What Exactly Is A “Nodding Donkey”?

In my blog yesterday, "Back To The Bakken", I mentioned a "nodding donkey". Since that blog went viral, "people have been coming up to me" (as one of my old program directors used to say) and asking, what in the blazes is a nodding donkey? In layman's terms, or in this case, "Puffman's terms", that's what you call them oil pumps that bob up and down you see all over the prairies. According to google, "a pumpjack (nodding donkey, pumping unit, horsehead pump, rocking horse, beam pump, sucker rod pump...is the overground drive for a reciprocating piston pump in an oil patch". I'm still not sure why the Shelby Mayor Dr. Larry Bonderud sometimes refers to me as a "nodding donkey". Perhaps it is because I've nodded off and fallen asleep at some of his city council meetings! In the meantime, I hope many of you got a chance to see ""Boom! Behind the Bakken" last night on PBS. I thought they did an excellent job and, in my opinion, it was very well balanced as well as being most interesting and informative.