 By Alvin Engelke
alvinengelke@hotmail.com
Rev. Keith Belt caught a very nasty bug and was unable to fill his regular appointment at the Burning Springs M. E. Church.
The big Creston auction will be Saturday April 5, starting at 6 P. M. at the Creston Community Building. Then there will be a special auction by Col. Dobbins on April 12.
The Creston Easter party will be Sunday April 13th at 2 p. m. at the
Creston Community Building.
Ernest Waggoner, age 87, of Yellow Creek passed away. He was the father of Brenda Roberts & Regina Hupp.
Jenine Arthur, age 81 of Grantsville, passed away. She was a daughter of the late Wilson & Virginia Stutler Arthur, both being members of prominent Creston families.
There have been some spring days with the amphibians singing, garden & corn ground being worked up, etc. Julia Joyce's daffodils are in their prime and most of the "northern birds" have left. However, both Tuesday evening and Sunday morning there was snow and more is predicted. Ramps should be up very soon.
The grocery delivery truck broke down at Brooksville and was parked at the wide spot on the Yellow Creek road. Another truck was called to take the load on to its destination and the new driver apparently was a recent graduate of Bubba's CDL driving school for dummies. First he tried to turn a driveway more suited for turning four wheelers & beetles and he got hung. The wrecker was called but he had trouble understanding about locking the differential, stopping when the wrecker has you out [even though the wrecker is in front of you]. The driver of the broken down truck tried to advise the new driver with minimal luck. Finally he got his feet caught in some old electric fence and fell into "a leach field". The poor trucker fell on his face with one arm going in down below the elbow. One might say he "got an earful" and left with "a bad taste in his mouth".
Charles Russell was calling on Ray Gumm, Parris Parsons and brother Euell at the Miletree center. Parris had a party on the event of his 95th birthday. Euell also had a birthday. Ray has been having back trouble.
Some local residents attended the Tyler County Farm Bureau prime rib dinner at Middlebourne. A large crowd was on hand including Mr. Wamsley who is running for U. S. Senate as a democrat against the democrat state chairman lawyer Casey who is for Obamacare. Those who pay their taxes quarterly and do not participate in the socialist program must pay their first quarter tax, called in true Orwellian style "a shared responsibility payment". Drudge called it his "Liberty Tax" and the government media called him a liar even though the IRS forms say the tax is due April 15, 2014.
It was reported that Triad Hunter had a Utica well in eastern Ohio to come in at 36 million cubic feet/day and another well in the area had to be plugged after the casing burst. It would seem that someone tried to do stuff "on the cheap" and used casing with a burst test below the pressure obtained in the wells. A similar situation [with no burst casing] happened when CNR drilled the Parker Trenton/Black River well on Payne Ridge near Amma. Because of the thin casing with a low test rating the blowout preventers could not be used, the rig burned up and the well was on fire for weeks until experts were brought in from the southwest.
Governor Earl Ray had a big "Ethane Summit" down at the Mouth of the Elk and, jointly with Paul Rady, the head honcho of Antero, announced that the Denver based firm was committing 40% of the ethane needed or about 30,000 bbl/day needed for the proposed ethane cracker down on the Washington bottom below Parkersburg. The Marcellus in this area is high in ethane which can be converted to ethylene which, in turn, is the building block of polyethylene, used to make plastics. Presently such ethane that is separated from the gas stream is taken by the ATEX pipeline to the Gulf of Mexico for processing. Antero had said that with the low price of ethane [23 cents/gallon] it wasn't worth fooling with. Rady noted that the Marcellus & Utica locally are the most lucrative oil & gas fields in the nation and that they have sold out elsewhere to be able to make more money here. The Barnett shale, down around Fort Worth, Texas is only 1/3 as good as the wet Marcellus. There lease bonuses were $15,000/acre and the royalty is 25%. One can do the math to determine the value of local leaseholds if the big boys decided to treat us fairly. In Tyler County Antero said they would pay 16% at the well head (a fictional price) with no payment for the liquids.
Gov. Earl Ray who said he was "pro life" vetoed the bill to prevent babies from being killed. Likely the Big Eared One sent word by Broadway Joe, his errand boy, to protect the folks who operate the abortion parlours. The Girl Scouts got in with that gang and now many no longer purchase girl scout cookies.
Local oil and gas folks still wonder how the "water bill" will impact them as the wizards at the legislature passed a bill no one had or could read as the text was not made available by "leadership". Some fear that all tanks over 1300 gallons must be pressure tested and inspected by DEP. It is understood that tanks must be empty to be pressure tested and that the cost is about $3 thousand/tank & then there is an annual fee.
Statoil, the Norse government oil company, needed a right-of-way across a farmer's land and they agreed to build him a farm pond as payment. A retired NRCS technician supervised the construction and all were happy until the EPA found out about the pond that was now reclaimed with grass growing on the disturbed soil, fish had been stocked, etc. The jack booted thugs were incensed that their permission had not been granted and they demanded that the dam be breached and the area returned to its original contour. When the farmer said "I have fish in the pond" the government man said, "You'd better get them in your freezer because they will be gone." Our rulers down in the swamps of the lower Potomac do not believe in private property as shown in this recent instance in Wetzel County. What makes this worse are the RINOS who like their counterparts in government also believe in big government rather than firing all these busybodies whose sole job seems to be to make life difficult for ordinary citizens.
Potholes continue to be a problem and added to that is the complete lack of morale at the "state road". It was noted that many billboard companies get free rent because "leadership" will not make a decision or, on the other hand, one might conclude the payments were "made elsewhere". Many perfectly good bridges were replaced "because they didn't meet federal guidelines". If one had unlimited funds one might be able to do such but to replace a bridge that would be good for another 50 - 100 years is a little outrageous when there is no money for routine maintenance.
A fable. Once upon a time there was an oil company, the Anthill Co. that was up in the Big Rock Candy Mountains. They heard that there were great riches in a backwoods, hillbilly state where, according to the movies, tee vee shows, etc. all folks did was drink beer, smoke dope and dream of big money in North Carolina. The Anthill gang moved and hit it big with wells making $millions/year and sometimes even/month. The folks they met up with assumed that they were being treated fairly and went along but some thought something was amiss. The Anthill folks went to see Gov. Bow Wow to see how to deal with "them folks what could read, write and cipher" and them what dared question the integrity of Anthill. "The Wise Ones" [not to be confused with the Wise Men] told 'em to huff and puff and bluff and if all else failed get Stubtoe & Goosefoot and sue the pants off them for being uppity and demanding their rights -- who did these peasants think they are? Stay tuned for Chapter 2 of the fable.
Cattlemen from different parts of the state noted that about 10% of the calves have been lost this calving season. Some was because of the bitter cold but the reason for most of the deaths remains unknown.
The status of the coyote control program is still unknown as "Farmer Walt" the Ag commissioner used the designated funds for the program as his 7.5% budget reduction even though those funds were separate and not under his control.
The price of local Pennsylvania grade crude rose to $101.17/bbl with drip fetching $80.24, Marcellus & Utica light $90.15 and medium $100.17/bbl.
The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Hur Herald. | 
