Nerve Wracking Alarms! -- Fri., June 22

Cotulla, Texas:

Our wells are in the flowback stage. Huge flames are shooting out of the pipe. When our site's night safety man came on duty, he told us he would watch out for us if anything happened. 

At about 1:00 a.m....alarms, more alarms. Tonight, the H2S alarm and red light keep going off on the pad by our 5er. I made Bob get dressed in street clothes in case we have to leave. It's so dark out there I can't see which way the wind socks are going. No light towers are turned on near us on the pad. A light tower way far back in one corner away from us is on and our light tower is on, but our light tower faces the gate, not the pad. I'm scared. Don't know if I'll get much sleep tonight! It's 2:15 a.m. and the alarm has been going off intermittently for over an hour.

Tonight, Bowie was disturbed by the alarms and took a ringside seat to see the action..notice flames in background.

Weird posture for a cat.

"Stop with the pictures already. And could you do something about the alarms?"

Other than that, the day was normal. Bob made a trip to the post office. We are trying to track down a package that was sent to our last RV park in early May. Bob was able to get a tracking number on the package from our mail forwarding service which may help us find it. Today is laundry day. I will check the post office again when I'm in town.

Today was cloudy and cooler with possible thunderstorms in the forecast. (We didn't get any rain or thunderstorms for that matter.)

Wildlife sightings were impressive today. Two gray cottontails were hopping around. The roadrunners have decided underneath our 5er is the big bird "bug buffet." All day, the roadrunner(s) went under our stairs, grabbed bugs then headed into the brush. Very entertaining. The mockingbirds are out again, as well as the pyrrhuloxia. Every once in a while, we see big fat lizards running around outside our 5er. They like the bugs too.

More roadrunner pics:

Roadrunner with bug in bill.

Typical roadrunner stance. Note bug in bill.

  The mockingbird wanted a photo too.

Hopefully no more alarms go off and we can get some sleep!

Travel Bug out.

You Have to Eat a Peck of Dirt Before You Die -- Thurs., May 30

From The Free Dictionary.com:

You have to eat a peck of dirt before you die. 

Prov. No one can escape eating a certain amount of dirt on his or her food. Everyone must endure a number of unpleasant things in his or her lifetime. (Often said to console someone who has eaten some dirt or had to endure something unpleasant.)

OR...You could work as a gate guard in south Texas on a very windy day and eat MORE THAN a peck of dirt. Most unpleasant!

Today for Bob was very busy. Both Pad A and Pad B were hopping.  

Pad B

The temperature was about 102 F. The wind and blowing dust were relentless. The awning was out this morning, but by the time I got up at 11:30 a.m., we had clouds of blowing dust so bad we couldn't see the road 200 feet from us. No cars or trucks were coming at that time, just strong winds and blowing dust. The awning had to go in. Bob got it tucked away. He couldn't wait for his shift to end so he could relax inside. 

Activity in the evening was lighter; nothing like what Bob endured. The wind and dust continued unabated until about 8:00 p.m. Going outside felt like getting sandblasted in an oven. 

My sun hat that I wear outside when it's sunny or windy has a wide brim. With the wind coming straight into my face, the brim of my hat blew over my eyes, making it very hard to read the license plate numbers for the log.

Around 10:00 p.m. great big raindrops started falling, but it only lasted a few minutes...not long enough to wet down the dust. But the wind let up. Yay!

Pad B is a beehive of activity around the clock now. They are doing coiled tubing. Apparently they tapped into some H2S (hydrogen sulfide gas), and now they've got a pipe up in the air burning off the gas. That is one BIG flame.

Tomorrow, I am meeting Kathy, another gate guard who works near Millett, Texas. It will be fun to compare notes. We'll have about 1-1/2 hours to talk before I go back to take over from Bob at 3:00 p.m.

The roadrunner was out again today. The mockingbirds were all riled up and chasing the roadrunner. According to my Audubon bird book, roadrunners will eat the young of ground-nesting birds. Mockingbirds, however, nest in low-lying scrub so I'm not sure that qualifies as "ground-nesting." The mockingbirds apparently thought it did. They were dive-bombing the roadrunner.

That's all the excitement for today. Stay tuned for tomorrow.