Weather

Boy have we run the gambit of weather.  One day it is beautiful, sunny and we run the a/c.  Next three days it’s overcast or raining with 20 MPH winds and I have to bundle up. 

It rained hard enough for me to break out the rain boots Linda and I bought at Bed Bath and Beyond in Yuma.  They are pretty slick.  Here I am all dolled up in my rain gear.

And here is a better look at my boots.  I got a lot of fun comments from the truck drivers about them. Hay, if you are going to be in mud you might as well be stylish!

Oh, my nightly meals sure have been tasty.  Here’s a photo of Juan and his assistant, Josh, bringing me my “dinner” as they left last night.

 

Here’s a photo of one of their meals. That’s the pork loin wrapped in bacon with broccoli with cheese sauce and roasted potatoes.  Yummy!

Tonight Josh said he brought fried chicken with mashed potatoes.  I sure hope he has some left over for me.

This afternoon Jim was working the gate and one of the trucks stopped and asked Jim if he was hungry and when he said he was the driver reached in the back seat and handed him a pizza box.  When Jim offered to give him some money the driver said “No, I had 40 pizzas in the back seat and the guys can get along with 39”.  The various companies who work on the rigs are very generous with us.

One of the land owners again brought us New York strip steaks yesterday along with two pounds of homemade sausage.  We had one today and the steak was so tender and flavorful…we are blessed. At this rate I can put off going grocery shopping for another week.

They finished fracking well #3 and tonight are dismantling it and moving the rigging over to #4 and they will start fracking it tomorrow.  So tonight it is pretty quiet because I don’t have all the sand trucks in and out.  The sand is mixed with water and some chemicals to do the fracking.

Usually there is something to watch on TV up till midnight.  I record some of the daytime TV shows and watch them after midnight. They usually last me till 4 a.m. when the early network news shows come on.

So I’m off to watch Jimmy Fallon…see you later.

Remember, you are loved!

Changes

Weather and traffic changes happened this week.  Earlier in the week we’d been having great weather, I even put on a sleeveless tee and ran the a/c during the day as we had temps up to 88* with high humidity. Then I had to  wake Jim at 3:30 a.m. to bring in the awning before it snapped because of the wind. Next day on came the long sleeve tee and windbreaker because of 25 MPH winds with gusts of 45 MPH. Again today it is cold with nighttime temps down to the 40s. I’m wearing my cap and ear muffs (you all know I hate having cold ears) staying in my windbreaker with security vest on top all night.  One day we’re outside barbecuing and the next we’re eating green chili and stew.

They started fracing today, so yesterday all the needed equipment arrived.  Jim said at 6 a.m. he went outside to start his day and looked up and all he could see were headlights for the whole mile of the approaching road.  There were 18 vehicles coming in together!!! That set the tone for the rest of the day as it was the busiest day of our time here.  By midnight we had logged in 151 vehicles with most of them leaving as well so.  Luckily the land owner allowed us to keep the gate opened as long we were sitting outside, so we didn’t have to open and close the gate all day.  It was very windy so part of the time we sat in the truck we had moved by the gate to stay out of the wind.  It was a long, long day and night.

I slept for nine straight hours today to recovery.  Today seems quieter but still busier than last week.  We’ll see how this goes.

I’m excited about tomorrow as I’m meeting my buddy, Linda Mossman, for lunch.  I haven’t been off the ranch for a week but Linda hasn’t been off her gate for three weeks!!! Jim’s going to get up early so I can go to sleep and get up earlier and make it to have lunch with Linda…he’s good like that…I’m lucky.

Remember, you are loved.

 

Quiet Time

Things have sure been quiet here the last three days…day and night. But I think it is the quiet before the storm, as we hear they are going to start fracing (pronounced fracking) this week.  That will definitely keep us racing around as other ate keepers have told us.  The trucks will be lining up to deliver sand a water for the fracing operation.

Our big tower lights went off again last night about midnight, so I had to rely on the smaller stand lights to see outside.  I didn’t have any traffic last night so it didn’t really matter.  But tonight the mechanic came out and fixed the problem, so we’re back in business.

Jim has to shut off the big generator once a day to check the oil level and we started just leaving the generator off for half an hour or so.  Boy is it quiet without that 15,000 watt generator running.  We actually heard birds chirping and singing…that was awesome.  Hearing birds sing is one of my most favorite things to do!!! We have started to sit outside after I wake up and have a cup of coffee and just enjoy the silence in the afternoon before we go inside and fix dinner. 

Yes, I eat dinner as my first meal; sometime around midnight I snack on a piece of fruit or cheese and crackers, and then end my day by having breakfast…yes, it’s pretty much backwards to everyone else.

Our weather has been pretty nice lately, so off came the raincoat and back on with our tee shirts.  We have to keep several different weights of coats available as the weather changes so often.  One day we started the day off with the heater on and late in the afternoon had to put the air conditioner.  Radical temps in one day.

It’s 1 a.m. and time for yogurt and fruit for my mid-day meal. 

Remember, you are loved.