Once Upon a Time in the Cornbelt
Helicopters & Explosions & Pesticides O My
Pull a seat up around the fire, my dears, I have a tale to tell you today.
In general we live in a quiet place. Few neighbors, fields of corn as far as the eye can see; a big lightning storm or a bird whose name I don’t know are the main causes for excitement around here.
But damn when things happen do they really fucking happen.
One regular occurrence out here is the spraying of petroleum-based, dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico-creating fertilizers and pesticides on all of the millions of acres of monocrop corn and soybean plantings. Usually this is done by a sprayer on wheels. Lately however it seems like more and more farmers are using aerial crop dusters - small planes or helicopters that swoop down and rain poison from the sky.
You can imagine that this might be somewhat terrifying in close proximity. The helicopters and planes are very loud and they fly alarmingly low - it looks like they’re about to land in the field until they pull up right at the end and circle back around for another pass. It feels exactly like that scene in North by Northwest:
So when one day a helicopter starts spraying the cornfield immediately around our house - a first - while my partner is mowing the lawn, we are pissed about the inconvenience of it (Loud! Scary! Have to scurry inside while it happens so as not to breathe in the drift! Helicopter is turning around right on top of our house!) but resigned. But then things really go haywire.
To the north of our yard this field is only about 70-80 feet wide, snuggled between our yard’s tall trees on one side and a row of trees on the other side. Power lines hang on both sides and also cross over this part of the cornfield to get electricity to our house. It is a very tiny area for an aerial craft. We do not see it happen, but the helicopter pilot attempts to spray this small section. I think it is most likely that he did not see the lines crossing over the field until it was too late.
The next thing we know there is a huge, deafening BANG and the white flash of a transformer blowing, followed by huge plumes of brown smoke unfurling up from the cornfield.
I am the worst person to have around in a crisis because my brain quite literally shuts down, so it’s good that Jordan is home. He runs into the basement and slams the whole electric panel to our house off. Then he calls 9-1-1 about the fire in the cornfield.
With the power surge from the explosion our vacuum robot turns on and absurdly begins beeping and knocking over the cat’s water dish with mechanical enthusiasm. Panic and mayhem and confusion. Could the power surge have started a fire somewhere in the depths of our old house wiring? We frantically search the house for the sights and smells of further disaster. Luckily, nothing. Roomba in Hulk mode and that’s about it. Power’s out. The helicopter lands in the middle of the road in front of our house.
Most importantly: the pilot is totally unharmed. He walks out of the helicopter without a scratch on him. This telling would be very different if that outcome had gone any other way.
Our few neighbors come out to talk to him and take pictures. There are folks I’ve literally never seen in four years and suddenly we’re calling “Did you SEE that??” and “So glad everyone is okay!” over the fence. It makes me think of Rebecca Solnit’s A Paradise Built in Hell, which is all about how community spontaneously forms outside of conventional social norms in extraordinary times of crisis. This is just a bitty baby version of that, but the same principle I believe.
The fire department arrives and we give statements. The helicopter is still in the road, looking so surreal - catastrophe has a way of putting everyday objects into contexts so out of sync with normalcy that they look terrifying unto themselves. Helicopter does not belong in the road in front of our house. The order of things has been wrenched out of place.
A swarm of tan-uniformed police officers gathers around the pilot, who uses his hands to illustrate a re-telling of what happened. An employee from the electric company says the line cut by the helicopter was holding around 68,000 volts (for reference, a car battery is a little over twelve volts). The fire department keeps the corn field from going up in flames but they can’t put out the smoking power line fully because - apparently - throwing water on a live wire can electrocute the water-thrower to death and also sometimes it will explode? Cool cool cool, good to know.
Night falls and an emergency crew from the power company repairs the damage to the transformer and the downed power line before midnight, much quicker than anticipated. Jordan and I light candles and play cards in the meantime. Since then there have been no more helicopters spraying around our house; let’s keep our fingers crossed they don’t try it again. I’ve grown accustomed to a rural speed of life and can’t take that much excitement in one day.
The helicopter incident is an illuminating example of how we think and feel about crises - how much easier it is to respond with urgency and action to something like a literal explosion versus a catastrophe that is unfolding at a slower pace. We see this constantly with everything around climate change, do we not? We respond to the most immediate, tangible symptom - because we have no choice - rather than to the underlying issue that is much larger and actually much more terrifying. See: every wildfire season in California, or the forest fires in Canada that blanketed my town in smoke for days. It is much easier to take action for what is currently on fire than to try to prevent all of the inevitable future fires.
In the same way, the helicopter incident is just one explosive side effect of what’s playing out with the pesticide industry in conventional agriculture right now. For me, the conversation about pesticides is where the rubber meets the road when it comes to conservation and mitigating climate change.
In my next newsletter I will write to you about why we should all be very concerned about what’s being sprayed on over 890 million acres of crops in the U.S. and how it affects biodiversity, global warming, and the health outcomes for us and our children. It is good to plant native plants and to try to convince our neighbors to do the same, but we also need to look at the big picture and to organize ourselves accordingly.
As always, thanks for being here.
Garden Designer for Hire
I am available for hire for new garden designs in August. My services may be helpful to you if:
You want less lawn and more native plants but don’t know where to start
You want to support your local ecosystem but don’t want your neighbors or HOA to get mad at you
You want an edible yard that feeds humans, birds, butterflies, and soil microbes (and everyone in between on the food chain!)
You don’t want to spend an arm and a leg on landscapers but you’re not sure how to put your yard dreams into action
Just respond to this email if you’d like more information and we can see if it’s a good fit!
See ya next time.