Wednesday 10 August 2011

Making Hay

They were making hay in the field behind my house and I paused to watch the tractor going back and forth, the bailer towing behind and the bales spitting out into piles.



I watch the bailers every year with the same fascination, and each time I do I remember, many years ago, when there was magic.

We were kids, sitting in the sunshine by the edge of a cornfield, watching a bailer just like this one. And on one of his circuits the farmer stopped.

“You kids,” he said. “You can play with this stack if you want. But don’t go touching any of the others.”

We waited until he had gone.

And then…

Those bales became a fort, and a castle, a dungeon and at one point just an ordinary shop. We fought battles, held sieges and made daring rescues, chasing our enemies across the stubble in the summer sun.

Later the farmer came back with a trailer, loaded them up, and the magic was gone.

5 comments:

  1. There was an overgrown wilderness when was young, and amongst it all there was a derelict old building. That was our fort, etc. Years later someone deemed it unsafe and had it knocked down. Years of magic were taken away with the rubble in the backs of trucks

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  2. Grown ups can be such kill-joys, can't they ;-)

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  3. And there was me thinking this was a post about the Literature Festival ...

    So are they still making bales that are good for building with out your way, not the ones that are like big loo rolls?

    Sue, aka

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  4. LOL - fooled you!

    And they do both. It depends on what they're going to do with it. :-)

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