Invaders Part 2

Just like Santa Claus, they came in the middle of the night.

    

     But it wasn’t stockings they were stuffing.  Concrete in the hole.    

      While we were in Tennessee, the wind workers weren’t idle.  When we left, they had poured the foundations and giants had unloaded tons of rebar.

     Little elves tied the pieces all together.

     And voila!  One hell of a mesh!

     Just kidding about the elves.  Actually, it was a menagerie.  A crane.

     And a praying mantis.

                Then an ant eater.

.

     

With the help of about a half-dozen cement trucks, the anteater entombed the intricate webwork

          Stay tuned.  More cement to come.

Tennessee

     We took a week off from farming to drive to Tennessee.  We spent most of our time in Nashville where we met my brother and wife and my sister and husband.  The occasion was a Fierce Bad Rabbit appearance at The National Underground in Nashville.

     Chris Anderson of Fierce Bad Rabbit is my nephew, son of my sister Ruth and Jim Anderson.  CD’s are available.

  We arrived on Saturday June 9.  The CMA Awards event was in full swing.  Ear plugs a necessity anywhere downtown.  Live performers appeared everywhere.  The big stars performed from the barge. 

     We were too late to get tickets for the big events.  So, Saturday evening we took a riverboat cruise which included dinner and a show.

      It was a great time.  Too bad I didn’t get any good pictures.  It was pretty.

As was the night scene.

       Sunday we visited Belle Meade Plantation.  Monday we visited the Country Music Hall of Fame.  Ambassador David Allen greeted us.  A most amazing man, he can play a Chet Atkins number on his guitar and keep up an intelligent conversation at the same time.

      Here he answers a question for Patti, Dave and Ruth.  We bought a CD. The Hall of Fame was great.  You need the most of a day to see everything.

     We tried twice to hit the Bluebird Café, but we weren’t up to waiting in line.  A long line.  Of course, I had to visit the headquarters of the Barbershop Harmony Society.

     Too bad I never managed to be there between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.

      Tuesday, we visited Opryland where the Grand Ol’ Opry performs.  The Hotel is huge, with 2800 rooms.  The glass dome is impressive. 

      We toured the auditorium.  We sang on stage. 

  Note the circle we stand on--a piece of the old Ryman Theatre floor.  Sorry, nobody in the audience and no recording contract.  Then Tuesday evening, Fierce Bad Rabbit.

    Wednesday, we were off to Memphis.  We didn’t have time to do it right, but we did visit Beale Street.  Wednesday nights are motorcycle nights. 

     Fancy machines line both sides of the street for two or three blocks.  It was ear plug time again as every eatery, including BB Kings, sports live music.

      Thursday we made it to Oklahoma City.  No, we didn’t have tickets to the Heat/Thunder contest. And finally home.  The windmill people have been busy.     

Round 3

    Round three began on Wednesday May 30.  (Round one was the chisel operation.  Round two was the plow operation.) 

     I took one oneway out to start the process. It took some time to get ready.  I had to rebuild the old weight box.  The wood structure was built by our neighbor William Suchanek sometime in the sixties.  Dad bought the oneways when Willie retired, sometime in the seventies.

          Take off the old one.

           And load up the new one

         But then, I hooked up two oneways and away we went.

      Dad would have said I was cutting the fat hog.   I got a good start Thursday afternoon, the last day of May.  I had to buy hydraulic hose and hook it all up so both oneways come out of the ground when I cross windmill roads.  We used to just leave the disks in the ground until the field was done.  Then, you grabbed the crank and turned it 30-or-so turns to raise the disks out of the ground.  You had to do it twice, once for each oneway.  Not a very good option when you have to cross the windmill road every time around the field. 

     I got in a full day Friday, slowed down a little by having to dodge stakes marking various routes across the field where wires will connect wind generator towers.
     Saturday, a huge wind gust and a very brief thunder shower drove me out of the field about 3 p.m.  I tried to finish the job on Monday, but couldn’t quite do it.  So Tuesday, June 5, Round 3 is done.

         And I’ve gone through 300 gallons of diesel fuel. 

The Invader

    Well it’s comin’ by gum.  You can feel it in the air, you can see it everywhere, look around!

     Or should it be, Invasion of the Transformer Monsters?

     So I’m out in the middle of my field in the middle of nowhere.  And suddenly—

           I’m playing a game of chicken with a motor grader!

     It starts gradually, away off on the horizon.  No need to worry yet.

                    Then, whoom!  It’s in your face, and they are here.

    

     It’s the big gorilla in the room—wind generators.  The old flat plain with here and there a rolling hill and a dry creek will soon be forever changed, soon to be dominated by huge wind towers.  The farm will be in the middle of it all—towers in all four directions. 
     It is somewhat important to me, therefore, to document what it was like before the giants strode across the prairie.

       Here are the stakes that mark the road to tower 119. 
      Then the path has been made.

    The beginning dirtwork—note there is still a little grass around the stake.

            Then a new sign post. And a little more dirtwork.

       And then a lot more dirtwork:

     I wonder what our old neighbor Elmer would say if he could see this, or the old ranchers and homesteaders, or the Indians for that matter.

      I have to buck up and assimilate to the change of scenery.  One of these days when the wind obnoxiously blows, instead of saying, “Dang the dang wind!” we’ll say greenly, “Wow!  Look at that meter turn.” 

     How’s that for ambivalence?

    

Oops!

      Starting a new project, particularly one that flies into the face of convention, there are hurdles and setbacks.  The first operation, the destruction of the grass, is done.  So, here is a look at some of the “oops” that I faced.

      Here’s one of the first oops.  This is what we found upon arrival at the farm.

      Here’s what it looked like where and when we left.

           And where and when we loaded the plow.

     It was about a 175 mile trip, so we combined the plow-hauling with appliance-hauling, a stove and refrigerator headed for the farm.  And the piano.  Part of borrowing the pickup-trailer combination, and the valued assistant WM (WM=Wildman=accurate nickname), was that I had to take an old player piano housed in WM’s basement for the past 30 years.  The piano was to go to the shop, but oops!

    We were lucky to get it to the garage in the front yard.  Stove and refrigerator ended up in the garage, too.  No access to back yard, back door, or shop.

    Another natural Oops! besides rain and snow,  rubber-loving rodents.

 

    It’s good something likes old tires, maybe.  Too bad they never seem to get the ones in the fence row, just the ones on an implement or one protecting a new tree.  Steel wheels had some advantages.

        The most expensive Oops!

 

      The 40 year old tires stood up to the chisel operation, but bouncing over the chisel rows did them in.  The hernia is at the very bottom of the tire.

     Help is at hand—to the tune of nearly $1000 per tire (ended up putting on four, two for each tractor.  Ouch.) 

     The tire man earned his paycheck.  Each tire holds twenty gallons of calcium chloride, used for ballast.  The ruptured tire-tube broke when he was pumping the solution out of the tire and he got a bath in nasty stuff.  Fortunately, a water hydrant nearby cleared him of the deed.

 
      All better.

     The old tires were old in 1989, the last time the tractors were used extensively.  They were on the tractors when we bought them in the ‘70’s.  So I  better not complain.  Anyway, both old tractors are now "retired".