Progress?

Yesterday morning, when the world here in “farm country” was quiet, I kept hearing a motor running. I imagine in the city, no one pays attention to such things, since there are always cars and trucks bustling along the streets. Even here, there’s a lot of truck traffic. Not to mention we’re relatively close to the Pittsburgh Airport and are under one of the flight paths. But this was different somehow. Like a car idling outside my window. Only there weren’t any vehicles with engines running.

I stepped out on my porch. The sound was there, but I still couldn’t locate it. A steady monotonous rumble. I mentioned it to Hubby, but he didn’t have any answers for me.

Until today. He spotted the source on his way home from errands. It’s begun.

If you’ve followed me here for any length of time, you know that I’ve been waiting for the onslaught of Marcellus Shale drilling to occur. We leased our gas rights over a year ago and rumors have been flying about when and if they would ever drill here. I knew it wouldn’t be ON our land. We didn’t give up our surface rights. But how close would it be?

Answer: VERY.

The source of the endless monotonous rumble is earth movers on the hill directly behind my house. Directly behind our property line. I can’t see them (yet) from my window or my backyard because of the trees. But today as I stood outside my basement door, I could definitely locate them by ear if not by eye. Hubby says they’ve already piled up a mound of dirt as big, or bigger, than our house.

This is why I put “farm country” in quotes above. The area is turning more and more industrial. I also learned this week that our neighbors, who used to have a large herd of cattle until recently, sold their farm to Range Resources. I’m trying not to think about what that means.

Except for the royalty checks. I do keep reminding myself of those. We could use them right about now.

So at least I know the source of the noise. Like the tractor trailers that roll by our house and the planes that roar overhead, I can tune out the sound as long as I know where it’s coming from.

For now.

As for revisions, I’m happy to report that I have met my weekly goal for three weeks running, AND I’ve passed the 200 word mark on the rewrite. I’m feeling a lot better about my long-term goal of finishing this draft before the holidays…as long as we’re talking the Christmas/New Years holidays and not Thanksgiving.