Blog Archives
Ethanol, third
“It seems like there ought to be birds.”
“Oh, THERE they are.”
Hockley County, Texas
photographed 3.19.2017
Ethanol, second
It looks like a sand dune, doesn’t it? I guess it would correctly be called a millet dune, but that sounds sort of funny.
If you wanted, you could also call it “more or less 15% of the fuel in my tank, eventually.”
Hockley County, Texas
photographed 3.19.2017
Ethanol, first
This is how it is: after 7.5 years of driving past the ethanol plant and never stopping, I went twice in three days.
I’ve been watching these dunes beside the plant for a few weeks now, and have been intrigued by the color variations in them so the other Sunday, the Patient Spouse* and I took a little drive. (Like Old People, really, on a Sunday afternoon drive to see stuff. Only we went the speed limit.)
Anyway, to get to the point, those dunes are made from millet, a grain that’s used ethanol production. (Here’s something boring to read.) (Here’s something entertaining to read.)
Hockley County, Texas
photographed 3.19.2017
*The other day, I referred to the Patient Spouse as my traveling companion (Yes! Not even capitalized!). He said it made him sound like a dog.
Art in a desolate location
This used to be part of a little complex on the edge of the town where I work; there was a cotton gin, the gin office, and this building. The gin stopped ginning. The office turned into a place called Larry’s BBQ, which had live music at lunch every day and where if you ordered anything other than a burger, you’d’ve made a big mistake. Then a chain BBQ place came to town and Larry’s closed up. After a few years, someone driving a bulldozer pushed Larry’s place into a pile, and someone else with a front-end loader loaded Larry’s into a container and hauled it (him?) away. Last year, someone else (I guess) spent a very long time taking the cotton gin down, probably to salvage the metal building components.
And, so, all that’s left is this little building, with a mural. (Which sounds fancier than calling it graffiti, but I’m in a generous mood, so what the hell.)
Levelland, Texas
photographed 3.16.2017
Fog and Ethanol
I go by this ethanol plant on my way to work, and it’s almost the highlight of the trip.* Over the years, I’ve learned that there are a few days in October and again in April when the morning sun hits the metal structure in a way that turns it into a huge cross. And that on the coldest days of the year, the low sun can make the clouds of steam glow a magnificent bright yellow. And that sometimes there’ll be a train on the long curving track moving continuously, but so slow it’s nearly imperceptible, as the grain is off-loaded.
But until the other day, when it was shrouded in fog, I’d never even turned off the main road to go look more closely at the place.
Hockley County, Texas
photographed 3.16.2017
*I know. That’s kind of pathetic.
One Day | One Image 