Going Up The Country
I'm going, I'm going where the water tastes like wine.
I'm going where the water tastes like wine.
We can jump in the water, stay drunk all the time
I'm gonna leave this city, got to get away.
I'm gonna leave this city, got to get away.
All this fussing and fighting, man, you know I just can't stay.
(Alan Wilson (Canned Heat), Going Up The Country)
Ah but what if you bring the fussing and the fighting with you when you move up the country? One thing that continues to amaze me is the way people move into areas, then protest about something that was already there before they moved in. This happens near airports all the time, with new homeowners protesting the noise, or (as I have personally experienced) someone moving next door to a power plant, then complaining about the noise and the dust. It always is happening more and more in the country. People move into farming areas and are shocked, shocked I say, that farms can sometimes be noisy or smelly. Welcome to Nicholasville, Kentucky where the neighbors are upset with a farmer who is trying to protect his corn crop.
NICHOLASVILLE, Ky. - A group of residents is suing a farmer, claiming the propane cannon he uses to scare away birds from his sweet corn is too loud.
Some of produce farmer Dennis Polley's neighbors say the propane blasts — sometimes as loud as 120 decibels — have prevented them from enjoying their property.
Phil Palmgreen, whose property is roughly 500 yards away from Polley's, said he could feel the impact of the blasts in his chest.
"It's been so bad all summer we've never even had a cookout on our deck because it was going to go off every couple of minutes," Palmgreen said.
Polley acknowledged the device is loud, but "it's got to be loud to work," he said. "To get the birds' attention, it's got to shock them a little bit."
Just another outbreak of NIMBY-ism. The county has a noise ordinance, but that law specifically excludes agricultural operations. I'd be more sympathetic to the neighbors if Polley were firing ears of corn out of the cannon, but so far he appears to have resisted the temptation to shell the neighbors.
By quilly mammoth, Monday, 3 September , 2007 @ 12:45 pm
See where the ethanol madness has led us to? The corn has gotten so precious it must be defended from The Animal Uprisingâ„¢ with cannons!