The Big News
Well here we are.
If anyone is actually reading this you’re probably asking, “What the hell is ‘Helios’?” In the very first kick-off post I put some marketing-sounding BS in there about the ‘re-visioning’ of the Wikman family farmstead, and that is absolutely true.
But that doesn’t really say anything, does it?
For sixty-plus years, since my grandfather, John Oscar Wikman, brought his family to rural northern Indiana, the Wikmans farmed the land. Ok, my Dad farmed the land. I was mostly an unwilling resident of the farmland. Allergic to nearly everything green or biting, growing up I would much rather have been in a nice air-conditioned basement playing computer games than out on a tractor.
Over the years, though, I’ve grown a real and deep-rooted appreciation for what Dad did, but more importantly how he did it. The blurb on this site’s title page isn’t just more ‘oohh a cool quote’ BS. Dad worked his ass off to live in harmony with the land. At some point I’ll do a write up of some of the awards he won for his conservation efforts over the years, but that’s a whole series of stories.
Anyway, here’s the current story, and what has prompted this chrysalis transformation of our farm into Helios.
I caught an article in my Google News feed a year or so ago about a solar farm installation going in in Indiana. Wow, cool, in Indiana? I remember thinking. But when I read the article I really freaked out. Turns out this big high-tech green energy initiative was going in near Bass Lake, only about 8 miles from the farm. My interest turned to excitement, and I started digging around to find the company behind it all.
Tracked them down and went to their contact page and just sent them a note. “Hey I saw this article. My family’s farm is very close to there, and if you’re interested in expanding I’d like to learn more.” Sent it off and didn’t think much else about it. Got a polite note from someone that sounded very much like a job rejection— “Thanks for your interest, the current phase is closed, blah blah blah.” Oh well, no harm done, was nice to make a contact with them.
Fast forward to late May, 2022. Out of the blue I get a text message asking if I was still interested in talking solar, that they were starting planning for a second phase. Absolutely, I’d love to at least hear about the tech behind it. I went and met with the ‘Director of Agrivoltaics’ (which, by the way, is the absolute coolest-sounding title in the world). I figured it would be a quick half hour sales pitch and I might get to indulge in my tech geek side for awhile.
But the more I heard, the more interested I became. The business plan is solid, the lease plan is solid, it would take a lot of stressors off of Mom as she gets older, would take the stressors off of me of having to figure out how to manage the farm from a hundred miles away while also having a very full time job of my own and our photography business.
So after a lot of discussion, and a lot of soul-searching about what Dad would think about his land being farmed for sunlight instead of corn, we signed on.
John (R) and Ed (L) from Doral Solar after signing the lease agreement.
Over the course of the next couple years, over four hundred acres of our farm will be dedicated to producing clean, green solar energy. Knowing how much time and effort dad spent with draining some land and creating wetlands in others, registering all the woods with the forestry service, researching which plants he could sow in the off-seasons to rehabilitate the soil, I know he’d be excited and proud of how we’re managing his legacy.
I feel like there should be fireworks or something there. Old school geocities site style. Something. Because this is enormous. It’s going to change the course of our family not just for my mom and me, but for my daughter and even her kids and grandkids, since the lease is generational. It will allow my dad’s legacy to live on for generations to come. We’re beyond excited and cannot wait to continue working with Ed and Doral Solar on this incredible initiative.
