I was getting a wee bit impatient.
I was under the assumption that "let's build a house" said in 2009, meant let's start tomorrow. Or at least that year. Or maybe the following spring? Summer maybe? I was wrong.
There were a few things that needed to happen. Something had to GO away.
They were black, chunky, dirty and there was a lot of them. Coal.
We had coal seams on the property and it was being mined. And mined. And mined. The property had been mined back in the 1950s and then on and on through the decades. It was now being wrapped up with a large gob (junky coal) being taken from the property and then the last of the coal had to be taken. The gob pile alone was 150,000 tons worth when it was removed.
The good coal would be stripped and also augered out.
( Sherri's explanation-a big drill screwed into a mountain horizontally)
Gee, I though, how long would that take?? A month, maybe three?
All I knew was the sooner it happened, the better! Then we could get down to the fun stuff. Building a house. I will admit it was kind of fun to see all the equipment come up the driveway and everything that was going on was new to me.
Back to the mining...
I had lived in Ohio in a housing development with 300 other homes before I moved south to the land of coal mines. I'd not seen action like this and it was neat to see it happen. At least for the first 2 years. Then it got a little old.
Let me give you an example. I was baking cookies one cold, winter day in 2011 and there was a knock at the door. One of the strip job workers said "You've got to leave ma'am. They are going to put off some charges. You have about 5 minutes".
Say what?
I come to find out "charges" is a nice word for explosion. What about my cookies? Do I take them out of the oven? Do I need to take the cats with me? Do I pack for a night? I was clueless.
This is what took place after I left my cookies in the oven.
The seasons came and went.
A good indicator of this were the "welcome" signs on our driveway. They never changed. Ambulance Entrance? Danger- Moving Equipment? What did it mean. Yep. We were still mining.
I was under the assumption that "let's build a house" said in 2009, meant let's start tomorrow. Or at least that year. Or maybe the following spring? Summer maybe? I was wrong.
There were a few things that needed to happen. Something had to GO away.
They were black, chunky, dirty and there was a lot of them. Coal.
We had coal seams on the property and it was being mined. And mined. And mined. The property had been mined back in the 1950s and then on and on through the decades. It was now being wrapped up with a large gob (junky coal) being taken from the property and then the last of the coal had to be taken. The gob pile alone was 150,000 tons worth when it was removed.
The good coal would be stripped and also augered out.
( Sherri's explanation-a big drill screwed into a mountain horizontally)
Gee, I though, how long would that take?? A month, maybe three?
All I knew was the sooner it happened, the better! Then we could get down to the fun stuff. Building a house. I will admit it was kind of fun to see all the equipment come up the driveway and everything that was going on was new to me.
Even the kids like it because after hours they could pose next to the equipment.
Liz and Sage in 2010
I had lived in Ohio in a housing development with 300 other homes before I moved south to the land of coal mines. I'd not seen action like this and it was neat to see it happen. At least for the first 2 years. Then it got a little old.
Let me give you an example. I was baking cookies one cold, winter day in 2011 and there was a knock at the door. One of the strip job workers said "You've got to leave ma'am. They are going to put off some charges. You have about 5 minutes".
Say what?
I come to find out "charges" is a nice word for explosion. What about my cookies? Do I take them out of the oven? Do I need to take the cats with me? Do I pack for a night? I was clueless.
This is what took place after I left my cookies in the oven.
And then there was this time when I got the knock at my door and was told I had 10 minutes to leave. By this time I knew what to do. I knew I had 10 minutes before I would hear "Fire in the Hole" over everyone's CB's and radios and a big BANG would happen. I would be allowed back to the house after about 30 minutes of waiting. Ho hummm....old hat to me by now.
But wait. As I started out the front door, I saw a man walking toward the house with a boxy looking machine with wires hanging off of it. I asked him what it was and he told me it was like a Geiger counter that would measure the strength of the explosion. Great, I thought. Should have packed up the cats or at least grabbed some fragile artifacts off the walls.
When I got the "all clear" to come back, I pulled up and looked at the house. What? Why were there some rocks on my front porch? And is that a couple of rocks up on the front of the roof? WTF? Was this an explosion gone wild? I called my Engineer Husband who called his brother Scott who happened to be head of the strip operations. Scott chuckled and then we found out that Scott had placed the rocks there to mess with me. Nice going,Scotty!
The seasons came and went.
A good indicator of this were the "welcome" signs on our driveway. They never changed. Ambulance Entrance? Danger- Moving Equipment? What did it mean. Yep. We were still mining.
2009 and then.....
2010 and then....
2011....and then....
You get the picture?
Still mining!
The signs stayed up as we were still technically an active mining site.
Finally! The day arrived and there was no more coal. Thank you.
The last truck was going to leave with the last bit of coal. Oh, Happy Day!
The road could finally be reconstructed up to our proposed house site and we could get going!
How long would a road take to put in? A few days, right?
Or at least that was what I thought.
No comments:
Post a Comment