Tuesday, June 28, 2022

First Harvest


In the eastern Ontario highlands, it's that time of year again. The first harvest is in progress, and bales of hay are everywhere. Deer graze quiet pastures at dawn, and shadows stretch long skinny fingers across farm fields at the end of the day. The air is filled with cricket songs, and it is not unusual to see turkeys standing watch on the crests of great round bales as their kin feed in the green stuff below.

The shadows slanting across pastures at sunset grow longer as our days grow shorter. As if to compensate for slowly waning daylight, northern sunsets become more intense: skies in deep purple and incandescent gold with perfect molten light and technicolor clouds. The evening sun flames amazement as it drops below the horizon.

This is my favorite place on this dear little island earth. I lean easy against an old rail fence in a corner of the western field, and my camera and recording lens can scarcely take in all the riches on offer at the beginning and end of day. Sunrises and sunsets dazzle these old eyes, and every rising moon is pure platinum.

All the treasures of the cosmos are dancing over my head, and wonder of wonders, they are spilled out at my feet too. As above, so below.

4 comments:

Caroline Ouellette said...

Indeed, this year offers beautiful lush thick hay for our livestock. The smell of fresh cut hay fills my barn.
First field done, five more to go!

Pienosole said...

❤️☀️

Tabor said...

My camera is working so hard to stop time. But it seems that time's beauty is in the transition!

Mystic Meandering said...

My husband used to work on a wheat harvest when he was a teen. The first harvest started in June in Texas, of course much further south than where you are! :) then worked north ending in Montana in August. Then planting "winter wheat" in the Fall.
How interesting that your first harvest is now and you are so far north! The wonders of the Cosmos for sure! :) Just love it!