"The Gate" Batesville, Texas Oct 31

Sunday, October 27, 2013

"The Gate" Batesville, Texas 65 degrees and partly cloudy - humid to 89 degrees and partly sunny. It was bright broken clouds all day.

A smaller number of contractor and welder trucks today, so there will be time for NFL football and NASCAR short track racing from Martinsville, VA.

Monday, October 28, 2013

"The Gate" Batesville, Texas 69 degrees and mostly cloudy to 84 degrees and partly sunny. Foggy misty morning clearing mid morning.

They are back in force today welder trucks installing piping and contractors installing tanks and electric control equipment. On another location the preparation for caliche that will come in on Wednesday and Thursday about one hundred and thirty loads each day. There are other locations and smaller projects being accomplished at the locations.

Monday, October 28, 2013

"The Gate" Batesville, Texas 69 degrees and mostly cloudy to 84 degrees and partly sunny. Foggy misty morning clearing mid morning.

They are back in force today welder trucks installing piping and contractors installing tanks and electric control equipment. On another location the preparation for caliche that will come in on Wednesday and Thursday about one hundred and thirty loads each day. There are other locations and smaller projects being accomplished there.

Thursday, October 31, 2013

"The Gate" Batesville, Texas 67 degrees and mostly cloudy to 82 degrees and mostly sunny. Rain over night here only enough to wet everything.

More of the belly dump trucks for the second day, along with the other crude oil trucks pickup trucks with large welder mounted on the back and contractor trucks.




　 

"The Gate" Batesville, Texas Oct 30

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

"The Gate" Batesville, Texas 75 degrees and mostly cloudy and muggy to 88 degrees and partly sunny and humid. Rain forecast for the over night

We are bust here at the gate this week just a Happy Halloween post.

“The Gate” Batesville, Texas Oct 24 25 26

Thursday, October 24, 2013

"The Gate" Batesville, Texas 53 degrees and partly sunny to 80 degrees and sunny.

A busy day with caliche belly dump trucks bringing in the dirt and rock for the pad base for a new pad. That was only for half a day. Then the work started on another pad installing tanks that were delivered last Friday. Welders and equipment they need on one ton dully pickup trucks today about ten of them with contractors and parts delivery trucks. These guys come early and stay late. Pipelines are being added to another pad to have that oil flow to these new tanks.

One of the belly dump trucks

Friday, October 25, 20130

"The Gate" Batesville, Texas 60 degrees and partly sunny to 82 degrees and sunny.

We are done with the caliche belly dump trucks bringing in the dirt and rock for a while until the third run starts next week. Today a larger number of welders one ton dully pickup trucks today with contractors and parts delivery trucks. Then backhoe and other off road construction equipment, busy early and late with this work.

Sunset behind Buster

Saturday, October 26, 2013

"The Gate" Batesville, Texas 67 degrees and cloudy misty morning to 82 degrees and mostly sunny.

Just contractor and welder trucks today I learned they will be about a week installing the pipelines and tanks. Bonnie was up early to watch the Florida State football game today so I went to the store for grub. Wash dust off the car and gasoline was $ 3.04 in Pearsall, TX.
 

“The Gate” Batesville, Texas Oct 22 23

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

"The Gate" Batesville, Texas 64 degrees and partly cloudy to 78 degrees and mostly sunny.

The regular in’s and out’s were down today but the belly dump trucks were here bringing in dirt and rock to a new pad site. The quantity and rate was lower then the last pad build and then I had a bulldozer being transported in on a lowboy trailer, the driver said "the dozer on site broke down". Well that answers the slow rate of belly dump trucks today. One of the crude oil tank trucks broke down on the road coming down to Buster a mechanic came in a pickup truck and got him going after a half an hour. With the second bulldozer on site the belly dump trucks started coming again, so we ended the day with about fifty trucks plus the regular traffic. Bonnie had to drive to Cotulla for a drug test today.

Belly dump truck

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

"The Gate" Batesville, Texas 53 degrees and partly sunny to 82 degrees and mostly sunny.

It was my turn for the drug test today. We both went early and came back to work for me and to sleep for Bonnie. She took the short end of this both days as she had to stay up longer both days as she was minding the gate while I was away today, a busy day with the caliche belly dump trucks bringing in the dirt and rock for the pad base. The only good part is night traffic is low at this gate.
 

