all that far, marking that distance by a corridor that was parallel to my original corridor. The funny thing was that, when I did that, I found that several of my recent branches were within two or three squares of hitting that new corridor exactly! So clearly my brain had developed a notion of how far a mining corridor should be…
![corridor across the lava](http://scenes.malvasiabianca.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/corridor-across-the-lava-435x243.png)
View of branch corridor across the lava
This is a view of one of my branch corridors from across the lava pool that my main mine corridor ran into. For whatever reason, mining sets me up with a mindset of “we must make the landscape conform”: I don’t try to actually remove lava and water that I encounter, but I do try to maintain as regular a pattern of corridors as possible given the presence of those liquids.
![loot from first mining session](http://scenes.malvasiabianca.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/loot-from-first-mining-session-435x243.png)
Loot from that mining session
Here’s my loot from that mining session. A good amount of diamond, but not too exciting otherwise; and, as always, I wish I had more iron.
![my bed](http://scenes.malvasiabianca.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/my-bed-435x245.png)
My bed
Once I felt like I’d mined enough, I went up and started things smelting while I harvested wood and reeds. And I built my first bed! I’ve only used it once, though: while it would come in handy when doing outside work, I still feel like following the rhythms of my world for now.
After that, I needed a break from mining (whether of ore or wood). I remembered that, when poking in the sand near my spawn point, I’d uncovered what seemed like it might be a cave. So I went over to give it more of a look.
![is there a cave under the sand](http://scenes.malvasiabianca.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/is-there-a-cave-under-the-sand-435x244.png)
Is there a cave under the sand?
![looking into cave](http://scenes.malvasiabianca.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/looking-into-cave-435x244.png)
Looking into the cave
![inside cave](http://scenes.malvasiabianca.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/inside-cave-435x243.png)
Inside the cave
![view after removing gravel](http://scenes.malvasiabianca.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/view-after-removing-gravel-435x245.png)
The outside view after removing all the gravel
There was a bunch of gravel under the sand; once I dug that away, there was indeed a cave. Which was reasonably tall, but didn’t go very far, so it wasn’t as exciting as I’d hoped for. Still, it was something, and I think I even got a bit of iron out of it.
After that, I returned to my house. I went to organize my goods in my chests, and realized that they were starting to overflow with junk. So I wanted to find a way to dispose of those extra blocks. And the easiest way to do that was in the lava pool in my mine: so I went down again!
![trash disposal area](http://scenes.malvasiabianca.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/trash-disposal-area-435x243.png)
My incinerator
Which sounds kind of silly, except I really like the journey from my house to my mine: it’s a nice familiar path, and it’s surprisingly fast. So I took a bunch of blocks down there and threw them away; while I was at it, I also built a third corridor parallel to my main mining corridor, this time on the right side of the main corridor. So now I have standard distances to travel on both sides when I’m mining.
![chicken in house](http://scenes.malvasiabianca.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/chicken-in-house-435x241.png)
How did that chicken get in here?
When I came up, I was surprised to find that I had a guest. I still have no idea how it got there: I checked, and all the doors were closed. Though the route from the ravine into my house isn’t guarded by a door: did it manage to make it through that? Did I leave a door open briefly earlier without realizing it? Did it glitch into the house? Did it spawn in there? Beats me; for now, though, I’m happy enough to have a chicken living with me, so I’ve left it there.
![current loot stash](http://scenes.malvasiabianca.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/current-loot-stash-435x243.png)
My current loot stash
Here’s my current loot stash. 257 iron ingots, which would be enough for 672 minecart tracks. And I now have enough diamond for a full set of armor, if I wanted to be ultra-fashionable, with one left over for a record player to boot! (I doubt I’ll do the armor, but I will do the record player.) I should make some bookshelves, too.
I’m not sure what I’ll do next. Maybe explore above ground, to see if I can find a place for a house that isn’t dug out of a hill?