Filed under: Bodi, Christmas, baby, grandson, tibbetts | Tags: baby, Bodi, Christmas, grandson
Our second grandchild and our first grandson arrived on Christmas Eve!
Introducing Henrik Bodin Kwiatkowski, aka Bodi –
He weighed in at 8 lbs 9 oz.
And he’s 21 1/4 inches long.
Our daughter Ema and Baby Bodi are doing great.
Here’s Bodi with his big sister Hailey and Daddy Tim.
What a Christmas gift!
Filed under: Colorado, Garfield County, Silt, West Elk Multi-Use, cross country skiing, dogs, happy holidays, peggy tibbetts, tibbetts, west elk
Wishing all my readers, friends and family a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
- Peggy and Tod, Venus and Zeus along the West Elk Ski Trail
We are awaiting the birth of our second grandchild any day now. When the Big Event happens I’ll post an announcement and photo of the little tyke.
Beyond that, I plan to take some time off blogging during the holidays. In the new year, I will be starting a series about Venus (white dog in photo), our Akbash/Lab mix. She was diagnosed with CCD (canine compulsive disorder) in November. I will be sharing our journey through treatment and rehabilitation, in hopes of helping other dog owners facing this illness and searching for answers. You won’t want to miss this amazing dog story!
Filed under: Colorado, Garfield County, Silt, West Elk Multi-Use, cross country skiing, skiing, snowshoeing, volunteers, west elk, winter sports
West Elk Multi-Use Club has a new blog!
Cross country skiing is back! Yippee!
Kay Robinson and James Fletcher groomed the ski trails last Saturday. It’s time to strap on the snowshoes or step in those skis and hit the trails. We need people to get out and track those trails.
Tod and I skied the past two weekends. Last Saturday we brought the camera. Check this out:
Tod at the start of the outer loop
Here's me with my ski buddy Zeus.
Zeus and Venus being snow dogs
As you can see we have a terrific base established and with the tracking that’s been done, it should set up nicely.
If you’re not familiar with the West Elk Trail system, just drive up the Buford Road until you reach the parking lot. The trailhead is on the right side.
In 2009, Tod and I will be taking over much of the responsibility for organizing the West Elk Multi-Use Club and keeping it afloat. Kay Robinson has done a superb job of organizing thus far and maintaining the trails for many years. But we need your help to keep it going.
Here is the West Elk Mult-Use Club annual letter from Kay Robinson:
West Elk Multi Use Club 2008-2009
Hello members of the WEMC. There is enough snow to ski or snowshoe and more looks like it’s on the way. Late this fall, before the snow came, the trails were cleared of down timber by our volunteers and are being packed by snowmobile the weekend of 12/6. So, the trails are ready for use for this winter.
LOVA (Lower Valley Trails Group) has again come through with funding to pay for our liability insurance that the White River National Forest requires us to have. This is an annual cost of approximately $700.00 and LOVA’s contribution is welcome.
This year we are keeping the dues at $ 15.00 per person. Dues are used to help defray the cost of packing the trail by volunteers on snowmobile. Dues also pay for the trail marking supplies. We have decided to keep the dues as low as possible in hopes people that use the trail will contribute this nominal amount, but extra donations are welcome. With gas costs high and the heavy snowfalls last year, there were no funds left over from last year, so your financial support is essential in keeping the trails packed.
We are hoping to get more members signed up this year. If you know of anyone that would enjoy the trail system our group is maintaining, please let them know about it and encourage them to join the Club. Remember the Forest Service just gives us permission to use and maintain the trail system, it does not contribute to those costs.
Because of the snow volume we experience at the elevation the trail system is at, using personal snowmobiles to pack the trail is hard on those machines. To do the job that is needed, the Club needs to get a snowmobile designed for heavy snow and for pulling a packer/groomer. This equipment costs around $5,000 to purchase and there are grants available for its purchase, but it requires a more formal organization than our current structure to apply and be awarded these grants. To that end, we are re-structuring our Board. We have added two new members, Tod and Peggy Tibbetts, and are looking for a couple more. It’s a minimal commitment of a couple meetings per year. With a Board of about 8 people, the minimal amount of work that needs to be done gets spread out so no one individual has too much to do. If interested, please contact any of the current Board members.
