I kind of feel like I'm adrift in Easter weekend, but I'm not really sure where. I've checked - it is Sunday - but I'm a day ahead of myself.
Wayne and Jacqui and the kids were home for the holiday and because of Wayne's exam schedule they arrived on Wednesday evening and had to be back in Winnipeg tonight so that he could write again tomorrow. I guess, in my mind, that set the whole week back by one day - I even offered to do the big family meal so that we could arrange to have the big family gathering on Saturday instead of Sunday for their benefit. So, while everyone else is just sitting down to Easter dinner, I'm doing laundry and tidying up a house after everyone has gone home.
It's a wonderful day out there today. It was yesterday, too, and the little kids spent all their time out on the trampoline bouncing out their energy where there were no adults to tell them to calm down and be quiet. When it comes to hosting the big family meals (average guest list 25 to 35 people) Easter and Thanksgiving afford a hostess half a hope that she can send at least half the crowd outside. At Christmastime the chances are very slim that any of the noise and confusion can be anywhere but in the house.
There was some excitement last night, though. Just as we were finishing dessert (I made cream puffs and they actually turned out!) someone spotted some of our cows heading down the road. There was a mad scramble for boots and shoes as the men all went out to head them off at the pass and get them back in where they belong. During calving season we keep them all in a small pasture east of the barn where it's easier to check on the birthing situation. For a diet they get chopped grain in the morning and then hay and greenfeed bales rolled out on the ground. I think they are getting tired of the same old same old every day and took a notion to head for their summer pasture on their own - that's certainlly where they were headed.
Glen is planning to separate out the cows that have already had their calves and send them out into a field next to the house, just so they have more space, but we can't have the heifers out yet. We have three or four that haven't had their babies yet and because they are smaller animals they may need assistance when the time comes. So far we've had to pull two calves and a third one died because we didn't intervene in time. We thought we had chosen a bull with lower expected birth weights for the heifers, but he seems to sire bigger than planned.
This spring our herd will be up to about eighty animals so Glen had to go looking for another bull. It gets complicated after a while - you want to keep a sire separate from his daughters and a bull is only expected to service 30 cows anyway so as your herd grows, so does your number of bulls. Glen made his purchase at a sale this week. To me it's just another big Black Angus bull - I'll be lucky to be able to tell them apart - but you'd think it was Christmas and the bull was Santa himself the way Glen carried on. I have the feeling I didn't show the proper amount of enthusiasim.
This week is going to be totally out of the ordinary for me - even after I convince myself that tomorrow is actually Monday. Sandy, our oldest daughter, and I are heading off to England next weekend to visit my aunt in Oxford and to see some country; Scotland for sure, possibly Wales, and places like Stonehenge, Salisbury, and Bath. The flights were booked ages ago, but it's only just becoming real to me these past few days. I'm running the whole emotional gammit of happy, excited, nervous, anxious, regret Glen's not comming, happy Sandy is ... It will just be good to get on the plane and get the trip underway!
Sunday, April 16, 2006
Saturday, April 01, 2006
A Learning Curve
These past few months have been interesting. I've mentioned that Glen has a part time job running a bulldozer preparing oil lease sites for when the rigs come in to drill for oil - the extra money is welcome, and he's a regular guy - he loves to play with the big machinery.
There have been oil wells in Southeastern Saskatchewan since before I was born, but the main discoveries were made either southwest of here at Alida, or west at Parkman, close enough that most people valued the mineral rights they had on their land, but far enough away that the oil companies showed little interest in drilling in this area. Since Glen and I were married in 1983 we have leased these rights twice to oil companies for three years each time, but no exploration ever came of it. It gave us a little extra money at the time and the dream of what it would mean if they ever came and found oil, but nothing else.
Skip forward to 2004. The price of a barrel of oil is at a dizzy 50 to 60 dollars per barrel and the technology for finding and drilling for oil has come a long way, baby. A major find is announced just a few miles east of our land, at Sinclair, Manitoba and the whole area starts to reap the benefits of oil money. All last year Glen worked just a few miles from home and every once in a while we daydreamed that soon the oil guys would be knocking on our door. And, sure enough, early in the new year they started the ball rolling.
There has been so much to learn since then! Before, when we leased our rights, it was a simple procedure - they gave us a nominal fee to reserve the right to explore for oil on the three quarters we have rights on for the next three years. No exploration ever took place, no surface leases had to be hashed out, no rigs were ever brought in, no money was made, and no tax implications had to be considered. This time it's a whole other ball game.
