November Bike Ride

That long lonely highway. Casting a long Shadow. Jefferson County WI, November 28, 2010.

The early afternoon sun is casting an elongated version of my bicycle across the pavement and onto the unmowed ditch.
The road is mostly devoid of traffic. Certainly no one else on a bicycle on this popular route. Temperature in the mid 40s with a stiff south wind and almost no warmth from the sun sitting low on the horizon. The fields have been stripped of their bounty leaving the land looking barren and lifeless, when in fact, it is just biding time until the spring planting. The only sound that can be heard above the breeze is the noise from grain drying on the larger farms, where it will be stored on site as feed, or join the mountains of corn at the local grain elevator waiting to be turned into ethyl alcohol.

Strange, 41% of the USA corn crop going to heavily subsidized plants to make one of the most inefficient fuels imaginable. The concept of burning our food only reminds me of Sherman’s devastating march through Georgia in November of 1864. Almost 150 years ago. The first definition of total war as he destroyed the southern economy and burned the confederate crops behind him. Who are we waging war on this time?