Wind Farm Waltz

As we drove across Iowa on June 15, the slowly turning blades in the wind farms did not make me think first of generating electricity but of eloquently synchronized dancing giants. I know some people consider them to be eyesores. Some complain that they can't produce enough electricity fast enough to make a difference in energy production. Others say that the expense and environmental impact of the necessary transmission lines divert resources from petroleum prospecting and pumping. (I can't bring myself to say petroleum production, since all an oil well does is empty a finite resource from a hole in the ground; nothing is actually produced. The production of oil happened in the prehistoric decay of dead plants and animals.) So I guess the wind farms did prompt my thoughts about energy and environment. Yet, watching the blades turn suggested grace and beauty that transcended kilowatts. The wind moves them with a zen like smoothness, unperturbed by the cars and trucks rushing by on the highway (powered by petroleum), but more in tune with the cattle grazing beneath their orbiting arms.