This time there is very little doubt that they will drill. In fact, there is already a well site staked out on one of our fields waiting for the spring thaw to pass so they can move the heavy equipment on. We don't have the rights to oil revenue on this quarter, but we have had to go over the surface lease and make some changes so that our access to the land is not spoiled for farming. The people who do have the rights are Glen's parents, who are in their eighties and are kind of overwhelmed with the business end of having their mineral rights worth something after all these years. We've talked to more lawyers and accountants in the past month than ever before in our lives. At the moment we are at a stalemate - if the wells do produce there will need to be some sort of a corporation or trust put in place to handle the business and taxes, but setting these things up costs a lot of money so you don't want to do it until you know for sure there is oil production that can pay for it. There is a real need for people to learn more about what they need to do so Glen has been organizing a public information meeting with both the legal and money management implications to be discussed; between that and his cows calving on a steady basis, he's a busy boy these days.
One thing I will say is, that if anyone is looking for high paying work, Southeastern Saskatchewan is the place to be. Manpower says that they are looking to fill 1700 jobs this summer, a large percentage of them in the oilfield. Glen says it almost feels like we're in the middle of a goldrush and I'm not going to disagree with him on that. The thing I think about is that money can bring out the good in people, but it also shows the bad. It's not just a windfall - it is also a responsibility to use what you have wisely.
Pretty heavy thoughts from someone who doesn't have anything staked out on their land yet, eh? And, who's to say that it wouldn't be a dry hole if and when they do drill!
There have been oil wells in Southeastern Saskatchewan since before I was born, but the main discoveries were made either southwest of here at Alida, or west at Parkman, close enough that most people valued the mineral rights they had on their land, but far enough away that the oil companies showed little interest in drilling in this area. Since Glen and I were married in 1983 we have leased these rights twice to oil companies for three years each time, but no exploration ever came of it. It gave us a little extra money at the time and the dream of what it would mean if they ever came and found oil, but nothing else.
Skip forward to 2004. The price of a barrel of oil is at a dizzy 50 to 60 dollars per barrel and the technology for finding and drilling for oil has come a long way, baby. A major find is announced just a few miles east of our land, at Sinclair, Manitoba and the whole area starts to reap the benefits of oil money. All last year Glen worked just a few miles from home and every once in a while we daydreamed that soon the oil guys would be knocking on our door. And, sure enough, early in the new year they started the ball rolling.
There has been so much to learn since then! Before, when we leased our rights, it was a simple procedure - they gave us a nominal fee to reserve the right to explore for oil on the three quarters we have rights on for the next three years. No exploration ever took place, no surface leases had to be hashed out, no rigs were ever brought in, no money was made, and no tax implications had to be considered. This time it's a whole other ball game.
This time there is very little doubt that they will drill. In fact, there is already a well site staked out on one of our fields waiting for the spring thaw to pass so they can move the heavy equipment on. We don't have the rights to oil revenue on this quarter, but we have had to go over the surface lease and make some changes so that our access to the land is not spoiled for farming. The people who do have the rights are Glen's parents, who are in their eighties and are kind of overwhelmed with the business end of having their mineral rights worth something after all these years. We've talked to more lawyers and accountants in the past month than ever before in our lives. At the moment we are at a stalemate - if the wells do produce there will need to be some sort of a corporation or trust put in place to handle the business and taxes, but setting these things up costs a lot of money so you don't want to do it until you know for sure there is oil production that can pay for it. There is a real need for people to learn more about what they need to do so Glen has been organizing a public information meeting with both the legal and money management implications to be discussed; between that and his cows calving on a steady basis, he's a busy boy these days.
One thing I will say is, that if anyone is looking for high paying work, Southeastern Saskatchewan is the place to be. Manpower says that they are looking to fill 1700 jobs this summer, a large percentage of them in the oilfield. Glen says it almost feels like we're in the middle of a goldrush and I'm not going to disagree with him on that. The thing I think about is that money can bring out the good in people, but it also shows the bad. It's not just a windfall - it is also a responsibility to use what you have wisely.
Pretty heavy thoughts from someone who doesn't have anything staked out on their land yet, eh? And, who's to say that it wouldn't be a dry hole if and when they do drill!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)