For all you city folk stopping by, this is a center pivot used for irrigating crops.  Over on the right where the dragonfly’s head is pointing is the center this pivot, which is in the center of this field…hence the name center pivot.  As you can see, the majority of the pivot follows a straight line, with the exception of this last span, which is at an angle to the rest.  This last span is called a swing span, because it swings out from a 90° angle to fall in a straight line with the rest of the pivot before folding back to a 90° angle again.  This enables the swing span to water most of the corners of a field — picture the field as square with rounded corners.  Most of the field can be utilized, rather than just a circle in a square with the corners sitting idle.  Also, if you have a rectangular field, the swing span waters the long ends of the field when fully expanded.  Center pivots can also be configured in a half circle, quarter circle or three-quarter circle (or anything in between, really). 

Pivots these days can be operated through the use of telemetry and a laptop, eliminating the need to babysit the pivot.  The telemetry sends various notifications via email to a designated operator’s cell phone or laptop.  The telemetry also tells the swing span when to turn on and turn off the sprinklers.  Oh yes, in case you are wondering how the swing span knows when to swing out and swing back in, there is wire buried about three or four feet deep all the way around the circle in the path the swing span needs to follow and it sends out a signal to something located on the end of the swing span. 

Some farms don’t utilize swing spans on their pivots and make use of the corners in different ways.  They are good locations for homes and shop yards.  Utility companies utilize them for locating their sub-stations.  Farmers can also utilize the corners for CRP – Conservation Reserve Program through the USDA, wherein native grasses are planted to provide cover for wildlife and to help prevent erosion.

This shot is actually a compilation of nine different shots.  I let Photoshop do all the work of stitching the images together.  It does it automatically and takes only a few minutes rather than who knows how long it would have taken me to do it myself.  The only thing I had to do was crop it afterwards to even the edges up.  I don’t think I needed all nine of the original images, but you are supposed to have quite a bit of overlap for each photo used.  PS did a fantastic job merging them all together.

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I almost forgot!  I’m up today at Vision and Verb.  If you have a moment or two, check out my post and then linger a while to read the other fantastic posts.

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One more thing…I just found out that my photo of Buster that was submitted to Diane Schuller Photography’s Pet Photo Contest was selected as one of the finalists!  How cool is that!!!  Please go to Diane’s site and vote for #5 – Buster is the Boston sniffing a bouquet of roses – see photo at left.  The shot wasn’t set up at all, with the exception that I took the bouquet outside to take some photos and Buster came over to sniff the roses all on his own.  He’s such a sweetie.  Go vote – you have until Sunday at midnight.