“The Gate” Batesville, Texas Oct 19 20 & 21

Saturday, October 19 2013

"The Gate" Batesville, Texas 61 degrees and mostly cloudy and humid to 81 degrees and mostly sunny. The sun came out, yea.

The water transfer is complete and the crews are braking and moving hoses and equipment out. Any other traffic was normal daily in’s and out’s of tank and pickup trucks. We had a nice variety of college football games to watch today.

Sunday, October 20, 2013

"The Gate" Batesville, Texas 51 degrees and mostly sunny to 78 degrees and mostly sunny. A cool morning clouded up for a while mid day but came back to mostly sunny.

Choices to make football or NASCAR Talladega. Record one and watch one you guess which was live.

Pretty sunset

Monday, October 21, 2013

"The Gate" Batesville, Texas 69 degrees and mostly cloudy to 82 degrees and mostly sunny.

A busy day with the water transfer trucks removing the transfer and pumping equipment. Tanker trucks hauling out crude oil. The construction crew advised me there will be belly dump trucks for the next two days bringing in dirt and rocks for one new pad.

“The Gate” Batesville, Texas Oct 17 & 18

Thursday, October 17, 2013

"The Gate" Batesville, Texas 65 degrees and partly cloudy to 79 degrees and mostly sunny.

Nothing exciting today here at the gate just the regular ten oil trucks hauling out oil and a few water removal trucks. There is a crew coming in and out that is pumping water from the pond to another ranch that is drilling or fracking a well. Then there are pickups coming in for the construction of two more pad sites.

Moon coming up

Friday, October 18, 2013

"The Gate" Batesville, Texas 67 degrees and mostly cloudy to 80 degrees and mostly cloudy. Never saw the sun today, it did become brighter but no bright sunshine today.

Bonnie and I needed to get supplies and have decided to get an ATT air card for the computer and Nook and that ment going to Uvalde. Besides the food stores there offer a larger selection as compared to Pearsall. Where Pearsall is a Walmart and Uvalde is a large supercenter even the H-E-B is larger there.


  

“The Gate” Batesville, Texas Oct 14 -16

Monday, October 14, 2013

"The Gate" Batesville, Texas 73 degrees and cloudy and humid to 86 degrees and partly sunny. Almost seven and one half inches of rain measured in the local area here in the previous twenty-four hours. Buster is ok on this spot, no high water on this location. The water coming down the road is directed off to the side before it can collect here where Buster is parked.

Streams of water coming down the road edges

Even with all the rain and the dirt roads trucks started arriving early to begin their workday. The dirt road to the gate is six point eight miles with some really muddy places that on Friday were just dust and today it is soupy mud. From the gate to the pads are up to 3.5 miles more.

One water removal tank truck got stuck inside at a pad location needing to be pulled out of the mud. Other than that no incidents on the ranch.

Before this rain I cut a relief or this puddle would be bigger

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

"The Gate" Batesville, Texas 77 degrees and cloudy and humid to 91 degrees and partly cloudy.

Nothing exciting today just an average amount if in and out traffic. After dark water for Buster and diesel for the generator was delivered. "Weather" is moving in over night rain and colder forecast for tomorrow.

Sunset in the west looking over the water tank

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

"The Gate" Batesville, Texas 62 degrees and cloudy and raining enough to keep everything wet to 69 degrees and mostly sunny. The heavy rain that was forecast for southwest Texas has stayed north of us with flooding forecast in the area being lifted early.

Sunset in the southeast

Nothing exciting today, just the normal inns and outs. I powered up the computer that
was giving me problems the other day and things are working normal. Thank goodness for that. Working with Vista and some of the older programs is a drag. Even this computed is behind the times as windows eight is already a mature operating system and this is windows seven. 
 

"The Gate" Batesville, Texas OLct 12 - 13

Saturday, October 12, 2013

"The Gate" Batesville, Texas 74 degrees and mostly cloudy and humid to 91 degrees and partly sunny.

I had purchased another decking board and made one more small section of deck completing a square. Just a normal weekend level of gate traffic in and out. Opening and closing the gate while watching college football on the television.

Sunday, October 13, 2013

"The Gate" Batesville, Texas 79 degrees and cloudy and humid to 80 degrees and cloudy. Then the rain, thunder, lightening and wind, I had to roll in the large awning as we had high wind gusts and the awning was billowing up.

