Quakes, Tornadoes and Fish Kills, Oh My

All that, and more.  My beautiful summer garden is on the wane and I check each day to see what is still faring well.

The echinacea is fodder for the birds now.  The orioles certainly do like those pin sharp seeds and that is all they are getting as I had to stop feeding the birds due to the rats.

Love black-eyed Susans.  They return each year like gangbusters.

Though the phlox are losing many petals, they still smell wonderful and the butterflies love them.

These flowers grow all over.  I haven't a clue what they are.  The first year I pulled them all up and saw one I had missed had snapdragon-like flowers climbing up the stalk.  They also come in many different colors, so I left them all this year.

So, summer is hurrying by.  It has been a strange one.  Oh, by the way, in the past week, there have been 1500 earthquakes (fracking.)  A fairly strong tornado passed within blocks of my first child's house and did quite a lot of damage.  Buildings destroyed and trees down and people hurt at 1:30am. Sirens didn't even go off.  Daughter's house was spared though only five blocks away. The tornado stayed on the ground for seven miles. It is only the third tornado in August since 1950 in Tulsa.  Seems it was caused by unseasonably cooler temps.  I'm not complaining about the cooler temps as August here is usually miserably hot, in triple digits.  Global warming? Climate change?

Oh yes, and the fish kill on the lake.  I saw a dead fish off my dock.  Then another and another.  Over about two days, every fish in our lake was floating.  Small fry and huge fish as long as my arm.  Everywhere.  Hundreds.  The smell was horrid. The wildlife department came out and tested.  Seems the perfect storm of events occurred.  Low oxygen levels, number of waterfowl and high temperatures and whatever else, caused it.  I doubt there are any left.  At least the turtles and waterfowl weren't affected.  It was terrible.

Sitting Ducks

Nineteen - 19 - quakes this past week, all due to fracking.  Last night was a big one.  It shook much longer and harder than last weeks'. I kept waiting for it to stop shaking, the noise and popping and cracking.  

After the one last week, the Corporation Commission shut down 37 disposal wells near the quake site (there are thousands) and shut down drill sites within a 6 mile radius.  

This quake happened in Cushing, where a major pipeline runs and the Keystone Pipeline from Canada was going to hook up on its path to the Gulf.  They also store about 10% of the US stores of crude oil in Cushing.  Major spot.  There, the electricity went out when the shaking began.  Partial, old buildings collapsed and they are assessing the damage today.  Glad winter hasn't arrived yet.

I don't know what the Corp. Comm. will do after this larger one.  As I mentioned before, the industry slipped this by us.  We had no idea what fracking entailed nor the results of it.  I don't think we could have stopped them anyway as our state's economy depends on the oil and gas industry.  Civil services, education and on and on are hurting from the collapse of gas prices.

Meanwhile Boo the cat, wanted out of the house.  All the animals were aware of the quake.  He's been in the city for nearly 3 weeks as he was sick and needed attending.  He's an outdoor cat, but I've been too afraid to let him outside as he isn't familiar with the territory and might get lost.  He is going home tomorrow.  He has clawed up the edges of my new powder blue modern sofa and OMG the cat box thing has been horrible.

Though we've not had a freeze yet, the cottonwood leaves are falling - all over the lawn and flower beds. Last week I had to catch a rat.  This week, a gopher has made a hill next to my goldfish pond and the sand has sifted in the pond.  That, and the filter/pump froze up.  I, who can tell the difference between a flat or phillips head screw driver, but that is it, had to take the whole filter and motor apart to clean out all the sludge and matter.  Even with tweezers.  Aye yay yay.  

Oh how I wish I was the Queen or at least could afford assistants.

And Another Quake

I couldn't sleep last night and was in bed reading.  About 11:30, I heard what sounded like a strong wind outside my bedroom door which moved around the house and went down the other side.  The cat looked up and I knew what was happening within a second.  Cracking and popping.  The last one was a 5.8.  This one was a 4.5.  I don't know if this crack was there before or not.  

Remember, very few in Oklahoma have earthquake insurance.  It is too high and the deductibles are 20%.  

Damn frackers.

Oklahoma Shakes

It happened about two weeks ago.  My weenies woke me and we were on the couch in the living room.  At about 7:00am, the sound of a jet's engines began and the weenies started to bark.  Then the shaking began.  There was a whole lot of shaking going on. Unbelievable rockin' and rollin'.  A 5.8 on the Richter scale.  This time I knew what was happening.  My first thought was that it was the New Madrid Fault rupturing.   Last time that happened, it caused the mighty Mississippi River to run backwards.  The last New Madrid quake was huge (7 or more) and occurred about 100 years ago.  It is past due for a repeat and will be terrible.

Ours lasted for one minute, but seemed longer.  I jumped up and ran to the back door to see what the lake out back was doing.  It jiggled like a bowl of jello.  As the shaking slowed, I heard the sound move away to the south then vanish.  It was a trip.

I looked around the house for damage. They say look at the chimney as that will show damage first.  I'm looking for cracks in sidewalks and patios and walls etc. A couple of days later, I noticed the overlapped wood on the chimney had fallen loose. Our rooftop is steep and with varied pitches; I don't know what you call it, but we (hubby, as I would have rolled off the roof in seconds) had to borrow a ladder tall enough to get up there and screw the wood down.  Not much damage that I have found, but the town at the epicenter had lots of damage as did many houses in my city.

This quake was caused by greedy oil and gas czars, fracking our state to death.  They dispose of the chemical filled water by-products from the drilling process deep underground, which has caused Oklahoma to have more quakes than California.  A few years ago, we had two quakes.  The last two years, in the thousands.  The oil companies won't (with help from politicians and lobbyists) divulge what is in the noxious chemical mix, but groundwater and aquifers are being poisoned.  I could go on, but won't.  They did shut down some of the disposal wells, but that was after the fact.

Insurers will sell us quake insurance, not covered on homeowners policies, but the deductibles are 20% of the cost of the house.  Can you imagine?  I believe that this is just one of the reasons our country is facing such a political mess.  The masses have had enough. 

The Last Hurrah

I make no bones about it.  I don't like winter and a cold wind is howling tonight. Winters in Oklahoma are hard and frigid. Last winter, Oklahoma recorded its coldest temperature ever at 29 degrees below zero.  I'd much rather be at the beach. Okay, the summers are hotter than you know where; our temperatures were the highest on record this summer at over 115 degrees.  There were terrible wildfires and we are still in extreme drought conditions.  In fact, our state has had crazy weather of late.  Just yesterday, Oklahoma had tornadoes, flooding rains, snow and earthquakes.  Yes, we are having quite a lot of earthquakes.  We've had small ones before; usually they aren't even noticeable.  Three in the last three days have been noticeable.  I never hope to be an earthquake stronger than the 5.7 one Saturday night.  It took me a minute to figure out what it was.  The roar was the first thing I noticed.  I thought a jet was going to crash into my house.  I never knew an earthquake made noise.  I heard today that the roaring was sound waves emanating from the earth.  Who knew?  Then the house started shaking.  I could even hear and feel it as it moved away.  Weirdest thing I've ever encountered.  Made the hair stand on end.  I don't know how anyone could make it outside during an earthquake.  I sat there mesmerized; an earthquake was the last thing I could have imagined.  I'm not superstitious, don't believe in the messianic end times soothsayers, but something strange is going on.