Daily Archives: November 1, 2015
Three Weeks and Counting . . .
Jan has shifted into high giddy, as today marks three weeks and counting until we leave the gate for this year, heading back to the Lake Conroe Thousand Trails and the Houston area for the winter.
Assuming our gate lasts until then, and it sure looks like it will, it will be only the second time in four years that we’ve stayed at the same gate for the entire three months. The first time was in 2013 when we were at a multi-well frack gate down in south Texas near Whitsett. They also had a number of production wells, so a lot of trucks were in and out taking out crude, while they were also constructing a pipeline into the area. So, along with miscellaneous workover rigs, it was a pretty busy gate.
But the thing I really remember about that gate was how bitterly cold it was during the month of November. There were several days when it barely got into the 30’s, and because of the way we were set up, our canopy was open to the north. And by north, I mean the north wind that comes sweeping down the plains. Yeah, I know that’s Oklahoma, but it fits so I’m using it.
There was a light tower right behind us so I finally draped a tarp around the back of the canopy using the light tower as an anchor.
Without the tower taking the wind load, the canopy wouldn’t have stayed up.
I vividly remember one day, about a week before we left, where the high was 25 degrees, and it was sleeting. In fact ice was forming on the canopy struts. I didn’t own enough clothes to put on to keep me warm, and we didn’t have enough heaters either.
Good times.
But this year our low temps has been in the 40’s, and we’ve got the rig directly behind the canopy to the north, so that cuts out the cold wind.
We also have two of these Sunbeam heaters. I bought one last year and then a second this year because they work so well.
Sunbeam Dual Comfort Heater+ Fan
And as a backup, we have this Lasko heater that usually stays inside, but we have brought it out a couple of times
Lasko Digital Ceramic Tower Heater with Remote
You can really hear the generator groan when I turn on all three heaters at the same time. But so far it’s held up. In fact I think this is the first year we haven’t had a generator problem, knock on wood.
Today was a little busier, with 60 vehicles through the gate, and of course, back out. Six of those were the crew, and the rest were the water trucks cycling in and out, taking out the flowback water. Three or four come in every couple of hours, stay about 30 minutes filling up, and then head back out to offload. Rinse, Repeat.
I don’t know what Jan did with it, but I left her with a perfectly good day this morning, and she broke it.
When I went in to go to bed at 7am, it was a little foggy, but nice. But when I came back out around 1pm, it had been raining for a good while, then rained all day, and was still raining when I went in at 6pm. But tomorrow’s supposed to be better.
Yeah, right.
Of course we’ve certainly had it better then many other people. Our DIL Linda emailed to say that they had a lot of rain and bad weather in the Friendswood area on Saturday, including six tornados running around.
Because of all this they lost power for 29! hours, from 10:20 Saturday morning until 2:15 Sunday afternoon. Luckily they had a portable generator to keep the refrigerator and other stuff going, so they didn’t lose any food.
Hopefully all this bad weather will be over for a while.
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Thought for the Day:
She was probably going to Wal-Mart.
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