Streams on the edge of the road

The road going into the pads slops down to the gate and there are streams of water flowing around the sides of the road with a puddle on the far side that has cut a for the water to flow out and down to low ground beyond the puddle area. During all this there were oil trucks going in and out a water removal truck and the usual pickup trucks. And then the real rain came down. The streams of water on the edge of the road were a foot wide, there were two flood warnings on the telephone, that annoying alert sound at first I did not know what electronic device was trying to warn me. There are some that continue to come during the rain as this work does not stop for weather. The road in from the paved highway must be a nightmare, as I came back last Friday evening there were big dust clouds following all vehicle driving the road. Today that has got to be soupy mud,

This puddle is across from
Buster

"The Gate" Batesville, Texas Oct 10 - 11

Thursday, October 10, 2013

"The Gate" Batesville, Texas 66 degrees and mostly sunny to 89 degrees and mostly sunny.

This truck was in early

More rock trucks today I did not even try to count them as I have no responsibility to log them. When they deliver their load there is a load ticket and that is the record of their access to the ranch. My other daily traffic was at a normal level today as I kept the gate open to allow these rock trucks to roll thru and I was outside all day to record the other traffic. All this made a dusty day even tho a water truck wet down the road twice today it never returned for a late afternoon wetting.

Friday, October 11, 2013

"The Gate" Batesville, Texas 74 degrees and mostly cloudy and humid to 92 degrees and partly sunny. We have "weather"moving in for the next four days with rain showers possible and thunder storms for Tuesday.

No rock trucks today that is the good news, the bad news is my other computer is giving me problems not responding to the keyboard input and the mouse is giving three times the input selected. When I try to click on a file the mouse is highlighting three instead of one. I will use the old Vista system until...

Bonnie was up early so I went out today for milk and bread and anything else that jumped into the cart. I found the post office in Pearsall, TX and mailed a couple of letters, a hardware store for a boot brush to remove mud from shoes, washed the car but after driving the dusty road back into the gate the car only looks like I changed the dirt.


 

“The Gate” Batesville, Texas Oct 8 - 9

Tuesday, October 8, 2013
                                              Happy Birthday Alice

"The Gate" Batesville, Texas 54 degrees and mostly sunny to 89 degrees and mostly sunny.
A busy day with the regular in and out’s plenty of oil trucks and there were some water trucks later in the day. Bonnie is adjusting to the nights well as she normally stay’s up latter anyway. There is a very low traffic count during that time but we have to be ready if there is a vehicle wanting in or out. This afternoon when one of the pickups with a pad construction person said there will be rock trucks coming in the morning.

Sunset

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

"The Gate" Batesville, Texas 60 degrees and mostly sunny to 89 degrees and mostly sunny.

Sunrise

Well the Rock trucks came in the morning they came mid day and they came in the afternoon actually it was only ten to fifteen trucks and they kept returning all day. There was more than 130 load brought in. When the construction worker went out this evening I asked if they were done with the rock NO another day of rock. The loads are dirt and rock that when wetted will be a hard surface. The other daily traffic was almost a non-event as there were very few of them. 

“The Gate” Batesville, Texas Oct 7

Monday, October 7, 2013

"The Gate" Batesville, Texas 56 degrees and mostly sunny to 91 degrees and mostly sunny.

A nice sunrise

Not much to write about for today there were the normal everyday trucks in and out. Then there are the "lost ones" arriving here at this gate the name on the paperwork or directions is correct BUT after the name there is a letter A, B, D or E needed. Their paperwork or directions have something like K, L or M anyway not a letter I need to enter this gate. I get to help them back the trailer out the gate and send them back to the "paved road" 6.8 miles and direct them to turn left and find the correct name and letter location further west on the paved road. This has been happening every day and it is day or night. Bonnie and I are directing these trucks to places we have not even been to our self’s. other gate guards have passed along this information as to where these other locations are.

“The Gate” Batesville, Texas Oct 4 - 6

Friday, October 4, 2013

"The Gate" Batesville, Texas 73 degrees and partly sunny and humid to 97 degrees and mostly sunny but the humidity went down.

Friday Sunrise

White plastic fuel tank

Kind of a slow day compared to the past two days not as much in and out traffic, but traffic picked up late afternoon ending with a days good average. This helps us pass the time here at the gate as low traffic makes the day drag on and for Bonnie the nights are harder to keep awake.

Just about dark tonight the generator fuel and our water delivery came. Now the water tank gets emptied and a pressure water is sprayed inside to brake up any growth inside then filled with fresh water. Even the White plastic fuel tank inside the yellow generator gets refueled.

