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[Next] Low Level Flight (Humor, but
it's also true)
I suppose this is dairy farm humor. I once got into a
lot of trouble with electric company helicopters and Canada geese.
The post office was kind of down on me at the same time. Also, the
Sheriff had some questions that I could not really answer. -FWO
I had two memorable experiences with low level flights. At the time I speak of, we had approximately 550 head of heifers and milking age cows in 8 lots. The cows were divided in groups with electric wires. The heifers were in a gated free stall barn. The buildings were set up so that when all the gates and wires were in proper position, it was a straight shot for scraping manure of about 500 feet from the far end to the manure storage area. The alleys ran parallel to the road and about 100 feet back from the road. The setup is like a 500 foot long canyon lined with buildings on both sides. Electric company helicopters: There are two sets of electric lines along our road on the same set of poles. The lower lines are the normal electic power feed for the homes and farms along the road. The upper wires are much higher and feed the towns to the south. The electric company inspects the insulators on the upper line from a helicopter about every 60 days. They fly sideways along the power line about 100 feet from the power line. A guy looks at the insulators with binoculars. You can imagine the results of this helicopter thundering down over the cows. The cows broke down pipe gates, broke down electric dividing wires, and went through 14 foot doors 20 cows abreast. This happened many times. The electric company said that they couldn't change their inspection method. I believe that each time I complained the pilot hung over our cows a little bit longer. At that time my throwing arm was still pretty good, so I developed the strategy of throwing rocks at the helicopter. I doubt if the guys in the helicopter saw me the first few times but eventually I did hit them with a rock. Not long after, the police came out to talk to me about the rock throwing. The police also must have talked to the pilot and/or the electric company. The resolution was that the helicopter now makes a 1/2 mile circle around our farm. Even now, over 10 years later, they still make the circle. Canada geese: Early one morning, not long after sunup, we had all the cows and heifers on their feet getting ready to scrape the manure. A flight of Canada geese lifted off our farm pond, suddendly came around the end of a big machinery shed and came honking down over the entire herd at a altitude of about 15 feet. They flew the full 500 foot length of the lots. There was no warning. The noise was incredible (more than the helicopter) because they were lower and the honking echoed from the building on both sides. The cows and heifers went crazy. They broke down every gate and electric wire dividing the groups. The entire 550 head, minus about 100 in the holding area, got together in one group. They ran north breaking down everything in their way. The continued north for half a mile on State Route 301, crossed US Route 224, and milled around (over 400 head) in the post office parking lot. Kindest regards, ======================== F. W. Owen Owenlea Holsteins 9430 Spencer Road Homerville, Ohio 44235 voice & fax 216.625.2369 ========================