Hot Air Harvest

I received a call from Cindy at GRAINCO FS's Minooka, Ill. facility the other day. She told me a hot air balloon landed in patron Raymond Link's soybean field while he was harvesting. I called Ray and talked to him about the experience.

"The pilot told me she had to land because the balloons can't be up after a half-hour before sunset," he said. "I saw it coming and as it got closer and closer I thought it might land in my field, and sure enough it did."

Link said a second balloon landed in one of his nearby hay fields.

"I couldn't believe how big it was," he added. "When they're up the sky, they don't look that big, but when they land, there's a lot of fabric in that balloon."