Buster repositioned

Saturday, October 5, 2013
"The Gate" Batesville, Texas 74 degrees and mostly cloudy and humid to 95 degrees and mostly sunny. There were the normal early birds and a few tankers hauling out oil. The trucks that haul out water seem to come at night and not as often as the other gate Bonnie and I were at in the spring.

For us and Buster it was a busy day as I wanted to reposition Buster back about ten feet and while rolling back to have the wheel turned to the right swinging the rear closer to the road. This part is for the sun shading the right side in the afternoon. All this is a minor adjustment. All of our utilities electric and fresh water were at their maximum and one extension cord was just too much on the edge. Now all this had to wait until Bonnie was up from sleeping and ready for work. I had to letdown the jacks and clear everything from around Buster ensuring there was nothing in the way. I needed to get this move done before I put any water into the black water tank that is on the ground, that I repositioned also if I waited it would be two weeks before the tank was empty again.

We have electronic driveway alarms for there in and out traffic, well the out has been problem and after repositioning it a little closer to Buster and changing the battery I was ready to give up until tonight I thought of another position to try and it has been working better since. Then I went to Pearsall, TX to H E B grocery store trying to catch up on can goods getting some but not all we wanted. Thirty four miles one way to Pearsall on skinny state highways gasoline there is $3.14

Sunday, October 6, 2013
"The Gate" Batesville, Texas 60 degrees and thunder storms to 81 degrees and mostly sunny. There was a wet night thunder showers and puddles in the road with clearing as the day went on. The rain cooled everything off a real nice day temperature wise.

So today is NASCAR from Kansas and football, mostly the race but there was some football also. A light day traffic wise but they keep coming and going and turning some away that do not know where they are supposed to be reporting to.

 

"The Gate" Batesville, Texas Oct 3,

Thursday, October 3, 2013

"The Gate" Batesville, Texas 74 degrees and mostly sunny to 95 degrees and mostly sunny. There was a heavy dew this morning probably from the wet weekend and fog earlier this week. Where has the time gone the week is almost over, time is going faster as there is more activity while working.

Sunrise at the gate

I picked up this idea from the previous gate guard for shading the refrigerator from the afternoon sun. This cover on Buster for access is also a vent to allow airflow up thru the compartment at the back or the refrigerator and exits out the top vent. I have added a small personal fan that is positioned to blow up past the cooling coils of the refrigerator.

Ladder & Tarp shading the refrigerator compartment

It was an active gate today with construction equipment coming in for new pad construction and maintenance traffic for the operational pads. The decking is mostly for when the rain comes, the dirt will stick to your shoes and low spots will be puddles.

"The Gate" Batesville, Texas

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

"The Gate" Batesville, Texas 77 degrees and mostly cloudy and humid to 92 degrees and mostly sunny.

Gate entrance

Going out (Lights are on)

All five of the decks are assembled and placed and I would like a couple of more sections, maybe there is room in Buster to carry one more section but that will be all. At this location we have to keep the gate closed all of the time. A little more work for Bonnie and I but we need the exercise.

On Tuesday I noticed an issue with the right rear tire on the car, there was a nail sticking out of the side wall not very big nail about one and one half inches lond and most sticking out but firmly there. Today I got Tan Jan to the tire shop and had them remove the nail and put a patch inside just incase. The car does have tire pressure monitoring and that was reporting tire pressure the same as the left side so I knew that the tire was not leaking.

Road coming in and gate on the left

There are five operating oil wells from this gate and today in comes a "Grinder" and a "Scraper" there will be three more oil well "pads" constructed from this gate, lots of gate traffic for the gate.

“The Gate” Batesville, Texas - Oct 1

Tuesday October 1, 2013

"The Yard" Big Wells, TX 71 degrees and partly cloudy and fog. Bonnie and I got packed up at the yard and moved out about nine-thirty. But before that I went to the post office in Big Wells to pick a package of mail forwarded to me there.

Sunrise at "The Yard"

"The Gate" Batesville, Texas 97 degrees and mostly sunny. The rest of the day was setting up and checking in vehicles going and coming out of the well pads. I am setting out the portable decks I made this summer at the ranch. The pictures are an in work, and the previous guard had a pallet we are using at the door as it is a little higher.

Buster’s trip was fifty-two miles all on state roads from Big Wells up to Dilley then west on 117 seventeen miles to the dirt road south and west almost seven miles.

The mud decks are in progress