Hay Fever

I have to pinch myself because I can't believe I live right across the road from this view! I've always loved fields and especially barns. Growing up in South Dakota, I know a thing or 100 about fields! When I was 15, I had to go to a podiatrist in Aberdeen, 120 miles away from Mobridge, every Saturday for 6 weeks. There was (still is) nothing but fields the entire way. Oh, and fences and lots of pheasants pecking at bugs and corn kernels along the roadway. And a few mid-western barns. I thought it incredibly boring at the time, but now I love the look of a farm field. The one across from us used to have either soybeans or corn for the longest time, but now it's just hay. But in every season, it is lovely.


With all the rain we've had so far, this year has been amazingly great for hay. I have never seen the rows this tall and thick with fresh mown field grass. With the windows open, we can smell that pleasing aroma of mown pasture.


In between the rains last week, the sun shone down on these green meadows against the backdrop of the ultra-blue skies. We don't get many days like this (no humidity) and I spent every minute outside putzing around on the farm.


Every day the bales of hay would be in a different spot, like a giant was playing a game, the field as the game board and the bales as game pieces. Checkers maybe.




I really liked the combination of the large round bales and the small square bales (they're called square bales, although they are really rectangles!).


This is just the first cutting too. They'll probably get two more cuttings this year. It will be a rich, rewarding summer!