# Am I seeing round bales in this google earth image?



## formerfarmboy (Aug 10, 2016)

I own a farm (that I grew up on) in central Illinois, but I live in NY. I was looking at the farm on google maps just now and saw activity on it that seems to me to be baling of the waterways grass. I don't think it's tiling. If you're on this forum, you're more experienced with recognizing a hay/bale operation than I am, even from above.

If you would do me the favor and look at the google image at this link:

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.400177,-87.6216058,317m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en

and let me know what you think is going on. Looks like about 20 round bales to me, but, what do I know, anyway.

Thanks.


----------



## toddhandy (Jun 20, 2014)

Yes they are round bales


----------



## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

Them is definitely round bales......what type of forage is unclear and a strange cut pattern but perhaps it's a topo thing......


----------



## CDennyRun (Nov 26, 2015)

Looks like round bales to me!

Chris


----------



## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

It's waterways that are pretty common to be baled in this neck of the woods.


----------



## IHCman (Aug 27, 2011)

Looks like round bales to me too.

I've looked at some of my land on google maps and was amazed how easily round bales and cattle show up those images. Can count the number of bales in a bunch. Darn near count the number of cows in a pasture if they aren't bunched to close together. Kinda scary what information is floating around out there. Even worse I noticed I could find my enclosed hunting blinds where i hunt and could even see my ground blind in one spot. The trail from driving my pickup to check trail cameras left a trail right to it.


----------



## r82230 (Mar 1, 2016)

Yea, round bales it looks to me also. With all the info the government can get, why do we need to fill out surveys (USDA, as an example). As IHC says, you can count the cows from Google, I imagine the Gov has even better (detailed) views and tell if they are cows or bulls!!! 

Larry


----------



## Tx Jim (Jun 30, 2014)

swmnhay said:


> It's waterways that are pretty common to be baled in this neck of the woods.


Ditto rd bales that were baled in waterways.


----------



## Redbaler (Jun 10, 2011)

Google maps is always a few years behind on images. Chances are they were fed long ago. I live 100 miles away and i think the satellite pic shown is from 2014.


----------



## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

Round bales, probably fescue, from waterways. Somebody has done a really nice job!!!!

Ralph


----------



## Hayman1 (Jul 6, 2013)

swmnhay said:


> It's waterways that are pretty common to be baled in this neck of the woods.


I am assuming that they do that because there is a different mix of grasses in the drainage ways and that it cures differently. Now if that was in northern va, the answer would be it is a future subdivision and they are starting road subgrading next week and the poor bloke is taking one final crop off.


----------



## stack em up (Mar 7, 2013)

Yeppers, theyre round bales. Probably reed canarygrass.


----------



## NewBerlinBaler (May 30, 2011)

For what it's worth...

Just looked at my own farm on Goggle Earth and see a structure that was removed in July of 2011. So the Google image is at least 5 years out of date.

Gary


----------



## Farmerbrown2 (Sep 25, 2018)

My farm also shows images from 5 years ago .


----------



## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

https://www.google.com/maps/@43.7133719,-95.7668836,916m/data=!3m1!1e3

Rows of Rd bales in one of my fields

I see I have 2 rd bales in the waterway also.


----------



## PaMike (Dec 7, 2013)

swmnhay said:


> https://www.google.com/maps/@43.7133719,-95.7668836,916m/data=!3m1!1e3
> 
> Rows of Rd bales in one of my fields
> 
> I see I have 2 rd bales in the waterway also.


Good grief, you have any roads that have any curves? You come to Pa and they would think your a drunk driver cause you wouldn't be able to keep your rig on the road..


----------



## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Yep, round bales.

Looked ours up, no RB's sitting in the fields, best guess is last year after I was done wrapping cow hay, no wonder our row crop yields were halved last year, huge bare spots every where from flooding.


----------



## BWfarms (Aug 3, 2015)

I use google maps for everything land related (fencing routes, stand placement, etc). My images were updated as of March this year because I could see my pattern from fertilizing. Even saw my Dad walking to a barn, neat and scary at the same time. BIL has access to great updated satellite mapping for pipelines, roads, etc. Pretty cool stuff, could see birds eye and almost from vantage point if you were standing on Earth.

I see most everyone's hunting stands and food plots, so I know how to adjust accordingly on my land  but I can't see mine.


----------



## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

Redbaler said:


> Google maps is always a few years behind on images. Chances are they were fed long ago. I live 100 miles away and i think the satellite pic shown is from 2014.


Kinda depends on the area... I can tell by feeding patterns (where I fed bales in the pasture) and other such tell-tale things when the imagery was taken. Here the pictures are about a year behind, but are updated virtually every year. Shiner is another story-- the imagery up there was a few years old and wasn't updated but every second or third year. SO, I image that a lot of the determination of when and how often the imagery is updated depends a lot on the area, and probably how often the imagery is viewed.

Since satellite data is big business, especially in "real-time", I wouldn't expect Google Earth to ever update thier imagery so that it's less than a year or so "out of date"... Gotta protect those providers of "real-time" satellite imagery-- can't have a "free competitor" posting the latest imagery online for anybody to see.

