More Hay Goes Down

My goodness…..its past midweek already. Yesterday the guys were busy at cutting the rest of the hay fields. I like the look of the zoomed photo above; it appears there’s a big hill a-happening, but its only an illusion. Below is how it really looks…..just a small rise there in the middle of the field.

Look, in the next photo there’s a barn swallow swooping over the haybine, probably gulping down bugs which swarm up from the thick alfalfa and clover that’s being cut.

How convenient…..next to the hayfield is a cornfield to show you. The corn is about a foot high right now, if the young stalks were to stretch out on their tippy-toes.

Next is the oat field…..green, green, green is all I can say about it. Those lighter green spots out in the center of the field are patches of timberweeds, sad to say. I wish timberweeds had some sort of commercial value for they grow so mightily around here, often to heights way above my head. Timberweeds are blessed with stiff stems and big leaves…..you would think the botany scientists at Iowa State or some other agriculture college could figure out a way to make use of them for the good of humankind. Hey, I’d even donate timberweeds to them FREE OF CHARGE.

The above oat field photo also gives you an idea of the type of weather we’ve been having lately…..hazy and coolish. No blue skies or bright sunshine in sight. The crops need sunshine and warmth, that’s for sure…..heat units is the scientific way of saying it. The crops need heat units to spur photosynthesis and growth. Which reminds me…..have I ever mentioned Norman Borlaug here on the blog? If not, I had intended to at some point. He’s a famous agronomist and Nobel Peace Prize winner (1970), born near Cresco, Iowa, in 1914. A friend of ours has elderly relatives who grew up in the same rural Cresco neighborhood as the Borlaugs and they attended country school with the Borlaug kids. Pretty cool.

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Buster kept an impatiently watchful eye on me as I snapped photos of the crops. He was probably thinking, “Good grief, woman…..hurry up already so we can take our morning walk!”

And, an enjoyable walk we had and found various interesting plants and butterflies. We’ll show you in upcoming posts.

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Forgive me for my veering into a pity-party attitude in yesterday’s post. I truly appreciate your kind and encouraging comments, though. Thank you! When finances are tight then I start feeling guilty about not having a career in place. My career has been doing farm wife and mother stuff and the monetary pay for that is nil, of course. If I could even find a job now, it would be low-paying and would probably require a 40-mile round trip of driving each day. Think of the fuel and vehicle maintenance expenses. Most of the women in Readlyn work at a big insurance business in Waverly, but I have no desire to work at a place like that, sitting in a cubicle, talking on the phone. Ack. And, how would I ever keep up with my responsibilities here at home if I had a job off the farm? Its exhausting to even consider such a scenario. Plus, I’d probably have to give up blogging and that would make me just too sad.

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Have a pleasant day!

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