As the song goes “the weather last night was frightful” and it was, as it was all of last week, too. We have had some -35 C nights, but we are now in a heat wave as it was only -25 C last night. It’s days like this when I am glad I am not an old cow. I am sure they suffered in that weather as they can’t eat enough to keep warm at -35 C.
Along with the cold weather we had to have the cursed wind. Normally when it is really cold there is not much wind, but that is not the case this year. There has been wind every day. The weather forecast on my wife’s cell phone is for just below freezing in the daytime next week. We will see. That is the same forecast service that had just below freezing for all of January before the month started. Having survived the first two weeks of January, it comes to me that they were very wrong. I wondered at the time if they were full of oompapa.
On another subject, have you noticed the daylight is longer? Apparently we gain a minute a day in the morning and another minute at night. There you have had some useless trivia for the day. Interesting though. I look forward to the long sunny days in March and April. To me that is Saskatchewan, long days of beautiful sunlight. After that we seem to get too busy to stop and smell the roses. Stupid on our part.
Jan. 3 and 4 I have marked traces of hoar frost. Sometimes it is a rain sometimes not. We will see. I would bet on a rain at the beginning of July.
On the home front, I have heard the 3208 Cat motor rumbling in the shop. Jaco has had it running for a couple of minutes at a time. He is now sorting out the wiring. The motor being out of a combine has a few different wiring setups, but I am sure that the truck will soon be out of the shop and another one needs to go in. It’s an older F9000. A green operator, trying to start in high range, smoked the clutch. You can figure that one out. Lord love a Billy goat, work and trouble for nothing. All the truck does is pull a trailer hauling water for spraying but it’s no good the way it is.
In other local news, every day, you hear of this person or that person was laid off. It is all very disheartening and I hope these people all have unemployment insurance. The sad thing is oil is still being used and refined. That has not stopped. When the oil companies realize with all the cutbacks they are losing production maybe those people will have work again.
On the refinery side, this oil price is a bonus to those that have refineries. The feed stock is half of what it cost before and the fuel cost at the pumps is still 80 to 90 cents per litre. If the price was to follow the oil price when it was going up, now when it is going down, we should be buying gas at the pumps for 60 cents. Would this make you believe the refineries are doing quite fine, thank you very much. Most of the oil companies have contracted their oil for a year or more ahead so this low oil price may not have a big effect on them. Maybe that is what is going on.
In other oil patch news, the Keystone Pipeline is about to be approved through United States Congress, again. Also a court case where three ranchers in Nebraska were suing for more money to cross their land has been thrown out of court. It is only a question of time before this pipeline is actually built. President Obama is still determined to veto the pipeline bill. I fail to see the logic as it would mean jobs and economic stimulus for the people of United States. I understand that it will take three years to complete, so time is of the essences, get started now. There is still talk about the Pipeline East, but with Ontario and Quebec opposed to it the politics of this thing getting built is slim. In northern British Columbia the Gateway Pipeline to Prince Rupert has gone quiet again. In southern British Columbia the Kinder Morgan Pipeline is about to start digging. They have done all the court proceedings and are ready to go. They plan to add a three-foot pipeline beside the 18-inch one already there and the oil would be delivered to Vancouver harbour. Greenpeace and the aboriginals are against it, again. Some people should freeze in the dark for a while.
Meanwhile, as all these pipeline issues are figured out the oil tanker trains are rolling by day and night. I live a mile from the train tracks and I cannot tell you how many tanker cars of crude oil roll by here in a day. It is a lot. It is mostly 200-car trains that are a mile and a half long. If they stop on your railway crossing you might as well go a couple of intersections over if you need to get across the tracks.
Joke of the week: Simple Simon applied for a deputy sheriff’s job. In the interview, the sheriff asked, “What’s one and one?” Simon answered, “11.” The sheriff had to admit the boy was right. Next question: “What two days of the week start with the letter T?” “Today and tomorrow.” The sheriff was impressed by the way Simon thought outside the box, so he challenged him. “Who killed Abraham Lincoln?” Simon admitted, “I do not know.” “Well, go home and work on that one for a while,” replied the sheriff, satisfied that he’d stumped him. Simon went home and told his mother, “The interview went great! First day on the job and I’m already working a murder case!”