The current Board members are:
James Fletcher – Chairman
Yvonne Chambers – Sec/Treas.
Eric Bowley – Trails
Kay Robinson – Trails
Tod and Peggy Tibbetts – HelpersPlease send your dues to: Yvonne Chambers, 28580 US Hwy 6, Rifle, CO 81650
Thank you for your support.
Sincerely,
Kay Robinson“No man has a moral right to withhold his support from an organization that is striving to improve conditions in his sphere.” – Theodore Roosevelt
Please contact Tod or me, if you would like to get more involved. You can look us up in the phone book, or email: peggyt@siltnet.net
You can often find us weekends on the trails with Venus and Zeus
Filed under: COGCC, Colorado, Encana, Garfield County, Piceance Basin, Silt, drill rigs, drilling, economy, energy companies, environment, gas well industry, gas wells, impacts, man camps, permit, pollution, smog
These two nearly identical headlines in appeared in today’s local newspapers:
There they go again – those energy companies – jerking our collective chains. I guess they think if they can scare us into thinking they plan to cut back on drilling so maybe our local economy might tank then they can get us to like them. It’s a strange way to make friends.
But let’s take a closer look at what’s really going on here.
More drilling cutbacks planned on Western Slope
By DENNIS WEBBRIFLE — More natural gas developers said today that they are scaling back local operations, citing the same factors that already have led other energy companies to reduce the levels of their investments in western Colorado.
The latest announcements came at the quarterly Northwest Colorado Oil and Gas Forum in Rifle. Companies have said falling natural gas prices, the nation’s lending crisis and stricter state oil and gas development regulations that are scheduled for final approval next week all have affected their plans in a region where it already is costly to drill. [emphasis added]
Okay. So that’s really what all this is about. The energy companies don’t like the proposed new regs so they’re using the local media to employ the shock doctrine. Headlines are deceiving. This news is designed to conjure up memories of Black Sunday in 1982, when Exxon pulled out of oil shale development and the local economy from Glenwood Springs to Grand Junction collapsed. Plenty of locals remember those days. In fact it’s such a powerful image embedded in the local psyches, the energy companies don’t even need to say the words Black Sunday to get their message across.
But are they really cutting back here?
“Corporately, Antero’s downscaled from nine rigs in two states down to three, with two rigs now operating in the Piceance (Basin),” said Jon Black, local operations manager for Antero Resources.
So Antero is downscaling elsewhere but keeping their two rigs here. No cutback.
The company’s operations in western Colorado’s gas-rich Piceance Basin are in the Silt to Rifle area.
He said the company expects to drill 37 to 40 wells in the area next year, compared to as many as 86 by this year’s end.
The keyword here is expects, which means it hasn’t actually happened yet. Besides, 40 new wells on top of 86 already drilled is a hell of a lot of holes, if you ask me. If they have too many to begin with, then it’s not really a cutback. More like rational behavior.
Ken Leis, director of land for Laramie Energy II, said that company had been running three drilling rigs in the Rifle area.
“We let a rig go about a month ago and also plan on dropping another rig in about another month,” Leis said.
Again they’re talking about a plan. They let one rig go and plan to drop another one. We’ll see …
A representative for Marathon Oil, which operates north of Parachute, said it is running three rigs, down from four last month. It plans to let go of another rig and run two throughout next year. It is sticking with plans to open an office in Parachute.
More semantics. One or two. Not exactly high impact numbers here, people. And they still plan to open an office. <sniff-sniff> Doesn’t smell like cutback to me.
ConocoPhillips, which operated five rigs early this year north of Parachute, is down to one but is expecting another to be delivered. Spokesman Derek Wagner said the company hasn’t settled on its budget for next year.
