Cattle farms and tires
I recently took a road trip, I had to and I did take appropriate precautions. Driving past some cattle farms I noticed something curious that I had seen before but never looked into. I saw what appeared to be hundreds of tires located inside cattle farms. At first I thought the tires were being used as play things for the cattle but I quickly dismissed that idea after noticing that the cattle had no access to the tires. Also, why would they allow them to play if they were going to be slaughtered shortly. The scenery had me thinking about how we treat animals but I’ll probably touch on that at a later time. Some tires were stacked on top of each other while others were laying on top of large mounds. The tires on top of the mounds are what caught my attention. They appeared to be resting on a large tarp of some kind. To me, they seemed to be used like a large paper weight.
Well it turns out that is exactly what the tires were being used for, a weight for the large tarps covering the material piled together. Apparently, feed is kept under the tarp so that it can be used to feed the cattle year round.
Farmers today grow feed during the growing season and store it in large piles. The grass is cut, put into a pile, then is compacted and covered with plastic to protect it from oxygen and the elements. The plastic covering removes oxygen from the pile so the grass can ferment naturally with microbiological bacteria. Oxygen allows spoilage, but the absence of oxygen allows anaerobic bacteria to ferment the feed and prevent spoilage. The fermentation of the grass allows storability for 1-2 years (or more) without any refrigeration.
Pretty ingenious if you ask me and a good way to reuse old tires. Turns out american farmers didn’t begin the practice until 1876, although obviously they used something else to cover the feed.
Those White Piles with Tires on Dairies
Texas and windmills
Despite what some persons believe, windmills do not cause cancer. If they do I’m pretty screwed. Part of my drive took me through northern Texas. Now, maybe its me but I’ve never thought of Texas as a leader in renewable energies but it was interesting seeing the vast number of windmills as I drove by. I didn’t have the time to count them but I’m not sure I couldn’t have even if I tried, a prodigious number as far as the eye could see.
Turns out republican law makers endorsed these large scale windmill farms. Which I think is a fantastic idea and a great use of relatively empty space. I drove on this same stretch of road 10 years ago and I do not recall ever seeing any windmills but maybe I wasn’t paying enough attention at the time. Even if there were some present 10 years ago it definitely was not to scale I witnessed this time around.
The following is a quote from a USAToday article:
Texas’ robust use of its wind could also serve as a map for other U.S. states with substantial wind resources at a time when climate change scientists are warning that governments must embrace clean energy or the Earth could become uninhabitable.
Texas isn’t oil country, or coal country, or even fracking country, said Sarah Mills, an engineer and development expert who studies wind energy in rural areas at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
“Texas is simply energy country,” she said.
If Texas was its own country it would be the 5th largest wind energy producer in the world. I shouldn’t have judged you as hard as I did Texas, my bad guys.
Bravo Texas, bravo.
Opinion: Covid-19
It was interesting seeing how many people actually wore a face mask. I had to make pit stops here and there to refuel and there were 3 gas stations where I witnessed only 2-4 people wearing a mask. The rest went about their business very nonchalantly. A couple of the patrons looked at me like I was the crazy one. The gas stations where I witnessed this lack of PPE were all miles away from any large metropolises. While I can understand why people would feel safer not wearing any PPE in small towns, I feel as though any benefit would immediately be negated by the fact that travelers may frequent their local gas stations. Making them high risk areas to visit.
From what I’ve gathered from the news and what I witnessed I think there will definitely be another surge of Covid-19 infections in the upcoming months. I personally don’t see this illness going anywhere. I get the feeling that SARS-Covid-2 will become another seasonal return offender, just like the flu. Only time will tell.
The Science Pigeon 