I just realized that you can drop ore from your mining cart. Not only that, but as soon as you do, your wolf automatically begins to mine more ore!
Although my mining level still isn't very high (I'm only at level 21), copper and iron ore have pretty much become useless to me - and copper/iron apparel things still don't seem to be selling for much.
It might take a while, but it seems like I can continue to drop ore until I have a cart full of silver ore and moonstone shards and then smelt everything then.
Is this worth the extra effort, though? Or is there actually some use to the iron and copper ore that I'm dropping that I'm not immediately aware of?
I'd love to hear your thoughts!