Planted in a wind farm

Susanne Stinebrickner is known in Farmers’ Market circles as the Microgreens Lady. She moved to the area from Texas after Hurricane Ike in 2008, and in 2009 landed on acreage in Green Forest off county road 905. She’d never have chosen to raise her tiny, tender sprouts on a wind farm, but in the last couple years a crop of 650-foot-tall metal turbines grew up around her anyway.

Her next-door neighbors, Jim Ranes and wife Betsy, also from Texas, moved in during May of 2025 and were building just as construction of the turbines was nearing completion. And, for them, living on a wind farm was a happy and conscious decision.

The roughly 4-mile area in which Stinebrickner and the Ranes live contains 18 of the 34 Nimbus Wind Farm’s turbines. They were built by Scout Clean Energy on some 9,500 acres of land leased from approximately 50 local landowners. The park’s footprint reportedly covers an area from CR 905 in Green Forest to CR 966 around Alpena.

Since the wind-farm conversation first began in earnest three or four four years ago, numerous stories, mostly in opposition, have been published in print and social media. There were, and still are, serious issues surrounding the country’s growing need for electricity – especially with the advent of power-hungry data centers. Wind farms or brownouts – take your pick.          

But here locally the deed is done, and megawatts are on the move with enough wind-power electricity to power 40,000 homes annually.

The park went commercial early this year, meaning building is finished, all safety and grid-connection tests have been passed, and electricity is now selling for real money. The turbines are spinning whenever the wind blows, feeding power straight into the regional grid like any other power plant.

So, all that being a fait accompli, what’s it like to live day-to-day among those giant windmills?

For Stinebrickner, whose daughter’s and granddaughter’s families each have around 45 acres on the other side of 905 just over the mountain from her, there are some unique effects.

“Our mountain features karst geology, where water flows through small caverns and sand purifies our springs,” Stinebrickner said. “Construction has disrupted this natural system, as the deep anchors required [to stabilize] the 650-foot towers damaged the karst structure.”

She reports that 50-year-old wells have gone dry, and spring boxes require more frequent cleaning. Walking outside is different now, too, with turbines moving wind forcefully enough to cause bounce-back effects as air from the blades hits the face of the opposite mountain and returns with a kind of percussive blow, causing headaches for some of her family. 

In bright sunlight headaches can also come on due to light flicker caused by blade rotation, creating what Stinebrickner calls “a moving shadow light strobe.”

“The blade movement also causes static electricity,” she noted. “My daughter purchased a weather machine and paid extra for lightning activity reports. So far, on good days, the machine reports hundreds and thousands of lightning strikes. She thought the machine was broken but was told it was a phenomenon due to the static electricity produced by the blade movement.”

Stinebrickner said another change wrought by the wind park included wildlife patterns.

“Local wildlife is migrating lower on the mountain and black bears are destroying bee hives further down.  Bobcats, rarely seen before, are killing our free rage chickens, lots of them. Hawks, a mated pair which nested and flew over my pond for 15 years are gone and grey heron no longer fish in my pond.”

Just down the road, the Ranes have none of those wind problems thanks to the topography being a bit different where they are. Ranes bought knowing the land was part of the park, which was under construction while he also was building, so there were no changes to notice.

“I knew this is where I wanted to retire,” Ranes said. “We came here to build our forever home, and I was aware of the karst nature. A good well should have a 600-foot casing, for one thing, but whether or not there’s damage may depend on how well the well was built.

“We love watching the wildlife here, except the bobcats do get after our chickens. I don’t know what animals may have deserted the immediate area during construction, but I have seen deer, raccoons, owls and other animals. Maybe more will come back. Meanwhile, I do enjoy the really calming whoosh of rotating blades.

“I have been in and around multiple wind farms for over fifteen years,” Ranes said, “building, operating, repairing, climbing turbines. They actually help my emotional state. I find comfort in the machines, the frequency of rotation, the beauty of the design and incredible engineering. 

“The fact that we can generate power from the wind is fantastic,” Ranes said, “as is the fact we are doing our part to support the grid and ever increasing power needs! I chose to live here in the middle of it all. I live 800 yards from [a turbine]. The noise is like a quiet refrigerator, or people whispering in a library.”

Ranes had nothing to do with the Nimbus Wind Farm but does have 35 years’ experience in the power industry: 10 years nuclear reactor operations, maintenance, repair and training in the US Naval Submarine Service; 12 years in combined cycle gas and steam turbine and coal power plant operations, maintenance, construction; and commissioning of power plants across five continents in 15 different time zones.

“In my last twelve working years I was responsible for several thousand GE wind turbines in the upper Midwest including operations and maintenance contracts, and commissioning several new parks,” Ranes said.

Stinebrickner, who has four turbines sitting behind her property, is staying put. Her family, across the road on the other side of 905, call the turbines “George.”

Stinebrickner has been in the Air Force Reserves, was a high school teacher, and has fought cancer; so “George” is no match for her.