Sunday Round Up (Jan. 17-23)

Okay so I'm a day late with this one...

But it was kind of an interesting week around here.

* The weather finally broke, and we've seen plus side temperature a couple of days.

* The Goats are nuts for this weather, running, jumping and butting heads at being released from the barn (two weeks straight in there would probably make anyone nuts)

* Maxxie the Beagle has also spent the last two weeks cooped up in the house, we've been throwing her out the front door and she comes straight back after her business. Of course when it warmed up on Saturday I was leery about continuing the practice, but gave it a shot anyways. After 3 minutes when there was no scratch at the door I went to call her. She was on the range road down past the driveway. No amount of whistling or calling would bring her back. All of a sudden she took off like a shot right in the direction of the highway. By the time I got my boots on and ran all the way to the highway she was across it and in the Buffalo paddock across the road. CRAP! Someone was watching over both of us this time. She responded to my whistle finally, and thankfully there were no cars coming when she mad her mad dash back across the highway for me. Maggie had come out to see what all the commotion was about and actually herded Max back to the house. After getting knocked into the snow a few times by a dog 20 times the size of you running full steam to the safety of the house suddenly seems like the best idea "you've " had all day. So Miss Maxxie is back to going in her dog run during outside time. Beagles and their noses, shesh!

* Our land finally made us some money! Hopefully not the last. But we got a cheque this week for the seismic work that was done. It was good feeling to have some money back, since it seems like most of the time we just are shelling it out to live here.

* After a week of crazy kids I found its great therapy to take a 4 year old outside and chuck him into snow drifts. Watching him have to fight his way through snow is not only amusing but a great way to exhaust him! Yup, another mother of the year award for that one I''m sure.

* But the biggest news around here was the final demise of  Evil Cat. I hadn't seen her or even heard her in about 3 days. That's pretty normal around here, she seems to disappear as soon as the weather warms up, so I didn't give it much thought. But Chris borrowed my Van for a run to town, and before he hit the highway he realized he was out of windshield fluid. He popped the hood to add some, and made a bit of a gruesome discovery. Guess who had crawled onto the engine block to take a final nap?!?!
Hey after all the havoc that cat has caused around here, I'm not even going to pretend I'm sad. The only gross part about it is I'm not sure I haven't been driving around with a dead cat under my hood for three days. Ewwww.

* And my MIL is nearly done the first "goat coat" from the sweater pattern I sent her this week. Apparently she's knitting them in bright orange and bright green. No chance of losing a kid in the snow! I can't wait to see them.

Anyone surprised that Oil/Gas companies have no manners?

This is what greeted us at the end of the driveway bright and early January 1st. Apparently were ringing in the New Year with explosions. Not the fireworks kind either.

I haven't been impressed with these guys since the start. Less than a week after the water test, they showed up. Opened whatever gates they wanted to. Rode Quads across the field. And gave us absolutely no warning they were there. It was the dogs that alerted me actually.

This time again. We didn't even get the courtesy of a quick knock on the door.

"Hi, we're here"

Nope too much to ask.

We left for the afternoon, so I never figured out if I could actually hear the explosions or not.

But they better hope they don't want to drill on our land.

There will be some mighty big changes before they are allowed back here again.

Our Water

Our water test came out pretty good. The Well guy didn't do a potable drinking water test on site. but the quick analysis that he did do noted that it was clear, with no sediment, a slight chlorine smell (but noted we had shocked the well yesterday) and some gas bubbles.
Yeah gas bubbles.
The gas, that they are probably looking to drill is already in our water. Enough of it, that Well guy was actually able to light our water on fire.

Maybe not quite to the extent of this video, but I had to check it out and see what it actually looks like to light water on fire.


Nice huh?
 I wonder if our water will still be deemed potable/drinkable when the actual lab tests come back.
We already don't drink it because it tastes too salty, but the animals all do!

Well Water and Big Oil

This afternoon I'm waiting for the well guy.
We were approached by an oil and gas company in September. They want to do 3 test seismic blasts on the far end of our land. Part of the conditions are they will check our well water before and after the blasting tests.
The well guy is coming today to do the initial check, so I guess their going ahead with their test blasts soon.

It left us kind of scrabbling when Well guy called yesterday. Chris has been meaning to shock the well for months and hasn't gotten around to it. But he wasn't going to let them test our drinking water without trying to make it as clean as possible before hand. So about 8 liters of bleach went down the well last night. The cistern got a flush and a clean out. I spent a good part of the morning running water to flush the cistern a second time. Although I'm sure the water will still show a high concentration of bleach, I'm hoping it will at least test better than it would have.

I'm not totally thrilled about having the seismic tests done on our land. But it was very obvious that the company would simply test 10 feet from our fence on the neighbors land if we didn't agree. I thought it was better to allow them to do it here, so we have a paperwork trail if something goes wrong. Like they collapse our well or poison it. Not that I'm expecting them to do that with the initial blasts, but if they find enough gas under our marsh and probably the Ducks Unlimited area across the street, then they'll go ahead with a full drilling rig. Which is what I'm even more upset abut. There is a very high likely hood that they will directionally drill from an adjacent piece of land. Since the marsh area would be to unstable and most of our land surround the marsh is covered in trees. This means we will get absolutely N-O-T-H-I-N-G if they choose to drill. Nothing. because we only own surface rights. They can take whatever they want from underneath our land, create all sorts of problems and disturbances, and take it from whatever "direction" is most convenient for them.

It kind of goes without saying that I hope their seismic tests come out badly. I hope they don't find enough gas to make it worth their time. Because I'm not particularly looking forward to the extra traffic, the noise, probably blinding lights etc. from a drilling rig right across the field. Okay probably across the field and over a fence. It irritates me, since if they came and took the gas and screwed anything like the water supply up, or if the house shifted, or any sort of damage. We would end up in a court battle to get them to acknowledge it. A court battle we would be paying for out of pocket until/unless we won. So it make me pretty hot that they can just come in and take whatever they want, and not have to pay for anything but a minuscule amount for access and space on whomever's "surface" they choose to use. While they "rape" underneath anyone's and everyone's land they choose too. Without the landowners being able to have a say ,or pretty much do anything about it. Even if we had not signed off on these initial tests, they could have done the test from the neighboring land, gotten a good idea of what the whole area would yield and choose to drill right underneath us without ever really getting or needing our permission.

And Now,
Now I understand why so many people bitch and complain about big oil and gas companies.