Settling in
January 21, 2012

The dust has settled, figuratively at least, as our life in Midland acquires its own day-to-day rhythm.  We learn more daily about the area, about the oil & gas industry, about the city itself.  I have put on my big-girl panties and tackled things I didn’t necessarily want to, and I am feeling pretty good about it all.

There’s something so nice about comfortable routines, weeks filled with knowns and ease.  In contrast, it is those things we like to avoid that are the catalysts for gaining confidence and personal growth, for getting that little giddy sense of doing something that was a bit difficult, that was not something we wanted to take on, but did because it was there or because we had little choice in the matter.

Now I’m not too sure about how much personal growth is occurring because I’ve ventured out driving in the city at night by myself or because I’ve switched out propane tanks or because I’ve opted to explore and find my way around in traffic that I abhor; nevertheless, there is a certain satisfaction in being more self-reliant. 

As most couples do, Chris and I have developed an unspoken agreement about who does what (well truthfully sometimes I assign him a chore with the reminder that “You’re the dad”).  This period with him working very long hours has changed that; I am the one with the available time to get ‘er done, so I do.

I jump on Loop 250 and zip around town with the best of them.  I know the city well enough now that I can take alternate routes or make wrong turns and still arrive at my destination without panic welling up at the thought of being lost.

Traffic flow here is quite different from Arizona’s and requires vigilance to heed what seem like oddities.  For one thing, most (but not all) frontage roads carry two-way traffic.  This requires us to yield to vehicles turning right in front of us, to vehicles speeding toward us onto the frontage road at 50-60 mph and to traffic turning left in front of us as it accesses the freeway.

In my driving experience, it has always been the left-turner who yields; the opposite seems odd.  On surface roads, though, the left-turner still yields.  A very nice feature here is that most signaled intersections have left-turn arrows, surely a great collision reducer.

It is very tricky when a freeway ramp is bringing traffic in the same direction I am traveling on the frontage road.  I must yield to vehicles that I see as I peer back over my left shoulder at a 75-degree angle and attempt to determine if they truly are on the off ramp or if they are right next to it on the freeway - this as I proceed at 50 mph . . . or stop. 

The whole of it does not allow for daydreaming.

A life saver, water and wells . . .

Hot diggity!  Much to my delight, the I-20 wildlife preserve across the road has officially opened to the public; I no longer need to wait until workmen are present to get in there to stretch my legs.  I avoided the crowds of opening day and spent three hours hoofing it the next day.  One turn around the perimeter without stopping and then another tour to check out the birds.  A bobcat was spotted that day but not by me.  The only animal I saw was a little cottontail bunny, evidently before the bobcat saw it. 





Additional Midland/I-20 Preserve birds to date: northern shoveler, American coot, lesser scaup, mallard, roadrunner, blue-winged teal, black phoebe and a third life bird since we've been here: a green-winged teal. 

Lots more water in there since the rain.  It will be interesting to see how the bird population changes as the season warms.

The boardwalk sections of the preserve remind me of our walk out through the Jean Lafitte swamp in Louisiana - a far more alien atmosphere for us, but similarly, the boardwalks allowed foot access to areas that would be impossible to experience otherwise.

Water here is interesting in several ways.  First, it doesn’t soak in as it does in our decomposed granite soil at home.  That characteristic has allowed the lake that pooled and blocked off most of the end of our road to still exist after more than two weeks.

Agua is obviously in short supply here, a situation doubtless worsened by the hordes of immigrants come to work (like us).  Lawn irrigation has recently been limited to once a week; the restriction now softened to twice weekly.  Some properties have irrigation wells with the right to use them as they please.  Those residences or businesses must post a sign indicating that right or they will be cited for irrigating outside the allowed times.  Those wells succumb to the scarcity, too, and run dry periodically.

I think I have mentioned the non-potability of water here, thus bottled, imported and/or filtered water is huge business.  Kiosks to dispense water are dotted everywhere; stores have machines for refilling one- and five-gallon bottles and bottled water fills aisles in the grocery store.  I refill our one-gallon jugs for 20¢ apiece.  The boughten water is tasty, but I miss Chino Valley's wonderful well water straight out of the tap.

Hydrogen sulfide, lift rigs . . .

Through Chris’ training and job, we have acquired additional knowledge about H2S, a gas that is sometimes released from an oil well that is being drilled or worked on, but not typically from an established well.

The surveying crew is equipped with detectors of the electronic kind, hopefully substantially superior to the canaries that hard rock miners of old utilized to detect the presence of poisonous gas.

The strange characteristic of the gas is that in safe quantities, it is apparent because of its distinctive odor.  The problem arises when it reaches lethal levels; at that concentration, it shuts down the olfactory capacity. 

Quite a dilemma: when you can smell it, it’s safe and when you can’t, it isn’t, thus the electronic canaries.

The workers are told that if the detector alerts, they are to hightail it crosswind, upwind or to higher ground; the gas is heavier than air, so higher ground would be safe if there were any ground not flat as a tabletop, which is pretty unlikely in these parts.

Well rig workers at all times carry emergency five-minute masks to allow them time to get away in case of hydrogen sulfide being released.  I expect I could move pretty far in five minutes should the occasion arise.  In addition, they also have regular masks nearby.  For the purpose of a close fit, they are required to be clean-shaven or at least to have no facial hair that would interfere with the mask’s fit.

Additional instructions are that if someone collapses due to poisonous gas, they are to leave them lest there be more people succumbing because of taking the time to carry someone away.

Okay, now I get why all those well pads are posted.  It makes me wonder just how many people were stricken by this gas before all this was known and of course before the detectors were developed.  This electronic device and all that goes with it is just one of zillions of examples of peripheral industries that exist in support of oil and gas extraction.

This photo is of a lift rig, not a drill rig as I would have supposed prior to my oil field “education”.  It is located very near our abode so that I can clearly hear it working.  Unfortunately, my knowledge does not extend far enough to understand exactly what is happening there.

This much I know: a lift rig is employed to extract pipe or sucker rod from an existing well for various reasons.  Something down in that very deep hole needs repair or an item has fallen into the depths and will interfere with pumping, so must be brought out.

In this photo, there is a feller way up top who is unhooking each 33-foot pipe length as it is pulled out of the well.  His job does not look like one to which I aspire. 

As the pipe is pulled upward; it makes a very loud kind of grinding noise.  The crazy guy up there then releases the hook which drops back down and another pipe is extracted.  This procedure can go on for extended periods of time considering that wells can be 8,000 feet deep or more.

Fire, trash. . .

Last Sunday, a nice fifth-wheel trailer in our campground burned up.  Very sad and scary, too - could have been even more disastrous considering the congested quarters here.  The City of Midland responded with more emergency vehicles than I could have imagined were in existence here.

There is a shocking amount of garbage in open areas along main roads and in our industrial neighborhood.  I have never seen anything quite like it; I'm sure it results from the influx of transient workers, the amount of construction and copious quantities of wind.  Just recently, I spotted two "litter lifters" plucking and bagging debris along I-20 - what a never-ending job that must be!