Big Time Farming 101

There's gonna be some learnin' up in here to-day!

(Now that I've typed it, I don't think I quite have the accent necessary to pull that sentence off.)

Several years ago, we thought something terribly wrong was going on around our house.  A helicopter was circling and circling, so we assumed it was a TV crew.  An accident on the nearby state route?  A field fire?  A police chase? 

And then the thing landed. 

At the end of our driveway.

It was on the backside of the tree line, so I couldn't see what was going on.  Of course, I stuck on some shoes and headed on down to see what was up. 

I rounded the trees, and there was the helicopter, on the top of a great big flatbed.  I was dumbfounded.

After observing a bit, it seemed the helicopter was refueling.  And then it took off.

Turns out, it was a crop duster.  It blew my mind to find farmers were using helicopters to spray their crops instead of airplanes.

Today, while getting lunch ready, we heard the sound of a helicopter, nice and close to the house, but it flew by.  And then came back.  And flew by.  And came back.

Crop dusting day!

At first, I wasn't going to try to take a photo.   For one, it was lunchtime.  I was hungry and didn't want to postpone my meal any longer.  For two, our property is shaped like this:

The black square is our house.  The green is our property line, and the entire property is lined with great big trees.  The gold represents the corn fields, all owned by our neighbor, who lives in the red rectangle.  (Keep in mind, this is in no way to scale, just in case you wondered.)

While we could hear the helicopter, we couldn't see the helicopter.  It flies low, lower than the tops of the trees.

But, because I know a certain someone gets a bit snippy if I talk about things but fail to include photos, I got out the camera.  I gave it three minutes.  I'd sit on the porch, camera ready, and if I saw it in those three minutes, I'd snap a photo.  If not, you'd have to use your imagination, 'cause I was gonna eat my leftovers.

You all are in luck.  I wasn't out there one minute when it went from one field to the other and had to fly directly over our driveway.

And then, I walked over to the one and only little break in the trees, just in case I could get a shot of it actually spraying.

BAM!

Consider yourself learned.  (pronounced learn-id.  (I totally get why the group Blessid Union of Souls spelled their name the way they did.))

Have a lovely day!