notice given

The night shift Sunday night turned out to be the busy shift. Seems like they are starting several new drilling operations within a 20 mile radius of us and we seem to be a magnet for people needing directions to the new sites :-(. I'm not sure why we get so many "lost souls" but we seem to get more than our share. I guess since you can see our rig from the highway and our entrance is nice and wide maybe that entices them to stop. The bad thing is we have no idea where most of these places are they are asking about. These oil rigs tend to pop up like mushrooms overnight and being tied to our little patch of real estate we have no idea what is going on around us most of the time.

Needless to say I was pretty pooped by the time daylight rolled around Monday morning and I crawled in bed pretty quickly. The rain did wake me up one time ..... rain! Oh no! Well nothing I can do about it so I rolled over and went back to sleep :-).

The rain lasted most of the morning and there was a thick layer of clouds the rest of the day. Since the traffic had slowed back down we didn't have to venture away from our patio so the mud wasn't an issue and it should dry up fairly quickly.

I called our boss Roger this morning and broke the news to him that we needed some relief. He was fine with it and wanted to make sure we were still interested in this type of work. I told him yes as long as they still wanted us. He said absolutely and to give him a call when we were back in the area!

The plan is to have our relief arrive next Monday morning. We will have everything ready to roll when they get here so we can move out of the spot and they can get parked and set up. We will give them all the info we can on the location and surrounding area and then we will head out. We are looking at landing in the Del Rio Texas area. We plan on visiting Seminole Canyon State Park, Lake Amistad and do a little motorcycle riding/sightseeing if the weather cooperates.

We got a call from fellow Hoosiers Jimmie and Becky Owens who are motorcycle buddies back home. I wrote a couple of weeks ago that he was diagnosed with cancer and came to Houston for treatment. The news he gave us wasn't what we had been praying for. The doctors are saying he has stage 4 cancer with up to 40 tumors in his lymph nodes. They also detected it in his bone marrow. They are mapping out a course of treatment but it looks like it will be a long spring and summer for them. Since we are so close we made loose plans to drop in on them for a short visit on our way through.

So now we start our last week here at the gate. We have enjoyed our time here and are looking forward to seeing some of what Texas has to offer in the next few weeks. I'll keep you posted.

bad TV day

We are down to only about 5 workers left adjusting the flow on the back well. The company man came out and told us all they are getting out of the well is water but that should change in the next day or two when the oil and natural gas starts to flow. The water they take out is being trucked away to a holding area several miles south of here.

Needless to say, aside from the water trucks coming in and out every few hours, the gate is pretty quiet.

Sunday we had another one of those boring type days. I piddled around outside just doing "busy" type work. I put a few things away that we don't expect to be using for awhile and started the generator and let it run for awhile to exercise it. The manufacturer recommends that it be ran for at least 30 minutes under 50% load every 30 days. After letting it run I topped off its fuel tank and added some more Stabil fuel stabilizer which will keep the fuel "fresh" until we need to use the generator again.

The Sunday after the NFL conference championship games has to be the worst TV day of the year. Any other time sports nuts can watch some kind of game, race or event. There was absolutely nothing on. The Nascar season doesn't kick off for a couple of weeks, no NFL games until next week when the Super Bowl will be played, baseball is still a few months down the road, heck I couldn't even find a golf tournament to watch. I'm not really a huge sports fan but I do like to watch a good football game and I'll pass an hour or two watching a Nascar or Indy car race and if I'm in need of a little nap I'll even turn on golf :-). Yesterday there wasn't even a decent John Wayne movie to be had! You know what that means, an all day marathon of Lifetime Network chick flicks! :-0

I called my grand son Nicholas yesterday and he told me all about his visit to Indianapolis. They spent the day Saturday doing the NFL experience in downtown Indianapolis. They had all kinds of activities for young and old alike. All of our kids and their spouses attended at some point during the weekend. They said the crowds were large but the atmosphere was like Mardi Gras and they all had a great time. Looks like Indy is going all out hosting their first Super Bowl. I know they have been preparing for this week for over a year now. Tickets to the big game can still be purchased as long as you have an extra $3,000.00 laying around. That's for one ticket in the upper decks! Yikes!

We expect a slow week here at the Hinkle Ranch and are looking forward to easing our way back into retirement mode! I'll keep you posted.

slow Saturday

Things are slowing down here in a big way. Unfortunately they haul out the flow back water 24 hours a day. They are using 2 semi tankers that make trip after trip so every 1 1/2 to 2 hours they are either coming in or going out. They do tend to travel together which makes it a little nicer but it still interrupts my nap time :-(.

Saturday has been a slow day. Hunter from Gate Guard services was out today to replenish our tanks. We always try and have a little treat for him to enjoy on his trip back to Corrizo Springs. Today he got some trail mix, a famous Amos cookie and a cold bottle of Mountain Dew.

The flow back trucks have kept up their routine and we only had a few other visitors passing through the gate today. We have only filled in 1 page of entries which makes today the slowest day we have had in a couple of weeks.

We have heard rumors that the fracking crew will return for their vehicles sometime Sunday morning so we should have quite a parade leaving the gate. I'll keep you posted.