Oh, make no mistake about it, the feds can count the holes in your pockets from space. The technology has existed a LONG time. LOTS of governments have satellites capable of getting high-resolution imagery or getting access to it. BUT, that kind of resolution costs money. I've read stories about how the CIA image interpreters would often see obscenities or obscene gestures (like flipping the bird) stomped into the snow around Russian installations that they KNEW were being photographed from orbit-- the soldiers on the ground's way of blowing off a little steam and thumbing their noses at us. Satellites orbit in predictable patterns-- anybody with a basic understanding of Newtonian physics can predict a satellite's position and when it will pass within range of a particular point of the Earth's surface weeks, months, even YEARS in advance... We keep an eye on their launches, and they keep an eye on ours-- once you know the orbital period and altitude (perigee and apogee) and the orbital inclination, determining the ephemerides (satellite orbit positions and timing) is possible with great precision (though getting more uncertain over time, and dependent on the quality and exactness of the input data used to determine the ephemerides).

Heck you can get an app on your Smartphone called "Heavens Above" that will show you the location in the sky and time of every satellite and rocket stage body flying overhead at any given time (well, those visible in the sky from ground observers) and the precise time and position they'll be in in the sky (with a pointable sky-map with a self-correcting cross-hairs to show you where you're looking in the sky) and the path they'll take flying over (even showing when they should enter Earth's shadow and will "fade out" as they pass through the airglow layer into orbital darkness). Swipe the screen to the left and it'll show you the ground trace of the orbit and a highlighted circle showing the area that the particular satellite you picked on the screen where it will be visible from the ground, and swipe the screen once more to the left and it'll give you all the ephemerides and observational data (orbit, perigee (lowest altitude of the orbit), apogee (highest altitude of the orbit), absolute magnitude (how bright it is in the sky), even the launch date, location, and launch vehicle type, as well as the orbital catalog number assigned by the Space Command.) REALLY cool stuff, plus you can use it to find constellations and stargazing, locating planets, stars, ISS, etc. It's a free download. Hit the "night vision" button and it goes red to protect your night vision for stargazing, and hit the timeline button at the top and a timeline will appear at the bottom fo the screen that allows you, with a sweep to the left or right, to move the clock forward or backwards in time, and shows you the position of everything in the sky visible at that particular time, as well as bars with the name and length of time each satellite is visible from your location.

REALLY cool stuff!

Later! OL J R 

PS... BTW those bales look to be 4x5.5 or 4x6 in my estimation, looking at the proportions of them...


----------



## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

swmnhay said:


> https://www.google.com/maps/@43.7133719,-95.7668836,916m/data=!3m1!1e3
> 
> Rows of Rd bales in one of my fields
> 
> I see I have 2 rd bales in the waterway also.


See ya got those big fans too... neat.

Photo-interpretation is interesting in itself. If you know the precise time of day and day of the year the photo was taken, you can measure objects on the ground by the shadows they cast. Of course the reverse is also true-- you can calculate the sun angle from shadows if you know the actual height of things in the picture and measure the length of the shadows. Course it works best for "straight down" photography, which not all Google Earth images are. It can be done for other angles than perpendicular, but the math gets rather intimidating... (above my pay grade anyway).

For instance, based on the shadows of the wind turbines, and your location in Minnesota (how far north that is) I'd put the time of day as about 9-10 AM... the shadows are long but not EXTREMELY long as they would be nearer sunrise or sunset (which is a poor time to do aerial/orbital photography anyway due to excess shadow length and lower lighting). I'd also say by the degree of westward tilt of the shadows that the photo was taken in mid-summer near the equinox (June 21st). Harder to pin that one down without digging into the math and doing precise measurements, but the earlier or later in the year, the more the shadows will point north-westward in morning and northeastward in afternoon, as the sun is further south in the sky.

I've got a rocketry book around here somewhere that has a chapter on aerial photo interpretation with all the relevant calculations that the average person is capable of measuring on photos-- there have been several rockets over the years that take pictures or movies in flight at altitude, as well as tons of home-built designs using commercially available cameras. I myself used to have an Astrocam 110 rocket and took lots of pictures of the farm back in the late 80's) but sadly have no idea where they are now, or even if they still exist). It's amazing what you could see just with a little 110 negative (naturally, like all photography, the longer the focal length and larger the film size (and smaller the film grain emulsion) the higher the resolution possible (along with a few other factors).

Later! OL J R


----------



## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

It is amazing what you can see from orbit...

The first pic is my place-- the wife's Buick is clearly visible parked behind the house by my truck and cattle trailer. We weren't home when this was taken-- the van's gone.









The second pic is my brother's place next door-- you can see the hay storage area, some old equipment lined up, even my sister's husband's POS car that my brother moved out of his yard into the pasture back there several years ago... Even the hay rakes parked just inside the fence are visible.









