Hilmar’s family made a lot of money a couple of generations back from oil. Ironically it was from investments in oil fields north of the Mason-Dixon Line. Hilmar’s grandfather used some of his profits to buy a cattle ranch near his hometown of Seguin.

In a further irony, oil was recently discovered on the ranch, which the current price of oil and modern technology make it profitable to extract. What you see in the video is the first well drilled — it’s pumping up some high-grade crude in abundance, and there may be other accessible deposits connected to the same geological substructure on the ranch.

Every motion of the pump produces another ducat for Hilmar, which explains his cheerful demeanor here, and his satisfaction at the texture of the viscous black gold his land is yielding up. The crude oil has a pungent but faintly satisfying odor.