Gishwhes item 114

[tripperfunster]

IMAGE or VIDEO. You’ve heard of Crop Circles. Let’s see a "Crop Elopus" or "Crop Wooster" or "Crop Fograt" or the word, "GISHWHES" cut into a field of corn or wheat or another crop. The artwork must be at least 1 acre across and should be photographed from an aircraft or from a point of high elevation.178 POINTS

Fograt, Wooster and Elopus are the smush named animal hybrids that have served as mascots for the hunt each year. Elopus is by far the coolest, but the thought of having to 'draw' all of those tentacles was much too daunting. The Fograt just looks like a black blob, so I chose the Wooster for this one.

Finding a farmer willing to let me ruin their crops was a whole 'nuther issue. My neighbour grows soybeans, and he's a really great guy, but to ruin an acre of his crop would cost about $500. Too rich for my blood, and I certainly don't expect someone to give up that kind of cash for me. Other crops didn't seem to be much cheaper, as low as $250 per acre, but still more money than I was willing to spend. The hunt is supposed to be about 'finding' stuff, not buying it.

I eventually found a lovely, tall field of grass at the University's rural research station, which is close to my house. I was sent to a very intimidating woman named Tracy, who turned out to be the most sweetest and lovely woman I met the whole hunt. She arranged, through the beef cattle manager to let me use the field, and checked on me for the two days it took to make the pattern. This hunt really does help you to meet and befriend people you might never otherwise even meet.

As for the pattern itself, it wasn't much different than taking a regular photograph and transferring it to a drawing, but just on a much larger platform. An acre is 200 feet by 200 feet. Pretty damn big, and impossible to see wtf you are doing, when you're on the ground.

I printed out the wooster with a grid over him, and then paced off a bunch of 200 foot lengths of string, marked each string every 20 feet, then placed them in the field. I then cut a bunch of 20 foot lengths, put them on surveyors flags, and then placed them over the bottom of the square, creating a grid on the bottom section, which I moved up every 20 feet as I went, so the grid slowly crept up the square until I hit the top.

Spraypaint would have been an ideal medium for pre-drawing the pattern, but since this was on 'research' property, we couldn't use anything like that, so we used chalk powder. Better than nothing, but hard to see in long grass.

I did all the footwork myself, but hubby helped me on the second day. THANK GOD! We decided to just mow the grass, instead of push it down like a regular crop, since the grass is more springy than wheat, and probably wouldn't lay down nearly as well. I ended up with mild heat stroke, and less than mild sunburn for my trouble! :D

Before all of this, I called around to a bunch of different crop dusters and pilots and was eventually recc'd to a nice retired gentleman who agreed to fly over the wooster. Except, he informed me, that he couldn't take a photo while he was flying, so I'd have to come with him. Eeep! I am a very nervous flyer and am TERRIFIED of little planes. But in the true spirit of Gishwhes, I sucked it up and did it anyway. AND IT WAS FUCKING AWESOME!!
Flying with him in that tiny plane was one of the coolest things I've ever done! Terrifying still, but so, so cool!

In the video, you can see, off to the side, our car, and my husband and son waving. That's how big an acre is. They look tiny!

Crop wooster ahoy!

This ordeal was EXHAUSTING! I will NEVER do a crop circle again. Ever.

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[tripperfunster.livejournal.com]

*deep bow*