Thousands of Oil Wells, and Nesting Hawks

We passed a hundred thousand oil wells between Lovington, NM and Artesia. The air was fouled with the petroleum smell. Pump jacks as far as the eye could see, with a cobweb of power lines leading to each of them. The jacks were all sizes, from the little cow-sized ones I rode as a kid on a friend's ranch, to the medium-sized, more common ones, to the huge jacks that pull the oil up and up from deep in the earth. There's more oil here -- or maybe was at one time -- than in the Permian Basin, or maybe this still is the Permian Basin, I'm not sure. I did notice that 2/3rds of the jacks were not pumping. I thought we were trying to get off of foreign oil. I'm so tired of the lies, the propaganda, and the greed.

We read in a local paper last night that part of the city of Midland, Texas has water that is contaminated with hexavalent chromium. I'm not sure what that is but the article says there's pretty much nothing that can be done to decontaminate the water, so those people are all just screwed. My SO thinks that's the same substance Erin Brockovich crusaded against for that group of people who sued. I probably need to watch that movie again. He has such better retention of these things than I do. I mostly just remember Julia Roberts's boobs in that movie. Guess I'm as shallow as a 14-year old adolescent. Geez!

THE POINT BEING -- I SHALL NOT DRINK THE WATER WHILE WE'RE IN THIS PART OF THE STATE!

We did see one interesting site. The state here lets hawks build nests on their old power poles. Rather than tearing them down, they put little ledges up there and almost every old creosote pole has a nest of hawks. They build a shaggy, deeply cupped nest, but then they have big babies. I saw a pair of hawks feeding their babies inside one of these nests. One parent flew in to perch beside the other parent and the little beaks were poking straight up to receive their breakfast. Kinda cute, or as cute as hawks are capable of being.

This morning we will be on the road for about 6 hours, heading toward Las Vegas, NM. The cat has been very good the last couple of days in the car. We'll see if that good behavior holds on the long trip today. I'm proud of how well the cat and dog are tolerating each other in these close quarters. It helps that the kitty has his hidey-hole behind the sofa bed.

More tomorrow.

Onward ....