No More Gas on the Ponderosa!

Last Tuesday we came home to find a card in our door from the "gas well police"  also known as the oil and gas inspector for the great state of Tennessee.  His card had a note that said 'please call concerning well, it is on plugging contract'.  We were not too concerned about this and placed his card on the table at the end of the couch.  You know the one-- where you toss all the mail and deal with it later.  Before we could deal, that very night someone called us.  He was the plugger who gets paid by the state of Tennessee.  He explained that he and the inspector had visited our property that day and  located the well.

We were not hiding the well, it is right there beside that cedar tree in the middle of the field!  See it?  It was there when we moved here 25 years ago.  We tried to use it a couple of times and it worked fine until it snowed a foot or was 25 below zero then it would go out.  After the second time we deserted it and never used it again.  That was at least 20 years ago.
We were told that it would need to be plugged or we could pay a 500 dollar fee for a bond.  Since it doesn't work and we don't use it there was a quick decision made to plug it.  The deciding factor being that the plugging involved no charge at all to us! 
So this morning two large trucks arrived.

 They inspected the situation, and confirmed that we had given them permission to cut the cedar tree

 The well was plugged with Peanut observing, because guys like big machines and of course you can always learn something-- you never know when you might need to plug a gas well.

 The whole process took several hours.  They drilled down 1400 feet and poured 5 bags of cement and then they came back up about 50 feet and poured 10 more bags and then on top they poured 5 more bags of cement.  They did not mean for us to be in that well again!! 
Finally they cut the top off about a foot below the ground in case we ever want to plow that area.

And here is what is left, you can't tell it was ever there and we have a better view of the horses and the road.  We just wonder why it took them 25 years to get concerned about the Ponderosa gas well!