shake rattle and ......

The gate exploded with business today. The rush started around dawn and didn't stop all day. We had a shift change at the rig so we also had guys rushing out to start their time off.

There are several companies represented here and more arriving since the drilling is starting. One guy came in and warned us that he had just killed a fairly large rattle snake at the site he had just left. For proof he opened his tool box and pulled this out

Rudee wasn't too happy with this news and even more unhappy when we got a report that another one had been killed on our site! There are several mobile home type bunkhouses that the crew lives in during their week long shifts. The snake was found between two of the mobile homes.

The "safety man" here divides his time between this rig and another one nearby. He was gone most of the day and when he returned this evening he said they had also killed a 5' rattler at their site today. Guess we better be a little more careful moving around outside!

Looks like I will probably have a busy night tonight. I am hoping the "rush" is just from shift change and the fact they are starting drilling and things will not be as hectic as they were today.

The weatherman says we are in for some cool weather for the middle of the week. Highs are only going to be in the 60's and Wednesday night the lows are predicted to be in the high 30's. Maybe the cold will keep the snakes at bay! I'll keep you posted.

Fall back

The gate was actually pretty quiet last night and I slept for several hours straight. I did remember to move our clocks back an hour to adjust for daylight saving time, guess I got an extra hour of sleep, according to our clocks anyway :-).

I have been wanting to see some wild life out here in the boonies. There is a hunting ranch next door to us and I am always on the look out for deer and wild hogs.

This morning I stepped out of the 5th wheel just after dawn. Looking around some movement from the ranch next door caught my eye. I could make out a large tan colored shape and knew it was a pretty large deer. I went back inside and grabbed the camera telling Rudee to come out and see the big deer.

Back outside the trophy Buck had run off and in its place was a large brown cow grazing on grass :-) Whoops, guess I had "buck fever" there for a second :-) if you don't know what buck fever is, ask a hunter and they will tell you all kinds of stories, of course none of it ever happened to them :-)

I had to tell Rudee " never mind" and we both got a good chuckle at my screw up. I passed on another cow photo.

I did take a photo of our "utilities" here at the gate.

The back trailer holds our fresh water (round black tank) diesel generator and fuel. The water is pumped from the tank using an RV water pump connected to the 12v battery for the generator.

The other trailer holds our waste tanks. I leave our grey tanks open and only dump the black tank when it is full. The waste first goes into the small tank in the foreground that contains a sump pump which pumps it into the larger tank on the trailer. The company should be out sometime next week to refill the water and fuel tank and we will be good for another 2 weeks.

The gate was slower than normal today. When a vehicle comes through our gate we log in the drivers name, company name, reason for their visit, license number, date and time. The log sheets provided for us have 24 entries per page and we have been filling 3 pages most days. Today we only filled 1 1/2 pages and had a bit of down time between vehicles.

We have been here a full week now and are enjoying ourselves. The people are great to be around and are some of the most polite people I have ever encountered. Lots of "sirs" and "mams" spoken here :-).

The latest update on the rig is that they should start drilling late tomorrow or most likely Tuesday morning. I'm not sure how deep the oil is or how long it will take to get to it but they are welcome to take their time, I'm kinda liking this gig. I'll keep you posted.

Up, up and we're away!

We are settling into a routine here at the gate and are learning a lot of the "regulars" names and which white pick up truck they drive. Texas has lots and lots of white pick up trucks. I have never seen so many!

Now I'm a car guy but more specifically a "truck" guy and I'm having trouble telling the difference between the Dodge/Chevy/Fords that run through our gate. You have to picture the trucks. They are all white, have at least one tool box and have a big brush guard attached to the bumper so they all look the same.

Gets a little confusing at times but such are the challenges of a professional gate guard :-).

The company man, Tim, came to the gate early this morning and told us to close it down. "No one in or out, period"! He told us they were raising the rig to it's vertical position and for safety reasons have to limit the movements at the site.

I closed the gate and sure enough several vehicles arrived in just a few short minutes. They were not too happy to have to sit outside and one guy was downright p.o.'d saying it was "b%llsh#t" and he was calling the company man! He turned around and drove off! Funny thing was about 5 minutes later we were told it was safe to open the gate again :-). He got all worked up for not wanting to wait 5 minutes! Oh well, not gonna ruin our day by acting like a jerk :-)

The rig is now vertical and dominates our view in front of the 5er.

up we go:

a little higher:

we have a rig!

The business at our gate has been pretty steady with around 60 entries per day. Of course most of those 60 come back out. That's a lot of dings per day!

I'm not sure what to expect when they start drilling. Guess we are about to find out though, I'll keep you posted.