Hay bales are my lily pads. I watch the light on them when I run: the angle, the strength, the warmth. Depending on the time of day, the season of year, the color of the sky, the life on the ground, the hay bales look different every day.
Growing up, I made the drive from Savannah to Athens a thousand times with my family. I always loved to see the hay bales in the fields, dotting the hills as if dropped with parachutes from the sky. Plopped wherever the bale happened to have enough hay and the baler strapped it up and abandoned it. There was no order. No pattern to the bales on the hills, but the bales themselves are so tidy. This appealed to me then and it appeals to me now, the tidiness of a bale of hay. Something that swayed in the wind and covered the earth and that I’d never be able to order myself if I were to reap and bundle it – not without wrestling and swearing and scratching blood on my arms – all of this wildness was now bound in a tight, neat package that looked like a tater tot.
It wasn’t until I was an adult and started taking my runs through the fields around here that I started looking at hay bales up close. The swirl of the straw around the core of the bale, the streaks of stalks like highlights in blonde hair. When the sky is blue, and the land is stubbled, and the hay bale lazes in the right slant of light, it shines like gold.
Do they leave the bales as is and just let cows munch on them? No, that can’t be right – they have that green plastic wrap around them. That’s a new thing. They used to be bound with two or three narrow white bands of plastic or twine. Now they are bound by webbing. Someone must collect the bales at some point. No one has collected mine yet, though.
I wanted to watch the hay at sunrise today, but I was too early. The sun did not rise over the mountains and shine on the bales before I needed to get home to pack lunches. I tried. I ran back and forth, watching the morning sun light the hilltops to the west. But the bales were in valleys and I could not wait any longer. All my bales are golden. I want to see them glow pink.
For the month of April, I will be publishing a 10-minute free write each day, initiated by a prompt from my prompt box. Minimal editing. No story. Just thoughts spilling onto the page. Trying to get back into the writing habit.
Butterfly Mind 
A wonderful weaving of words. It will be a fun month!
Funny story: Years ago, I traveled with a group to Germany. There were hay bales in the fields. Wrapped with that white shrink wrap. A woman in our group, eyes wide with wonder, exclaimed, “Look! Sheep!” I don’t think I will ever see a bale of hay in the same way again!
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I love when nature causes us to pause. There is beauty in everything. When many aspects come together, naturally, the magic of sight can fascinate the brain to make ripples within the soul.
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Growing up in northeast Pennsylvania (USA), the hay bales were wrapped in white plastic. Many were the “city-folk” who thought we were raising giant marshmallows!
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Reblogged this on Janet’s thread and commented:
This triggered many thoughts of hay bales in Ireland. Will write soon.
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I’ve missed your beautiful prose. As always, you remind me to see things differently…the ordinary becomes extraordinary with you deft word skills! Grace to you.
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I love your descriptions. It’s like I’m seeing them for myself =)
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Looking forward to seeing your 10 minute musings. Julia Cameron says we should write every day. I journal everyday. Can’t get a post done everyday. I love hay bales too. Miss seeing the country side.
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Those bales–I’ve always loved them too. Like buttered loaves of bread sleeping quiet in hay fields.
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Love this piece, and hay bales, too. To answer your question – I’m pretty sure they roll the hay bales out, leaving a long swath of hay that the cattle then flank and munch on!
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Normally hay would have to put in the barn once dry so as not rot but I think nowadays with the plastic wrap, they can stay out.
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What beautiful your words when you can visit my blogger and see my post .. I will thank butterfly Mind
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I was travelling in the Loire Valley in 2010 and was asked to pull the car over so one of my friends could take pictures of hay bales. The American painter Martin Johnson Heade did wonderful hay bale paintings. Come to think of it, didn’t Monet also do some hay stack paintings. I guess that isn’t the same thing.
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