Things going on

- IREN, Childress Co., Texas -

I didn't get on here in time to announce the special meeting held by Fisher County Commissioners this morning, but it's online at the Double Mountain Chronicle facebook page, if you'd like to watch it. It will also be posted on the Fisher County Courthouse Texas YouTube site.

I drove up to the Childress area to check out the IREN bitcoin mining project going on there. First I drove through a new solar construction zone, mistaking it for the IREN site. There's a lot of building going on in that area, around a community called Kirkland, but Childress County has a lot of space, and these huge projects seem to take up a small portion of it when looking at all that sky.

Between Childress and Guthrie, Guthrie and Aspermont, there is restful landscape to lay the eye on from horizon to horizon. I stopped in Paducah, between Childress and Guthrie, and got a cheeseburger from the Dairy Maid. There's more fries comes with that order than I can eat. Reminds me of the old days (1970's).

There's some activity going on out by the Wetsel Substation, where IREN has bought property for the Fisher County bitcoin mining project. It's just north of where the Claytonville gas plant used to be.

So, while I was looking to the left, something else was happening on my right. In Sweetwater, a data storage facility has been installed on Sam Houston Street. Veribi has a much smaller operation than IREN. I don't even know if it's the same product. If you stop at the 1 1/2 acre site and listen, it sounds like a giant evaporative cooler.

My guess is that there are some lucrative government subsidies for this industry, much like that for the windmills and solar farms. Chances are they'll be popping up everywhere, big and small.

One other thing, the Dollar General in Roby has opened. That is massive progress in this county and brings a department store a few more miles closer to my house.

Texas artist Rogers brings past to present

- Rogers' Tartan of 6666 -

While wandering through my thoughts this morning, I was day-dreaming about a full-length portrait of Jim Vernon in a duster that I saw many years ago hanging on the wall in his Sweetwater home. I couldn't remember if it was done by Mondel Rogers or the late Billy Martin, both being local artists and acquaintances of Mr. Vernon.

I pulled out my worn copy of Rogers' book, Old Ranches of the Texas Plains, to see if the portrait was in there. While perusing the pages, I came across this painting of the Four Sixes barn, titled Tartan of 6666.

The artist's comments on this painting were as such:

   "Part of the renowned Four Sixes headquarters at Guthrie is this red barn. Built about 1917 for Burk Burnett, it has stabled some of the finest horses in the Southwest. Stalls, hayloft, tack room, granary, and shoeing facilities are included, making it a complete unit.

    "The barn seems like a bit of ranch heraldry. Two brands, the 6666 for cattle and the L for horses, appear to make a coat of arms. The sliding metal doors might be two escutcheons And the batten boards, the vertical strips of corrugated sheet metal, and the crisscrossing of many fences, posts, lines, and corrals seemingly combine to interweave a special tartan for the 6666."

Another, nicer copy of this book, with dustjacket, lay on my mother's coffee table for decades. That copy was lost in various moves, but I pounced on this thrift-shop find and hoarded it away in my book collection. 

This 1976 book has an interest not only for current fans of the show Yellowstone, but for those interested in a way of living from a time gone past.