What's a dazzling urbanite like you doing in a rustic setting like this?
- Blazing Saddles
Okay, that's a pretty broad exaggeration, but it's one of my favorite movie lines. The scene is just behind the house on the farm where my wife grew up. I'd be lying if I said I knew what the machine on the right did, except the spout on the side puts corn kernels into some kind of hopper. The corn isn't quite as high as an elephant's eye, as the old song has it, but it's getting there.
A mechanical monster in the fields, something that might chase you in your dreams. I didn’t ask my brother-in-law, but my guess is that it strips the corn cobs off the stalks, and there is a lot of that kind of work to be done in the vicinity.
My wife grew up on this farm in Marshall County, Kansas. I grew up in an apartment in New York. The combination has worked for more than 50 years. This is beautiful country, rolling, not flat as some would imagine. Her family is a delight. The crop in the middle distance is corn, at least 2.5 m high with adequate rain this year.
Still in Kansas. We had some big thunderstorms roll through here last night. It's the Midwest, so normal, but there was a big temperature drop. Maybe that will let me get back out on the streets.
So another infrared shot on my brother and sister in law's farm. There is a simple but not obvious technique to get this kind of color manipulation. Let me know if you want to know how it's done. The corn looks like it has been touched by King Midas. That wouldn't taste good to us or livestock.
We spent most of yesterday on the farm in Marshall County, Kansas, where Mrs. C grew up. Her youngest brother and his wife bought it from their parents many years ago. They still grow a lot of corn. I went out wandering with my infrared camera and got this shot across the top of a field. The plants, probably 2.5 meters high, seem to glow with all that reflective chlorophyll.
