 By Alvin Engelke
alvinengelke@hotmail.com
Rev. Keith Belt filled his regular appointment at the Burning Springs M. E. Church. He reported feeling much better.
The Creston and Annamoriah area had snow Saturday morning although not as much as those in the north east who had earlier bought into Albert Gore Jr.'s global warming hoax. Some of them got two feet just to remind them that there was little danger that America would become part of the Sahara desert. Locally there has not been a killing frost in the valley although the trees finally turned color. Late frosts are generally considered to be a good thing.
Local residents continue to have to deal with the government "lady bugs" otherwise known as Asiatic beetles that invade homes, etc and trigger allergic reactions with humans. Some say that the government stink bugs will be next.
Drs. Joe & Richard Cain were moving cattle over the weekend.
Mr. & Mrs. Carl Ferrell were calling on Mary Reno at Ravenswood.
Brandon Ferrell was visiting Mr. & Mrs. Carl Ferrell and Jeremy over the weekend.
The crew working on the Annamoriah bridge shut down their operations for the winter.
Nancy Engelke, Jane & Rea Schenerlein were at the W. Va. Teen & Miss U. S. A. pageant at Flatwoods over the weekend.
Cap'n Spock & Charles Russell were attending to business in Brooksville and Charles was calling brother Euell and Ray Gum at Miletree in Spencer.
There were a lot of callers out at Dooleyville over the past couple of weekends.
A lot of local residents are getting in firewood. At the moment the use of wood for fuel is not something that some nameless official in Washington Dee Cee can turn off when he feels that a humble taxpayer has used too much.
It was reported that 3-D seismic is being done in southern Nicholas County. This would indicate that some big outfit spent a few million to determine just how much natural gas is available in the area. A recent article in Forbes magazine told how Aubrey McClendon the head honcho of Chesapeake uses the internet to look up land titles, etc. so that folks will not know where he is interested and then gets property cheap.
Donnie & Wilma Bunner were calling on friends in the area.
The price of natural gas produced locally in September fetched $3.50/dekatherm. Dominion Transmission (Mother Hope) announced that the fees for the Gateway Project will start next year and the fee for "firm transport" on the transmission lines will be 59 cents/dekatherm and the "secondary firm" (SFT) will remain at a nickle/dekatherm. The secondary firm kicks in if theire are "interrluptible transportation nominations". This means that the price realized by producers and royalty owners for natural gas will be less than $2. Two dollar gas would be fine if were priced in gold dollars but inflated paper dollars just doesn't get it. The price of local Pennsylvania grade crude oil fell to $90.87/bbl while oil from Roane and Jackson Counties, etc. is $3/bbl less.
Kenny Arnold, Lention Offutt and some others recently returned from a successful moose and caribou hunt in northern Newfoundland. They returned with both big antlers and tasty meat.
Some local folks had problems when crude oil got in the natural gas line. Luckily, no homes caught on fire, etc.
The postal system had been talking about closing the Orma and Millstone post offices but they then pulled a surprise and closed, without the legal warning, etc. the Mt. Zion office. Just like with Creston they said there was a dispute with the landowner. If the postal system wanted to become solvent they could terminate all the middle managers in Clarksburg, Charleston and Beckley and confiscate their retirement programs and other perks. With them gone the system might work and local folks could have the service. It might be noted that none of the offices that are being closed are in buildings owned by a company from the Dee Cee area that, obviously, has connections to the proper people down in the swamps of the Lower Potomac.
Jeremy Ferrell was attending to business in Mineral Wells.
It was reported that forced pooling for shallow wells likely will not be included in what has been dubbed "the Marcellus bill" but that a bill will be introduced in the legislature in January to give the big boys the power to do whatever they want at the expense of local landowners.
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