The third pic is the farm pond on the Shiner place. Notice that the solar array powering the water pump is clearly visible at the bottom of the pic, the dam, the overflow channel, and the low water crossing are visible, even the two old tractor tires I placed in the bottom of the pond (which are submerged and not visible from the surface) are clearly visible from space-- amazing! Even the bubbles from the water pouring into the plastic trough set in the edge of the pond (to overflow into the pond itself) are visible as the white triangle at the end of the pipe in the round blue plastic trough! At the bottom of the image in red is the information visible across the bottom of the screen, showing the imagery date (including the little "clock" symbol and year visible on the left side, which allows you to choose older imagery, some from decades ago, depending on what's available) and the date the current displayed image was taken. There's also a feature showing the actual ground altitude above sea level of the current image, and the "eye altitude" or what altitude you'd see this view from if you were flying above the place in an airplane and looking down.









The last pic is my BIL's place in Indiana-- my SIL was home when the pic was taken-- her Expedition is parked in the drive. Five of her goats are visible in the pen behind the shed, as is her chicken tractor up near the grain bin, the propane tank that feeds the dryer, and the bin itself-- the sweet corn patch is visible just east of the bin, and the surrounding field corn around it.









Yep, no secrets anymore...

Later! OL J R


----------



## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

My farm has a google map imagery date of 10/20/2015.....they seem to update it here about once a year.....maybe they are spying on me more here?

Regards, Mike


----------



## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

Yup.....big brother is watching, you most especially, heard you was "one of those".....put tinfoil in the attic


----------



## Trotwood2955 (Sep 4, 2012)

The Google Earth images of our area seem to get updated every 2 years or so. Most recent was last fall. As some others have said I find it very handy for laying off fields, measuring distances, etc. and in general really enjoy looking around in it...especially when the detail and clarity becomes better with every update.

Also came across some of the below images on Bing maps. They are 5-6 years old now but were taken on a day in about June when it must have been perfect hay weather because almost everyone in the area had hay down, was in the process of baling, or had recently baled. Pretty neat to see. I attached a couple images that caught us baling that day, and a couple Google images from last fall...sure makes it easy to take inventory of any outside stored hay quickly!


----------



## formerfarmboy (Aug 10, 2016)

Now that is a thorough response. Thank you for your feedback!


----------



## azmike (Jan 4, 2015)

Further proof of alien presence, and if so.............what if..........?!


----------



## r82230 (Mar 1, 2016)

Want to see something even more detail, my son told me about this Google site a couple of years ago and I was exploring local roads. Spotted these two trucks as I was going down a friend's road, turns out it is him and another neighbor BSing along the side of the road. Couldn't help myself, showed him the picture and told him he better find a better hiding spot, if he didn't want his wife to see him goofing off!! This picture is just over the small incline to his house.

Hope attachment works and you can locate your road/town to see what is out there. Apparently, Google is driving roads and taking 360 degree pictures across the US (or at least Michigan). So you can get a 360 degree view every few feet/yards, I don't remember. A lot of the pictures where taking a couple of years ago (if I remember correctly) in my area.

Larry

https://www.instantstreetview.com/@42.910879,-83.357611,6.33h,-35.79p,0z


----------



## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

I enjoy "traveling the world" in Google Earth... If you zoom in fairly broadly on a region, you'll see tons of "little picture icons" on the screen... click those and you get photos taken by various people of the area. I was looking at a bunch of the area of the western Ukraine awhile back-- very interesting area, very pretty villages and buildings in the cities, etc. The Stalingrad Great Patriotic War Memorial is just incredible-- (WWII memorial in Stalingrad). Neat, neat stuff...

The only bad thing is that some of the pictures are "misplaced", ie some doofus didn't know how to read a map when he uploaded his pics and indicated where they were taken, so sometimes they are WAY off... but some of the pics are just SO beautiful or just of the neatest stuff...

Later! OL J R


----------



## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

luke strawwalker said:


> I enjoy "traveling the world" in Google Earth... If you zoom in fairly broadly on a region, you'll see tons of "little picture icons" on the screen... click those and you get photos taken by various people of the area. I was looking at a bunch of the area of the western Ukraine awhile back-- very interesting area, very pretty villages and buildings in the cities, etc. The Stalingrad Great Patriotic War Memorial is just incredible-- (WWII memorial in Stalingrad). Neat, neat stuff...
> 
> The only bad thing is that some of the pictures are "misplaced", ie some doofus didn't know how to read a map when he uploaded his pics and indicated where they were taken, so sometimes they are WAY off... but some of the pics are just SO beautiful or just of the neatest stuff...
> 
> Later! OL J R


Check out Slovenia some time, absolutely gorgeous scenery.


----------



## Shetland Sheepdog (Mar 31, 2011)

The thing I have found most interesting is that the images I have looked at are quite new, but as I zoomed in, all of a sudden the exact same image switched to 3 or 4 years, or more, old! Apparently designed to prevent us from getting too close a look at present time!


----------



## youngbaler (Apr 9, 2015)

This in my alfalfa field after cutting last year, thought it was pretty neat.


----------

