Farming in Kansas

From my own historical readings, I know that Kansas raises some corn, a lot of cattle, maize, and a few other things. Until yesterday,  I forgot that Kansas also raises electricity at its wind farms.

We passed by the largest wind farm in Kansas just outside of Salina on our #PDXbound trek.  Turbine after turbine on top of small rolling hills for miles.  Facing not in uniform direction, some of the turbines looked as if they were grouped in conversation. Massive, we could see them for miles before we were actually near.

We did not have much wind yesterday (thankfully for our traveling in overloaded vehicles), so the blades turned lazily in whatever drafts exist that far off the ground.  I couldn't stop thinking that it looked like a giant child had planted a cluster of pinwheels in the sand and had run off to tell Mommy or Daddy of their great work.  (read "The Food of the Gods and How it Came to Earth," by H. G. Wells)


For years while in West Virginia, I had watched as one at a time these huge blades were transported west on I70 on elongated tractor trailer trucks. One at a time, "Oversided Load" posted on their bumpers, westward ho went the turbine blades.  I marveled at their size and wondered at engineers who designed and contractors who built such big machines.

Now I know where the blades went.  Over 150 wind turbines (of two makes) sprinkle 25,000 acres here in the middle of Kansas, providing lots of electricity. (I don't understand electrical units.)  The Smoky Hills project allows the landowners to collect royalties, the utility companies to collect payments for electricity provided, and for us to gain a little less dependence on fossil fuels.

When Tim connected our electricity for the apartment in Portland, he had a choice of paying a tiny bit more to make sure our electricity comes - as much as possible -  from wind farms such as these.  As I gaped in awe driving past these elegant, giant pinwheels, I thanked God for wind.  I gave thanks for the very breath of God that blows over creation giving us all that we need.

Midwest Meditating

Straight.  You can almost draw a straight line with a ruler from Wheeling, WV to Tuscola, IL where my brother, Nick, lives.  Wednesday I hopped on I70, which runs just a few hundred feet from my apartment, and headed 418 miles west to Tuscola to see Nick and his wife, Sandi.

This Midwest girl forgot the power of the straight highway with fields of mature crops on either side of the road.  After Indianapolis, I exited to Rt. 36 which heads very efficiently into Tuscola - about 100 miles.  As I left suburban Indy, the towns become further and further apart.  Curves were anomalies.  And it was so very flat. Ahhhh.

After 10 years of living near the Adirondack, Catskill, White, and Berkshire mountains and 7 years of living in mountainous West Virginia, the vast open prairie was freeing.  When the fields were soy or pasture, I could see for miles in all directions.  Roads laid out in their familiar grid pattern. Trees and barns dotting the horizon.

Rt. 36 provided me with thinking time - God, aging, dementia, life-style changes, new adventures, kids, husbands, brothers, chaplaincy.  The vastness of the prairie allowed me the elbow room to explore all the junk I was carrying around in my head.  Sorting. Stacking. Purging.  And in the places where tall corn with golden tassels stretched for miles on either side of me, I remembered the phrase from scripture, "you hem me in."  The juxtaposition of open prairie and close fields felt good.  The uniform height of the corn were like carefully tended hedges - the soy beans like green carpet.  Open and snug.  Close and far.

Midwest Flat proved to be good meditating ground.   I arrived at my destination witht no answers to my questions and concerns, but the Advocate and I had a good long chat down that very straight road.