By Chuck Woodbury
I love to spend time exploring the world via Google Earth and Google Maps. I can spend hours “getting lost” in the far corners of the globe, exploring places I have never been and in many cases never even heard of.
You see all sorts of things. In many cases, what you see from the satellite view you can see right down at ground level using street view.
Here is something I found in my backyard — literally a few miles from my home in the outer edge of the Seattle metro area. In the first photo below, in the top right corner you will see the southern tip of the runway at the Snohomish airport, Harvey Field. To the left is Washington State Highway 2, which runs north-south. Look directly to the left of the bottom of the runway and you will see a dark green field and then another below. You’ll see both in detail below. But to save you the suspense I’ll tell you these are mazes created in cornfields. The designs change from year to year.
I think these are incredible and I marvel at how those who create them can do such a wonderful job.
But see for yourself by scrolling below. And in case you want to learn about where they are and what goes on at each during their fall harvests, visit Stocker Farms and Thomas Family Farm.
Aren’t they spectacular?
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One of my favorite in Wheatland, CA… 2021
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Amazing. Thanks to GPS, these mazes can be programmed and a new type of Farm Art was born.
The “satellite view” is actually small aircraft equipped with cameras. I work at the Cleveland Air Route Traffic Control Center and they are contracted by the State, Federal or private companies (like Google) to fly grids lines (east to west or north south) along a predetermined area. Most of the time they are VFR (visual flight rules which means they separate themselves from other aircraft with advisories) or IFR (Instrument Flight Rules, which Air Traffic Control provides separation. The pilots fly these grids patterns mostly when the cloud cover is null and between 12,500 ft to 14,500 ft. If one location is cloudy they’ll return to base or go to the next grid area. Sometimes when they photograph near large cities with large airports it can become…interesting.
Stocker Farms – just a few miles up the road from me!