Homestead mailing list

[keith bellinger <bartermn AT epix.net>]

Hey gang,
been a while. Happy T-day to all.

Not much happening homesteading-wise, just chickens as far as critters 
to feed and gardens, where B-sprouts, cauliflower and broccoli still 
stand waiting for me to get my boots on, to bed down for winter. The 
recent posts about diesel, especially the subject line--what we already 
knew or guessed--forced me out of hiding.

Lynn, you still here? Have you leased your place yet? Here's what you 
have to look forward to...

Watching the Big Boys Play

11/5/10

As I sit at this desk, to my right is a sliding glass door through
which I can see into and out of the sunroom, across the lawn, past
the dirt road, into the neighbor’s hayfield where an excavator is
being warmed up. The operator’s silhouette is barely visible as he
circles the machine, flashlight reflecting off yellow paint and
steel tracks. Daybreak hasn’t come yet but it looks like the well-
drillers are going to be making noise again. Things had been quiet
for a whole three days—much too long when such big money is at stake.

That field was stripped by four monster bulldozers—Cat D8ts, each
pushing almost 350 horses, topsoil heaped neatly and covered with
rolls and rolls of erosion-control cloth, to be spread back on the
field after the wells are drilled.

A dairy farmer had been leasing the field from my elderly neighbors
since before we moved here and has hunted the bordering woods for
years. I see his truck parked near our mailbox and almost hear him
sigh. We’re two weeks into archery season but he hadn’t seen a deer
yet as of yesterday. I haven’t seen any wildlife at all, unless you
count the exodus of field mice. The cats have been eating well.

11/11/10

A representative for the gas company brought papers to sign last
week—in order to test our water. We learned there would be six gas
wells drilled across the road, less than one thousand feet from our
water well. The company would shoulder the cost—over six hundred
dollars. If we notice any change in our water after the gas wells
are in they will test it again.

Yesterday a pair of young men came with more papers and a dozen empty
water bottles which they filled at our kitchen sink. They also
brought a gas tester and walked through both this house and the old
cabin checking for methane and other natural gases. Then they removed
the well cap (after a lot of penetrating oil and elbow grease) to
check for gas at water level but couldn’t force their probe past the
first plastic “spiderweb” (cable guard) our local plumber installed
around the wires to prevent twisting (after pulling all three-hundred
feet of pipe and wires and submersible pump to find a broken lead five
years ago).


One of the men said they had not gotten any readings at all of methane
and it seemed to me they were trying hard to document even a tiny
amount. I am pretty sure they will be able to find it after the wells
are drilled.

Yes, we signed the lease and took their money—more than ten times
higher than many got only two years ago, but are smack dab in the
middle of a huge environmental disaster waiting to happen. The worry
is a constant strain on our minds.

11/15/10

The oilmen call it a “play”—this Marcellus shale formation two miles
below our homestead—and the big-boy-toys moved a lot of dirt around
this week. The worst part of it so far is the constant beep-beep-
beeping when the trucks back up and the slamming of tailgates. But
we’ve been lucky that the haulers haven’t been using our dirt road or
the one that Gin takes to work every day. Let them ruin the roads to
LeRaysville and Towanda; we’ll go the other way—toward the New York
border where their politicians wait to see how much trouble
Pennsylvania can get into.

Yeah, it’s all play until someone gets hurt.

11/17/10

I haven’t been closer to the action across the road since driving past
last month, and really don’t know what they are doing. Our son walked
over Sunday afternoon and took a few photos—one of their port-o-john
standing alone—fitting for the environmentalist in me. I just came in
from shooting a couple trucks—with a Nikon not the Savage. I’m not a
terrorist, promise. I just wondered what kind of dump trucks,
bulldozers and other big-boy-toys were over there—for the tool man in
me—argh, more power!

Dump trucks are rolling again today, bringing more loads of stone—
about fifty-thousand pounds at a time. A big Cat roars in to knock the
piles down before another Mack or Peterbilt or International beeps into
view.

11/22/10

I finally took the time to investigate my neighbor’s ex-hayfield. There
was nothing there but a fairly level pad of packed stone—ten feet thick
at the western edge, between the long mounds of topsoil, separated by
drainage ditches. Where all the stone came from I don’t know; John
Denver’s song comes to mind—tear the mountains down and bring in a
couple more.

A helicopter was thumping and fluttering in the valley below our
homestead yesterday afternoon. I grabbed the camera and snapped a few
shots before realizing the chopper had a long cable dangling from it
with what appeared to be a bright orange bag attached. I doubted it was
Santa but later did a bit of research to verify. According to Google
the sacks contained seismic equipment and we could soon expect loud
blasts to echo through our hills.

Big Kenworth flatbeds are delivering equipment this morning, though I
can’t tell what they haul; maybe the drilling will soon begin. Those
trucks aren’t moving too fast because our road (the one Gin drives) is
getting new blacktop—started two days ago in Warren Center and continued
all through the weekend. I bet it doesn’t last the winter; with the pad
nearly complete the dumps will be replaced by water trucks, probably
leaving ruts like a wagon-train crossing a muddy prairie.

Outdoors it smells like tar and diesel exhaust, and even inside my
office it sounds like a construction site; these log walls can’t hold
back the loud idling, backward beeping, screaming air horns and roaring
Jakes as more trucks slow for flagmen.

Just think—only a year or so longer and we can return to the quiet,
peaceful Pennsylvania I remember…or can we?