These aren't the Barkleys

- Mitchell Co horses, 2017 -

The Dutton family is not benevolent. They have very little likeness to the Cartrights or the Barkleys of western yore. Fathers will not be kissing sons the way Lucas did Mark. There will be lots of horses and machine guns.

Yes, I have been sucked into the vortex of Yellowstone, an hour long per episode cowboy mafia soap opera. I didn't want to like it, but now I find myself wondering what Teeter's doing and babbling to strangers about how to mark a horse for war. It wasn't even a horse I was using as an example, it was a buffalo statue in front of the Arrowhead Motel in Ruidoso, but I couldn't be stopped.

There are unlikely things that happen, but with a good show, I'll suspend my belief after I complain about it. Such as, I was thinking that these business tycoons would keep a closer eye on local land sales, but they could have been too busy to look at them, what with all the attempts to kill their family and all.

Speaking of land sales, there was all kinds of speculation about Taylor Sheridan, co-creator of Yellowstone, buying the Four Sixes Ranch in Guthrie. I don't know why there was any wondering, because the information is right there in the TexasFile database, searching King County. Memorandum of sale last December, memorandum of exclusions in June. Sheridan Ranch Properties with Taylor Sheridan's signature, plain as day. I'm not always able to find what I'm looking for, but this took about five minutes. TexasFile and county appraisal websites are powerful tools for finding information.

Anyway, Yellowstone is not for the faint of heart, but the characters are vivid and there's never mundane action. The continuity of story is satisfying. Sometimes I'll ask a question (out loud or in my head), then it's immediately addressed. The downside is that I blew through three and a half seasons, not realizing I only have a handful of episodes available to watch before season five starts in November.

Top ten Fisher County oil leases

- EA6869 -

The EA6869 lease is using one location to drill two wells, one with a bottom hole on the Emily lease in Fisher County, the other on the Adams lease in Scurry County. It looks like a city being built out there. Access is from Fisher County Road 347. That's a long way to go across pasture and field. The site is visible from FM 1614, north of the Emily 1H and Emily 2H wells.

The top ten oil producing leases in Fisher County from January to April 2022, most to least, were:

• Grand Canyon W 31-46 at 68,222 BBL (barrels of crude oil, 42 gallons)
• Saguaro W 105-58 at 66,936 BBL
• Carlsbad Caverns 54-55 at 59,928 BBL
• Canyonlands E 61-60 at 51,338 BBL
• Tennie Unit at 44,328 BBL
  
• Jill Unit at 40,054 BBL
• Johnson Unit at 38,094 BBL
• Sequoia E 63-6 at 35,838 BBL
• Hannah-Stevie Unit at 35,497 BBL
• Sequoia 63-6 at 32,865 BBL
  

Clear Fork, Peregrine and Moriah are the operators on these leases. The Railroad Commission doesn't have reporting for production beyond April. More information can be found by going to the RRC website and clicking Query>Production Data Query>General Production Query.

Changes in the view

- Bugs on FM 419 -

Besides the oil and wind industry changes in the landscape, a few other things are looking different around here.

Up on Rooster Corner, named by me and my kids, just north of Nunn Hill (what TxDOT guys called it) and Bus Wreck Curve (named by me, from a school bus wreck I saw in 1968 or '69), nothing is left except two eternal Volkswagen Bugs. It was always a topic of conversation to try to identify whether the old brick house that sat there was occupied or not. A long time ago there used to be roosters in the extensive pens, but trees had grown through them and they sat empty for decades.Sometimes there were dogs there. It's looking pretty good, now.

About a month ago, I noticed the old jail in Roby was being cleaned out. I mean desks, shelves, everything. I wonder what they're going to do with it. It has the best facade in the county, I hope it's not going to be razed.

The Rotan school looks like a big purple building as you drive in from the west. That's just the new construction, not the final exterior. It looks like it's where that weird little sidewalk from the south side of the cafeteria used to be. My kids were always falling down and hurting their legs there.

I took a drive back into Rough Creek, where I recently saw my first Mountain Boomer (Collared Lizard). He was so colorful he didn't even look like he was from here. He was so quick, I didn't actually see his collar, just a lot of aqua-blue and green. On a second drive, I saw the female, pretty, but mostly brown. I didn't see the male that time, but I'm glad he's not out there alone.

Driving farther down that road and coming up behind Koonsman, I saw a huge solar farm in the beginning stages. It had Criswell in the name, so I'm guessing it's on that ranch. It's in Scurry County.