Bale out!
Parkwood, Ontario, July 2007 [Click to enlarge]
I've been venturing out into the agricultural hinterland that surrounds our burg. It's pretty easy to get to from our house, actually, as we're barely a mile away from the edge of the city.
Every time I get into this peaceful slice of the world, I always manage to see something I hadn't previously seen. The camera comes along every time, because you never know when a color, a shape, a texture, a something will ask to be remembered.
Your turn: The appeal of farmland. Please discuss.
Hey Carmi......I took a bunch of bale shots on the weekend during my drive through the countryside after dropping my daughter off at camp.... was planning on posting a few later in the week perhaps....
ReplyDeleteI love taking my camera with me into the countryside....and my journal too. Several times, I pulled off the road to jot down a few words trippers that had entered my thinking.....
great pic.....and wonderful Stones reference....love that song.
I was born and raised in lonodn until my parents moved just north of the city near the end of grade school. We moved about 5km outside the city and thats where I will stay! Mind you the city have been expanding and close now then when they moved, but I have moved farther out. I'm not much for the city and don't venture downtown much, only when I have to. I do live in a very small town to the North West and thoroughly enjoy my 15 min drive into work through mostly farm land! Wouldn't trade it for anything and I will most likely be moving to a less populated location in the future, never to far from anything of course.
ReplyDeleteI've always loved farms. I love all the variety of smells and sounds, and there is something very calming about watching cows. And pigs fascinate me. The image of a farm appears peaceful, but I'm sure it's the very opposite if you work on one. You are at the mercy of so many things beyond your control (the weather, animal diseases, government control), and work is very, very hard. And I'm not sure if farmers are truly appreciated enough these days. Our society is very dependent on them, and yet there are so few of them these days, providing a great deal of food for a very large population who probably rarely thinks about where things like milk, cheese and eggs really come from.
ReplyDeleteI also have a soft spot for farms because my grandfather was a farmer from Saskatchewan during the depression.
Lovely photo, btw.
Any wide open space is appealing to me!
ReplyDeleteI love the textures in this photo and also the colours of the hay contrasting with the green foreground and blue sky.
i am a sucker for hay bales and barn shots....completely!!!
ReplyDeleteI don't get to the countryside too often, so there's just something pleasing about farmland. I find myself reminiscing about the summer I spent in South Dakota many years ago.
ReplyDeleteOpen spaces... the representations of hard farm work that has been done... the fresh smell out there accompanies the sights... raw colors in plants, dirt, equipment that has weathered hard work and rough conditions... rows of crops, the division made by fence lines... all very interesting.
ReplyDeleteMy backyard is farmland...and everything as far as my eye can see. As a child, I lived on a farm and it is a beautiful place to raise children. There is never an absence of photo opportunities, and even though it's 'familiar', I never tire of looking at it all.
ReplyDeleteThe texture and 3-d effect makes this pic not only peaceful and relaxing but interesting and something to be studied and appreciated. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteI'm constantly blown away by how easy it is to leave my own suburb and find country land... although this picture reminds me more of real farmland, like I saw in grad school.
ReplyDeleteI grew up on the farm. Nothing better than that in my opinion! I love the smells of the barn and the animals, and just having animals to care for and see daily, and the chores, etc. I just love it and wish I lived on a farm! It's far nicer than houses so close to each other.
ReplyDeleteCarmi, this is one of my favorites of your pictures...ever. My grandparents lived out in the country and we would pass quiet farm scenes like this one every time we went to visit. The colors in this picture really stand out...I just love it!
ReplyDeleteWe're lucky enough to live in an area that hasn't yet been over-developed, so I can still enjoy a little slice of country occasionally :)
Thanks for sharing! :)
I always love any place that is new to me...I like farms because of the life it seems to represent to me. A simplier life maybe. I like the image.
ReplyDeleteComing from an area where you can't avoid some industrial noises... I enjoy stopping my car on a long stretch of road and getting out to hear only the wind, a stream, or some birds. Too bad the tinnitus overpowers it all •(
ReplyDeleteFarmland near the corn and hay smells of earth and life and growth. I find the smell of fresh cut hay very soothing.
ReplyDeleteA city is great for all its convenience but there is something to be said for trees and dirt and plants and animals.
Nice photo by the way. I love the contrast between the bright green cornstalks and the hay bales drying in the sun.
I LOVE farmland and wish we lived on a farm. I don't actually want to RUN a farm but I want to be rich enough to live on one and hire people to work it.
ReplyDeleteits pretty simple for me, Carmi.
ReplyDeletefarm land in use tells my stomach that there WILL be something to eat later. I look at the land and appreciate its size visually, but way down deep I know that my substance comes from hard working folks like these, and from their animals, and their machines. We take them for granted, I think.
may I just say, after reading the comments, that you have the BEST readers! wow, what soulful people
ReplyDeleteI love that photo. When my son was looking at schools for college, we drove from Florida to Pennsylvania and up into New York state. All along the way, we saw cornfields in varying stages of growth. He was completely fascinated since he had never been too far out of Florida.
ReplyDeleteMy grandpa wasn't a farmer, but he did grow some sugar cane near his house and had pigs. I remember when I was five (a very long time ago) when I followed at his heels as he went and shot one of the hogs and the day was spent making sausage and other stuff.
He had a little mill, where he juiced the cane and made cane syrup. I never knew anything about maple syrup until I was much older and worldly wise.
I love to see open land that has been nurtured and tended - it helps me breathe, space in a built up world...
ReplyDeletelovely shot....makes me want to run and play in them...
I like the open spaces of farm fields, the even rows of growing things, the industriousness of farmers and the animals on farms. I like that not much is wasted on a farm.
ReplyDeleteTo me the appeal of farm land is linked to the appeal of a simpler life. It harkens back to a time when sweat was a good thing; when a neighbor was a friend; when complication was a challenge and nothing less was expected. I love driving through farmland and wondering what it must have been like when manual labor was something to hang your hat on with pride and not the default mode of the less educated. It wreaks of everything good to me.
ReplyDelete