They have been working the hay all weekend in the heat . This guy was here all yesterday back wards & forwards in the sun, I hope he has air conditioning !!! It's going to rain tomorrow so they will be baling it tonight into large bales. In the old days we used to work the hay all day then after milking we used to take the tractor & trailers & pitchfork the bales up onto the trailer & someone, many a time me, stacked them, crossing them over like building a wall so they wouldn't fall off. Then down the road with the kids on top smelling the honeysuckle on the way back to the yard where we use to handle them all again into the barn. At the end a big plate of sandwiches & mugs of tea, by then sometimes it was after twelve o'clock at night & up for milking at six next morning ! Great days but hard work& it was just what we did & all around us doing the same. All done mechanically now which is for the best but not the same memories ! This isn't a great photo, I wasn't near enough & it was a bit hazy but it's part of my life & I wanted to capture it !
I love this photo, especially how the trees frame it and the cows in the foreground. I like how you get the whole picture and not just the haymaking. I used to work at a horse farm so I remember well stacking bales of hay in the hot hayloft. It was always hard work but very rewarding when you've finally finished. Good memories there. :)
@appaloosa05 Thank you Megan & you 're right there is great satisfaction at the end & specially when you wake up to a wet morning & all is safely gathered in !!!!!!
Well I will tell you, I helped out on a farm for a little while when I was younger, and I will tell you, at that age I was bone tired till I was done loading the bails on the wagon. It is hard, back breaking work.
I love this and it captures both the dairy and arable parts of your life so I'm not surprised you chose it. Your haymaking days WITH milking sound like incredibly hard work and I bet the sandwich making fell to you too! Fabulous memories to have though - mechanisation and health and safety don't take into account the joy of riding on top of the hay smelling honeysuckle!
@digitalrn@judithg Thank you both for your comments !! These are our old fields & now someone else is farming them so it is strange to watch . We never did hay here only silage, the hay was at the old farm where we had the Songs of Praise yesterday.
A very interesting capture of farm life - and thankyou so much for your comments. I appreciate living in a rural situation where the seasons come and go, each one with its tasks and possibilities. And some seasons with tough challenges!
I love this photo Mum and your account too. I remember sitting on the trailer collecting the hay, probably getting in the way too. I think once or twice Dad even trusted me to drive the tractor. I especially remember the unloading and loading onto the elevator into the barn. At the end of the evening we used to have to come down the elevator and I was always so scared!
It's a lovely picture and what you say more than compensates for the distance in the picture. I remember hay days in the western isles as a child............unforgettable memories!
great shot and great description to go with it - it's great that new technologies have made things somewhat easier, but I guess doesn't counjour the same memories? love the light in through the leaves in the foreground
@jmj@stepheesue@sarah19 Thanks for your lovely comments I enjoyed re living past times ! @sparkle@samdan Glad you like the photo even though it could have been clearer, they have bailed all the hay tonight while I have been out ! @phil_howcroft I did try another shot I took & cropped that to a letterbox size so that it brought the tractor nearer but it didn't seem to work too well without the sky ! Also the River Wyre runs along the line of trees & someone had dumped some rubbish & it spoilt the look ! Thanks for your suggestions Phil.
@mrsfeet Funny Cathy I had forgotten that ! I do remember now trying to coax you down the hay elevator at the end!! You must have only been quite small ..health & safety would have been after us these days !!
That is a lovely shot and such a fascinating commentary. As a child we would stay in a small cottage in north Wales and go and see the farmer next door - he was lovely, quite an old boy I'd be about 3 or so. He had just got a modern milking parlour and I remember him showing us how it all worked. It was wonderful experience. But the cottage was very primitive - it must have been a hard life.
Sometimes a picture isn't about how clear it is, it's a story about lives. Love this photo, so much improvements now with haymaking, grabbers on tractors, roundbalers, elevators etc. no more back breaking work. Funny how we only remember the good bits.
i lived on a farm once upon a time ...your picture and your thoughts hv brought back a wealth of memories - sights, sounds, smells ....
i think what you've done is just perfect~ thank you
it took me a minute to spot the tractor, but now I see it. My eye first went to the line of cattle. It sounded hard work in the old days, but the community spirit was there then too and it's a shame that it has diminished, progress being a bit of a double edged sword.
Such a wonderful capture of life on a farm. It sounds like it was the hardest work you ever loved, Pat. Thank you for sharing those special memories ~ right down to the sweet smell of the honeysuckle. I love this post...photo and narrative!
July 8th, 2011
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You've done a lovely job with the framing by using the tree branches.
Alternatively you could go ultra letterbox and take the sky out altogether and have an almost panoramic effect !
There are a lot of good points about the photo :)
@sparkle @samdan Glad you like the photo even though it could have been clearer, they have bailed all the hay tonight while I have been out !
@phil_howcroft I did try another shot I took & cropped that to a letterbox size so that it brought the tractor nearer but it didn't seem to work too well without the sky ! Also the River Wyre runs along the line of trees & someone had dumped some rubbish & it spoilt the look ! Thanks for your suggestions Phil.
i think what you've done is just perfect~ thank you