"Crop Circle' Festival

Every year the city of Oregon invites artists from all over to come make designs out of the cornfields that litter the farming landscape. This morning, I went on this plane at the Ogle County Airport to go see their creations



Turns out one that my fellow passenger was a photographer for the local newspapers and he took pictures as a hobby. With my Powershot (SD850 IS), I still managed to capture a few photos of Oregon, Byron, Mt. Morris and the other towns in the area.



Here are some of the designs that we saw. There were actually only four of them but considering that the artists only have a few days to do this, it's pretty impressive. My favorite is probably the last one with the bison/buffalo, wolf, and whatever that last one is. I'm not really sure what the one in the first pic (left side) is.






Nothing screams rural town like nuclear plant. Here's one that's in Byron, which is supposedly a pretty nice area and has good schools (whatever that means these days).

These are photos of the Rock River, and as you can tell, it's pretty brown. One of the locals told me that they periodically get notices about Radium levels and other fantastic substances.




This last pic I found at a store that I went to today.



I also had a chance to visit a local soap shoppe in Oregon. The owner used to be a nurse for a while and then decided to that she wanted to open her own store. She has been able to use medicinal knowledge in making her own soaps, and her daughter who helps out at the shop is, coincidentally, going into pharmacy school at UIC Rockford (after, of course, she has her baby in September). I had a fun time smelling the different soaps and learning about what all these strange chemicals do. There were soaps for "stinky pits," "insomnia," "chocolate," and any kind of skin condition you could think of. I was given a sample of "study soap" which has peppermint, which is supposed to wake you up, and lemon, which improves concentration and reduces mental errors. Apparently, in China, they are infusing lemon over the ventilation system for computer workers and it has been found that the number of errors has been reduced 54%. That's certainly a lot cheaper than blowing cash on Ritalin or other ADHD drugs, and I'm sure there's a lot fewer side effects.