31 Days of Flashbacks: Maple Ridge Wind Farm Field Trip

One thing that we have been amazed at since moving to Lowville has been the Maple Ridge Wind Farm that we get to drive through often. The windmills are so tall! They are a big landmark for us. Whenever we see the windmills we know that we are getting close to home (even though we can't actually see any windmills from our house because of trees that are in the way). Every time we drove through we'd wonder how big they actually were and how many there were (we'd tried to count them but weren't very successful).

We have been fascinated with the wind mills since the first time we saw them back in January so when my friend Michele told me about a field trip she was setting up there I jumped on the opportunity to go and learn more about them. (A special thank you to Michele for many of the pictures below. My camera's battery was dead so I only had cell phone pictures from the day.)

We learned that there are 195 of the wind turbines scattered over Tug Hill. They are 260 feet tall. Each one can produce enough power for 560 homes.

 The blades are 130 feet long. It was so amazing to stand next to one to get a real idea of how big they are!

Even with our arms stretched out we didn't come close to reaching the length of one of the blades.

We all look like little ants next to the huge blade!

I'm thankful that we got a chance to go and learn more about these amazing power producers just beyond our front door here in Lewis County!