 By Alvin Engelke
alvinengelke@hotmail.com
The big Creston ATV Poker Run is on schedule for Saturday, September 18. As things look now it should be a great ride with some special places for those who like to go a different sort of way.
Patricia A. Bock, 61 of Vincent Ohio, passed away after a bout with cancer. She was the widow of Michael Bock.
Dyen Lovett, Marie Snyder's great-grandson, is now home & doing well after undergoing heart surgery.
Lots of folks have been in the area for the long Labor Day holiday. There were lots of four wheelers, motorcycles and traffic in general on the local roadways. The cold front put at least a temporary end to the Al Gore heat wave that had vexed area residents.
Japanese stilt grass, an invasive pest that puts toxins in the soil that kill native plants is now 4 feet tall in places. It needs to be cut or pulled up before millions more tiny seed are spread about. The pest invades pasture fields, meadows, lawns, flowerbeds, roadsides and woodland.
Paw paws are now ripening. In addition to being good raw one can make paw paw bread by simple modification of one's banana bread recipe. When promoting the Jamestown settlement back in 'merry' old England the pitchmen noted that "in the new world, custard grew on trees." There is also a good crop of persimmons although they are far from being ready to consume, or use to make persimmon nectar.
While the local area has received a reasonable amount of rain and the corn crop in the Midwest will be spectacular, eastern West Virginia and adjacent Virginia & Maryland have had a drought. Corn yields there in some instances are in the 30 -40 bu/acre range.
Rev. Keith Belt filled his regular appointment at the Burning Springs M. E. Church and served Holy Communion.
The Calhoun road crew mowed the grass along W. Va. 5 using long arm brush mowers while the Wirt County crew has been scraping area roads.
Virgil Snyder noted that there were not so many at the Ground Hog homecoming this year.
Dr. Scott dePue was attending to business in Creston one day last week.
Bill Brown & son were in Creston checking on his oil interests and working on historical matters relating to his family and the area. His great-grandfather John R. Pell was an area merchant & dealer in logs, land and oil & gas. They were accompanied by Thorn Roberts.
Angie Nida, the military musician, has been visiting her parents, Mr. & Mrs. H. Wayne Nida.
Some local residents were in Parkersburg for the speech given by Dick Morris of Fox News on behalf of John Raese & David McKinley. Morris pointed out that, contrary to what the Big Boss's press people were saying, he is not a shoo in to go on the national scene as a yes man for the big eared one & George Soros & all the talk about gubernatorial succession may be somewhat premature.
According to reports from the Mouth of the Elk the federal grand jury gathered a room full of evidence concerning the Big Boss's under boss Mr. Puccio and how he had state road contracts modified. Of course, the Big Boss who is known for his micro management style would have known nothing about any of it.
Those who have objected to the Ground Zero Mosque to celebrate the terrorist's victory against "the great Satan" (America) have been called intolerant. Wonder what could be said about those who refuse to let the Greek Orthodox church that was destroyed there on 9/11 to be rebuilt. The Christians were told that a "church would not fit into the plans for the area" & that their land was needed by a governmental agency. Of course nothing has been rebuilt at the scene of the murderous attack as busy bureaucrats fiddle & diddle and try to be PC.
Alvin Engelke was attending to business in Industry.
Nancy Engelke, along with Susan Smith, attended the Volcano Days pageant at WVU-Parkersburg. Volcano Days Festival & antique gas engine show will be held September 24 to 26.
Discussions continue over the proposed new rules for the W. Va. Office of Oil & Gas and how future drilling, especially horizontal wells will be handled. As part of the patch there are always the promoters, "plucking the fat chickens" as one of them was wont to say. Many oilfields here in West Virginia (& elsewhere) were little more than scams but now it seems that the Marcellus is real & that production will hold up. New compressor stations and large pipelines are being built and one sees big line pipe being hauled up and down the interstates.
Some of Joe O'Ferrell's investors are somewhat less than happy and they now have two websites for those similarly situate to communicate their woes and possible solutions, namely www.theoilscam.com and www.joeoferrell.com. Joe's latest well is on the Warburton place near Rock Run. He had earlier drilled a well on Grieves Run but lost the tools in the hole.
Audrey McClendon, CEO of Chesapeake Energy, has urged area residents to promote natural gas and to lobby state and federal folks to force the change from gasoline & diesel to natural gas. While natural gas is a good thing and while huge oil imports from places that don't like us is bad (this mostly caused by ill advised federal energy policies in the past and even now with the gulf drilling ban) the federal government has no business telling anyone what they can drive or what sort of fuel they should or must use.
Natural gas contracts closed last Friday at $3.651/dekatherm (MMBTU) and the average price for August oil was $71.0726/bbl. However the price has since dropped to $68.75/bbl as talk continues about the possible "double dip recession" and other economic woes.
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