reesesWeb

Talk about an annoying time to forget one's camera. We drove to my parents' for Thanksgiving, and the trip went quite well. On Friday, my father drove us up to the wind farm that crosses the natural gas pipeline that he runs. Because of his pipeline duties, he has clearance to get really close to the windmills, and you can see them really well.

The view from the top of the hill is truly amazing. It looks like a movie set, because you can see fifty miles of farmland over rolling hills, with 21st-century technology churning away in huge numbers in the foreground. At one point, at a casual glance, you can see about fifty of the things, pointing into the wind, whirling with tip speeds around 250 feet per second, using the highly scientific method of "count by thousands, it seems like a little less than two seconds per revolution, at 150 feet in diameter, times three, ok..."

My father seems to know everything that's going on around there, even if it has nothing to do with his regular day-to-day existence. The other really fascinating revelation involved apple trees. Apparently, some of the apple farmers in the area are using genetically-modified apple trees. They mature to a fruitful stage very quickly, and produce huge numbers of apples per tree. They produce so many apples, they can't support the weight of the fruit, and are grown on frameworks like hops or grapevines. There were a lot of conventional apple trees, which live longer, and are probably easier to tend, but acres upon acres were devoted to the vineapples.

I go there countless times, and the time I see lots of cool stuff, where are the cameras???

I'll be sure to pack it from now on.

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