Adrenalin v. Rational Thought.

I have lived my entire life here in Illinois. I have seen crop dusters doing their thing many, many, times. I have NEVER been this close, upfront and personal.

We, (IdaMae, Ben,and I) had just gone outside for our morning sit, and I was hanging the roving I dyed yesterday on the fence. I heard the plane coming, he had been dusting the fields all around for a couple weeks now and didn't pay it much mind. Then it sounded close. REAL close. I looked up just in time to see him skim the roof of my house. Ida ran for cover under the glider on the back porch and Ben , who as you know can open the screen the door, flew to the door and flung it open so forcefully he tore it from its track.

I stood there amazed, caught up in diving and climbing skills of the pilot and the long looping turns that belied the speed of it all. Then it dawned on me. 1)I prob'ly shouldn't be out here while he's flinging chemicals of some sort on the beans and 2)How could I possibly explain the thrill (and fear if the truth be known) to Joe, or the kids, or even my blog peeps. So of course I dashed into the house and grabbed the camera, risking health, life, and limb for the sake of a few photos. What blogger worth her salt wouldn't have done the same? :o)

I watched and took photos from the "safety" of my patio for a few passes. See that smokey-ness in the center of the pic above the field...here he comes!



At this point I was really beginning to question whether the patio was safe place to be. But considering I couldn't think of a safe place to be cuz if he'd hit my house that would be a bad thing I decided, what the heck, and strolled out to that crab apple tree he's just barely clearing in the photo above. Besides adrenalin rushes are always a good influence on rational thought.

Here's another pass of the field from that vantage point.




WOW

Once I figured out how to use the video on my camera I got these videos. Sorry about the expletive in the first one, but you have nooooo idea how much I wanted to run right then and there. (I'm not uploading the video that has me hysterically chanting, "ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod") Even though it's a tiny plane, it's still a plane and having it crash on top of me would not be a good thing. Plus being that close to even a tiny plane that is going extremely fast, right towards you, so it can stay airborne so close to the ground, is really, really, loud....like feel it in your chest loud.....so between that and the deluge of adrenalin roaring through my body I was more than ready to run. Then again, I figured I couldn't out run a crashing plane, there really wasn't anyplace to run, so I stayed, took a few videos, and tried not to breath chemical dust. :o)