The pasture just beyond my garden has three oil wells on it, two of which do work, but, don't produce much oil of which I get none of the money. My Mom owns the mineral rights and she is not nor has she ever been into sharing - even though they do sit on my land...

At the time when the wells were being drilled I worked for the oil company who owned the lease, my sister was an investor and like I said they sit on my land.

When they were bringing the well in, Trudy and I came out to see how the progress was coming. She envisioned being a wealthy oil woman (yeah, that happened).
She and I were standing on a little knoll above where they were drilling, watching, along with several other people - some of the hands, the man who owned the lease and his Dad and Trudy's husband.

I'm not sure what they were doing at that moment but standing there watching I suppose I just thought they surely knew what they were doing, no one seemed alarmed at what was happening and then suddenly something broke. The tongs that were latched on to the pipe they were pulling broke loose.
Things kind of went into slow motion and super speed all at the same time. My brain stopped, while all the oil hands were scrambling - fast.

There was a man laying on the ground.

I stood there and watched that man die.

I ran as fast as I could to the house and called an ambulance, Trudy and I watched as they loaded him into the ambulance and we followed it to the hospital.

I could not make my brain wrap around the fact that I had watched him die. I even remember telling someone at the hospital that he would be okay - OKAY??? The man was dead.

I think about that man(I never even knew his name)every time I mow that field (mowing tonight prompted this post).

No one should ever have to die with strangers watching.
There was no one there who loved him. His wife or his kids or any family member. He just died laying there in my pasture.

I often wonder when I'm out on my tractor, just what kinds of stories the land could tell about who lived and died on it.