Fracking winter quarter

I've decided that someone needs to invent a caffeine drip. Something convenient and non-invasive, for the gal on the go!

Because oy vey.

Winter quarter hasn't even started for me and I'm already exhausted.

Whoever thought taking three classes was a good idea needs to be kicked.

Oh wait, that was me?… Well my comment still stands.

So it worked out that none of my classes got cancelled, which was good, because it saved me from having to scramble and find two new electives and get the books ordered in under a week. However, because I held off ordering my books until I had confirmation on my classes, I still won't have any of my texts in time for Monday. The psych book is still backordered, and who knows how long that will take, and the other two said they shipped yesterday, but the tracking number was "undetected". Whatever that means.

Le sigh.

Almost done. That's what I keep telling myself whenever I start getting all bajiggety. Almost done with my degree. The end is nigh.

(Whether that "end" is my degree or my sanity, I'm still unsure)

Besides that, life is good. Well, mostly. We just recently found out that an oil company may be looking to drill on the lot across from us (nestled between three other occupied lots, mind you).

Clearly, I'm unimpressed with this.

Back in November, shortly after we had moved in, our contractor mentioned that they'd stopped building on the lot across from us. A "landman" representing EOG Resources (you know, Enron) showed up on sight, check in hand, and bought the forty acres.

Then nothing happened…

Turns out, they're in the process of going through the necessary channels to gain approval to drill out here.

And there's pretty much nothing we can do about it, 1) because they're not wanting to drill on our actual land, and 2) because we don't own any mineral rights anyway, so we have no say.

Wyoming (and I'm sure a few other states as well) have what is called "split estates". This means you buy a house, but you don't necessarily buy the ground underneath it. You only own the surface unless you negotiate a separate deal to purchase the mineral rights from whoever owns them, and ownership of those rights could go back as far as the 1860s!

If you own mineral rights, you have much more bargaining power, because the oil companies have to lease the minerals from you. Without mineral rights, landowners only have surface use agreements in their favor. But again, they're not drilling on our forty acres, so we basically have no recourse until they poison our well.

We're basically just along for the ride.

Granted, nothing has happened yet. Our HOA president is fighting tooth and nail with what (limited) power he has. I guess the mineral rights to this entire area are owned 51% by Burlington Northern, and 49% by one individual. And ironically, the railroad is actually the easier of the two to deal with!

So we'll see. And they may not end up drilling there at all (they're looking at a 30-square-mile area in total, so they could pick another spot). But if they do, you can bet we are going to be proactive about protecting and monitoring our water supply. And I will sue their pants off if they contaminate it.

And if they decide to frack instead of straight drilling? Oh you better believe they will become very familiar with my face over at the Capitol building!!! Time for this hippie mama to get her activism on!

Amen sista