It’s not necessary to work in the gas fields to know a little something about how the industry works. All this tells me is that the four rigs they dropped weren’t producing enough gas so they shut em down. Happens all the time. This is not news. This is a maybe-we-will-maybe-we-won’t game they’re playing to beef up the scare tactics.
The same goes for OXY, which is running nine rigs in the area and has 68 local workers and about 800 contractors. Operations manager Doug Weaver said low natural gas prices are a consideration as the company’s budget process continues, but no local drilling plans have been finalized.
Here they make sure they identify 68 local workers, just to shake things up a little. Uh-oh That’s 68 jobs in a crappy economy. Jerking the chain again. They haven’t finalized their plans. It’s just hype.
EnCana Oil & Gas (USA) has yet to announce its local plans for next year but is operating 10 rigs, down a couple from its recent average.
The area’s biggest natural gas producer, Williams Production RMT, already has said it will be cutting back to about 20 rigs next year, from 26 this year.
Blah, blah, blah. More of the same. As I pointed out, these are small numbers which amount to normal drilling activity.
Bill Barrett Corp., Delta Petroleum and Berry Petroleum are among some other companies planning local cutbacks. Barrett has been spending about $250 million for its drilling south of Silt this year but expects that amount to be cut at least in half for next year.
Wow. Cut in half? In Silt? I drop to my knees and pray, “Oh please, dear God.”
If only. I’ll believe it when I see it – or should I say when I don’t smell it anymore. Silt and its people and environment could use a break. Good riddance Bill Barrett.
Meanwhile, Chevron has called off plans to boost its investment in its De Beque-area drilling program by 50 percent and double its rig count there from two to four. Instead, it intends to keep its local budget the same for the next three years.
Boost. Double. Same. No cutback in Debeque.
Leis said if new Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission rules let the Division of Wildlife restrict drilling on private land, that would have a “tremendous impact” on Laramie.
Oh. See? We’re back to that again. Those pesky new rules the energy companies are all in a dither about. Well I have news for them. Their business-as-usual has had a tremendous impact on the local people, wildlife, and environs. Now they know how we feel. Smells like diesel. Burns your eyes and leaves a bitter taste in your mouth.
Commission Director Dave Neslin said new rules for operating in sensitive wildlife habitats are “intended to be a cooperative effort to come up with site-specific mitigation.”
He said the wide-ranging rules the commission is close to adopting probably are affecting the drilling plans of some companies, but the national economic slowdown and falling natural gas prices appear to be bigger factors.
He told attendees at Thursday’s forum the new rule-making is a balanced approach that will allow the industry to continue to operate in a robust fashion while protecting the public, wildlife and the environment.
The drilling slowdown has yet to reveal itself in state drilling permits, which totaled 7,200 so far this year through the end of November.
That’s already well above last year’s record 6,368-permit total, and the final 2008 figure could reach 7,600 to 7,800, Neslin said.
Bingo! You see, you need to read all the way through to the end to get the real picture. Drilling permits are up. Not cutback. Not downscale. Not slowdown. Not anything. Just catapulting the propaganda.
We can only hope the energy companies do what they are threatening here. It will maybe – just maybe – give us and Mother Nature a chance to clean up some of the mess they’ve already made.
Yeah, I know. Everybody’s worried about the economy. So the energy companies talking about cutbacks is designed to make people nervous about the local economy. But the real problem for the workers and the energy companies is that the gas boom has not been all that good for our local economy.
As I see it, an energy slowdown might bring down the price of groceries and goods and gas and rent and real estate. Transient workers from Oklahoma, Nebraska, Louisiana, Texas, Utah, Wyoming, and Michigan, might leave. Maybe people will be able to afford to live here again. The industry might stop transporting hundreds of illegal workers into man camps up in the back country (yeah, we know what’s really going on around here). Maybe they will even shut down some of the camps.
There’s an awful lot of hope floating around these days. Maybe those winds of change will blow our way after all.
We can always dream …
