A Perfect Summer Day - A Nature Photo Essay
Early July, and the meadow was ripe for harvesting. The first crop of hay of the year was about to get cut. I had been watching the grasses grow quickly throughout the spring and early summer. Lots of rain, sun, and warm weather. Growing grass is happy grass.
A meadow that I lived nearby at the time gets cut and baled into hay, usually twice a year. Only one crop if it's a particularly dry summer. I had been able to catch the crew baling the cut hay a number of times, but I had never been around when the grass was being cut.
So when I heard the sound of a tractor working outside -- and knowing there was no planting or harvesting to do in midsummer -- I figured it must be hay cutting time. Good. I was interested to watch, not that it's anything spectacular. Just good clean country fun. What's going on.
I walked out the lane to photograph the ripe meadow. It was a perfect summer day: sunny, warm, low humidity, spectacular cumulus clouds, free of biting insects, even. I waded into the field opposite the one the farmer was cutting. Facing into the wind, I enjoyed the waves upon waves of grass as the breeze blew relentlessly toward me. A lake of grassy waves, invigorating and mesmerizing.
Photographing a scene consisting of innumerable grass stalks presents a problem. Oh, it's easy to take a shot, but when the living scene is portrayed as a flat, two dimensional photograph, the feeling of being there can evaporate. What was needed was a darker background to set off the yellowish seed stalks. Drifting over near the fencerow I found just that. There the darker green of the taller fencerow plants provided the correct setting.
I made sure to catch the farmer's eye, for safety's sake, to let him know I was there. We exchanged waves. Thereafter he continued to keep an eye on me, while watching what he was doing as far as cutting the crop. A bale of hay with a photographer sticking out lowers the price immensely.
I found myself interested in the signs left by the tractor. The tracks left by the wheels were fairly wide, bare rows. The cutting implement had sliced the grass off like a razor, leaving a row of inward-laying stalks folded from the left and from the right. Ready to be scooped up by the baling equipment after a day or two of curing in the dry sunny weather. Smelling really sweet, like cut grass does.
Simple pleasures are best. Priceless, actually. Clean air, a healthy environment with lots of green space. No admission fee to pay. No need for crowded, expensive, polluting amusement parks.
Just walk out into nature on a glorious day. Leave your cares at the door, or carry them along and let the environs melt them away. You'll be glad you did.
Recipe for a Perfect Summer Day:
* Sunny
* Warm
* Low Humidity
* Cumulus Clouds
* Open Green Space
* Nowhere else to be
* No particular time to be back home, or anywhere else
Combine ingredients...enjoy. Live.
