Placed by Cache Owner Pioneer Ts in 2010, we will be ransacking the kitchen drawers for this one.
Crossing one county line westward, our geotour routes through farm country, where agribusiness moves corn and soybeans toward ethanol plants and feedlots.
Aiming for Plumwood and Route 29, tires transport past land purchased by Business Manager Guy, aka Midwest Farms, for Mr. Gates. Dropped into Bill-ionaire’s shopping cart for $28 million, the 6,300 acres is now worth $53 million. Energy giant Savion holds a two-year option to purchase the land. Savion would like to lease or buy 10,000 acres, generating 1,500 megawatts, from four to five million solar panels.
As we pull up to Mr. Gates’ gate, the dirt around us glistens like gold. Biofuels harvested from corn, and genetically modified seeds, are some uses for dirt that Mr. Gates likes. Setting up solar farms is another one. More than 20 solar projects are underway in Madison County, half of which are Amazon’s. While Bill-ionaire grows fake meat in a lab, his land is over-and-done with lush forests, tribal hunting grounds, pioneer cabins, family-sized farms, and agri-business. It will now darken, buried not under the asphalt of neighboring suburbs, but beneath millions of black rectangles, slowly following the sun’s trajectory from east to west.
Down the road, Savion is about to flip the switch on the Madison Fields Solar Project, a thousand acres of land generating 180-megawatts. The land is purchased or leased, copying the model of cell tower construction across the rural landscape. Project applications describe the layer of topsoil which will be lost, soil compaction and erosion from construction vehicles, and a 30-year life limit, at which time toxic panels will assuredly be disposed of in the safest manner.
Like those removing coal from the earth, solar farm barons race to harvest the most the fastest. County administrators see the dollar sign bonanza, which promises to finally put them on the map.
Around the corner, a small farmer holds his own. Winter wheat sprouts in the nourishing sun, defying the corn-soybean monopoly. Mites living in dirt penthouses break down dead matter, cycling nutrients back into living soil.
Rural residents wrestle with waves of change. Electric lines delivered the age of the radio, iron, microwave, washing machine, sewing machine, fridge, furnace, well pump, and lights without which we cannot live. Tower-powered internet access now extends a hand and a new kind of fishnet, with the profiteers listed in the fine print. Facial surveillance software effectively manipulates moods toward real-world behavior choices. Individual updates and photos elicit Big Tech responses with below-the-radar political or monetary nudges. Like their 300-year-old German ancestors, who reluctantly swore loyalty to the British crown, today’s land dwellers immigrate into a strange, new digital space, navigating unknown dangers and opportunities.
Turning north on Route 42, we pass the tiny church now franchised into a five-campus megachurch. The ethnic community centered there fades into church oblivion. Gone are the lobby bulletin boards thumb-tacked with wedding and graduation invitations, shared wooden pews sliding beneath worshipers, and hymns held in hands rather than on screens.
Our coordinates come to rest on Old 42 Antiques, where blank faces mirror the slow dimming of rural identity. Cachers witness the tranformation. In 2012, the last doughnuts are logged and eaten at the Dutch Kitchen.
The restaurant changes owners and reinvents. Timeworn shapes now preserve stories once told over coffee. Myriad memories whisper timeless tenderness and hope, protected and strong.
The Keeper of these ancient treasures also gives sanctuary to a covered bridge, where we must identify AJ pbeare.
Log Guy is sworn to secrecy, babysitting the creek as it trickles three miles eastward to Big Darby.
Undaunted, we gaze at the sun, frown at Route 42, and maybe even count on our fingers until we locate the NW corner.
A last leaf trembles, as winter’s fruit anticipates new life.
OH Love Of Geocaching 