Wednesday, July 17, 2013

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!

19 comments:

  1. I had no idea helicopters did crop dusting.

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  2. Attagirl :)

    (and damn straight I'd get snippy if you'd posted with no pics! Even a special-home-made-drawing too! Calloo, callay :D)


    I guess with the heli they can be more precise about where they put the crop-dusting stuff, which is far better for the local ecology, donchaknow.

    Cool song, yo, and pronouncing it 'Learn-ed' is, like, academic and stuff, cos Shakespeare an that did it. Innit.

    (tryin very hard to relate it to helicopters tho and drawing a blank. I'll switch myself off and on again and retry later.)

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    1. The things I do for my readers...

      It does seem to be more precise, which is certainly a good thing.

      I just added the song because I liked it. I had looked up Blessid Union of Souls and was listening to it, so I added it last minute. For future reference, I am not a deep thinker like yourself. Always go with the easy answer with me unless I tell you otherwise. :)

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    2. Ahhh rightio. It came from the grammatical thing. I see the link.

      Couldn't see the wood for the trees there!

      Will try to bear that in mind - if it looks like a duck, sounds like a duck and walks like a duck? Probably a duck.

      Cool song though :)

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  3. Bahaha I totally knew who you were talking about on the snippy photo thing. The Considerer is gonna tell it like it is up in here. (How's that for accent??) Thanks to the Lizzi, we can all now know the crop-dusting helicopter you claim to see is not a figment of your imagination! I do believe I have never seen one before. Kinda creepy!

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    1. Makes sense when you consider the price of fertiliser/anti-bug stuff, as well as the penalties which can be invoked for (f'rinstance) overdoing it and allowing a load of the stuff to get turned into runoff in the next shower, possibly polluting some kind of water source (least, that's the context I learned it in).

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    2. She has no trouble putting me in my place, that is for sure. :)

      It is a bit nerve-wracking having a helicopter fly over and around your house over and over again. Fortunately, it was over in less than an hour.

      And Lizzi, that is exactly true.

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    3. Yes, though I reckon I'm still trailing behind the precedent set by your good self ;)

      And yay; got knowledge.

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  4. Yep we see this all the time in the central valley of California. Lots of agriculture going on here.

    Have a fabulous day. ☺

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    1. Something Indiana and California have in common! Can't imagine there are too many things that are. :)

      Thank you, and you have a fabulous day, too.

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  5. If there are no pictures, it didn't happen, right?



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  6. The crop dusters here always freak me out--swooping SO LOW.

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  7. Well, well, well. I am sitting taller right now because I am educated! I did NOT know that helicopters can be used as dusters! Thank you for this! Now I am going to march right into the other room and tell my smarty pants husband this fact. And if he already knows this - I'm going to slap him. ;)

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  8. Forget the photographs! Now that you've shown the world your skills as an ar-teest, you MUST draw everything. ;)

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  9. Muhahahahahahaha

    *Sketches map on a napkin and hands it to a Bush Baby Scout*

    It's only a matter of time...

    You should ask if they will give the kids a helicopter/crop dusting ride! I never knew they used helicopters. I was hoping for some alien tales of unmarked black helicopters terrorizing the property ;-)

    Glad you were able to snap some picture to satisfy the minion >.< but I trust your drawing skills would have been alright, though some validity of events actually occurring would abound.

    Jak at The Cryton Chronicles & Dreams in the Shade of Ink

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Thank you for taking the time to tell me what you're thinking!