From Austin it was northwest on 183, through smaller towns but still 70 mph. Awesome. In Sweetwater we pulled off the highway to get a closer look at the windmills spinning sedately by the dozens in every field within view. More and more as we went on until hundreds could be seen stretching all the way to the horizon in every direction, probably thousands in the county.
All the fields where the windmills stood were growing cotton. Have you ever seen cotton growing on the plant? It's amazing! It's just like...Cotton! I mean, there's seeds in it that need to be processed out, sure, but beside that it's soft and white and fluffy just like you'll find it in the store. It really makes me wonder why cotton is usually bleached (what, to make it...white?) and processed with all sorts of chemicals. Anyone? Anyone?
As we were pulled over on a dirt roadside admiring the windmills, an enormous pickup truck with Texas plates slowed to a stop beside us. A little nervous that is might be his land we were loitering on, I braced myself for any brand of texas style greeting.
"You guys aren't broke down, are you?"
"Naw we're fine, just checking out the windmills."
Turns out there's a higher concentration of energy producing windmills in this county than anywhere else in the world. Thinking of the opposition to wind energy development in Vermont, I asked him how the locals around here feel about them. At first he didn't seem to know what I was talking about. Everyone around here supports it. Really? But this is Texas, land of Oil. Wind farms have local support? yup. create jobs? yup. Benefit the community? ayup. "See them big poles up there? that's more goin' in, They're puttin another 300 up'n a field out that way soon, should be more as far as I'm concerned."
I told him that back where I'm from some folks are trying to get wind energy up and running but there's a lot of people fighting it, think it'll ruin the scenic quality of the ridge lines and all. He made a face and a dismissive gesture like whoever doesn't want wind must be crazy. Now, there may be some solid arguments against putting windmills up in Searsburg, VT but as Vermonters with our reputation for environmental responsibility and a disaster of a nuke plant next door, don't you think we should be at least half as supportive of clean, renewable energy as a goddamm Texas cotton farmer?
Yeah, he farms cotton himself. "Pshaw" shakes his head. "Cotton's not going for nothing, we get 40 cents these days."
"Per what, per pound?"
"Yeah per pound, now you got two pounds of cotton in a pair of levi's and that's about all, now how much you buy a pair of levi's for?"
"Well," can't really say I've ever bought a pair of Levi's but "more than 80 cents!"
"Farmer gets nothin', hard to make a living..." he trails off and gazes out the window at a field of cotton that goes on just about forever. Now how about that! Here I am working with coffee, trying to learn what I can about markets and commodity price fluctuations and the alternative systems of trade that provide minimum floor prices to help farmers make a living in Sumatra and Guatemala and Ethiopia and this dude here in Texas is farming a commodity with a price in the toilet making it hard to make ends meet. I was stricken by the similarity between his story and the stories of coffee I've heard over the past few years. It was also refreshing to have a nice dirt-roadside chat with a big ol' Texan farmer. One of those much needed stereotype smashing experiences.
Stupid blogger website won't let me upload any photos at all. SO FRUSTRATING! There's picture of cotton, and windmills, and Texas, that I can't show you.
grr.
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