We Earned Our Pay Today! -- Sun., May 13

Cotulla, Texas:
Happy Mother's Day to Mom and all my friends and relatives who are mothers!  I hope you enjoyed a nice relaxing day today, maybe with flowers, massage, chocolate, or a meal at a good restaurant.

This was, by far, our busiest day. We have two "pads" at our gate. Today both pads were up and fully functional. On my night shift I may have between 12-20 trucks from 3 pm to 3 am. Today, I had 54 incoming trucks. Bob gets the brunt of the check-ins during the day, I think he filled out seven log sheets today compared to my 2-1/2 pages of log sheets. But I do log out a number of the trucks he logged in during the day, so my count is a bit higher than 54 as I overlap with him...but who's counting?

All kinds of trucks came in today. We had trucks lined up on the road, trucks coming and going right at the gate. Inside, our gate road splits into a "T": Pad A is to the left and Pad B is to the right. Most of the big equipment was headed for Pad A to do cold tubing.

There was a time today when a huge trailer with wide load was trying to get up on the B Pad. Three sand trucks were waiting to come out. The huge "Wide Load" semi with trailer had to back down by our fifth wheel to let the three sand trucks out, then had to back up and do a three-point turn by the gate to get turned around again. By this time another sand truck was ready to leave. The two trucks were tete-a-tete and neither wanted to back up. One of the crew on the pad had the sand truck back off. It was that kind of day.

The weather the past two days has been beautiful...mid 80s, blue sky with white puffy clouds. Nice.

I love sitting outside in the late afternoon while watching the gate. I'm in the shade right next to our generator aka "bird feeder." All afternoon, I have birds (Bewick's wren, mockingbird, a pair of cardinals) coming to catch the insects on the ground by the generator. There are still some birds I haven't identified, probably because my Audubon book is the Western Edition.

Bob is such a wonderful man. For our anniversary yesterday, tucked into the card, was a packet of seeds for "Forget-Me-Nots." He knows I love to garden, but don't want any plants in the 5er for now. I can plant these seeds out in the soil behind our 5er and we can water them with our gray water. Hopefully we won't have any more major rainstorms that dump inches of water at a time. I don't think forget-me-nots are very hardy flowers. The seeds take 4-6 weeks to become flowers, so we should still be here to see a pretty display.

I forgot to mention, on the day I went into town to do laundry, a roadrunner "ran" (more like sauntered) across the road in front of my car. I had to stop to let him cross. He didn't seem to be in a hurry.

That's all folks!

Never a Dull Moment -- Fri., May 11

 Cotulla, Texas:

Compared to rainy yesterday, today was gorgeous and about 84 degrees, 70% humidity (tolerable).

Bob's shift was pretty routine. Normal amount of traffic. Oh, except there was a big mud hole just past where they had been grading and putting rock down into the caliche. Trucks were nosediving into it. A grader came out and many truckloads of gravel were put down which the grader then smoothed into the roadbed of caliche dust.

I came on duty at 3:00 p.m. Bob went to the post office to pick up our mail. On the way back he stopped to visit Kit and Jerry. He had a wonderful time picking their brains about internet reception, gate guarding, past history...just a good, old-fashioned visit.

About 45 minutes after Bob left for town, I witnessed an accident inside our gate between two sand trucks. I won't bother you with the details. I did get some pictures of the damage, though.

Tire removed already. Damaged wheel.

Crunched license plate, damaged grill, hood crunched upward.

Assessing the damage.

That was the first incident on my shift. 

Next thing I know, trucks that had exited the gate onto Harvey Smith Rd south were all backing up into our gate to turn around, even the rock trucks that were supposed to put more rock down. When the grader guy got off shift around 10:40 p.m., he brought the grader in and parked it across from our rig (which is where he left his pick-up truck). I asked him what was going on down the road. 

He replied, "An inexperienced trucker got stuck in the hole, broke the axle and ruined the transmission. I tried to pull him out, but couldn't. Two other trucks combined tried to pull him out, but couldn't. The road is blocked. I've been sending everyone I can around another way. There's nothing more we can do tonight. A semi tow truck will be here in the morning. I'll be back first thing."

While the second incident wasn't exactly at our gate, it impacted where our truckers had to go to get here. And some who left had to back up 1/2 mile to turn around at our gate.

Oh, I forgot to mention, we have an excellent bird feeder. Our night lights attract all manner of moths, beetles, termites, lightning bugs, and who knows what else. There are no bats! During the day, all kinds of birds come to the generator/light stand and have easy pickin's of whatever ever bug buffet suits them. We have Bewick's wrens, mockingbirds, a male and female cardinal, and other birds I haven't identified yet. Today the Bewick's wren came within a few inches of my shoe. My nature moment for the day.

Kitty story: We have discovered what floats our cats' boats...flying insects--moths to be exact. (Beetles are exciting too, but just not as much fun.) A moth enters the 5er, intense hunter cat mode ensues. Both Sunnie and Bowie go nuts, leaping tall furniture in a single bound, climbing upholstered valances, staring down moths on the ceiling as if they can entrance them to fly around some more.

Yesterday Sunnie caught a good-sized moth. He proudly carried it around in his mouth, would let it go and catch it again. If Bowie got too close, Sunnie hissed and growled.

This evening there were plenty of moths to go around and both cats had their own playthings. They don't eat them (probably too fuzzy), just play with them and carry them around.  Apparently Sunnie does eat beetles.

"I see a moth. Yum!"

Two cats hunting.

As I'm sitting here typing the two cats just finished hunting some bug under the dining chairs and I can hear Sunnie's bug crunching noises from where I sit...sounds like a crunchy beetle, not a soft moth.

They wore themselves out. Some moths live on, but the cats are sleeping. By morning, we'll probably discover more dead moths.

More random pictures from the last few days:

These cats love playing in and around boxes! See those little holes...they make good spots for Bowie's paws to attack Sunnie.

Bewick's wren. It's there, really!

Equipment move

Bob doing his job.

Pad B before the flood.

Bowie

Springbok antelope running away from me again.

Grackle

Grackle.

Trailing edge of the front--May 10, 2012.

Trailing edge of the front -- May 10, 2012

Trailing edge of the front.

The storm that passed over us, leaving for the day.

Kitties playing.