End of the day ...

On the way out to an evening appointment yesterday I was side-tracked by the most spectacular setting sun. I hate to confess it, but the image does not do justice to the sky – the light caught at centre screen was actually the most amazing sight with great rays of light radiating out into the skies above the hill on the horizon. Unfortunately I only had my trusty and usually more than adequate compact digital camera on hand – and the automatic (no override) shutter speed just could not capture what the human eye could see. The camera never lies – it just doesn’t always tell the whole story!!!

If you read yesterday’s post you’ll recall my mention of hay bales along with winter’s very green rye-grass fields, and here we see the two together. Something I had not seen before was that bales are now protection wrapped and left in-situ until needed – I guess I’m just not that aware of modern farming practice advances – but I’m learning.

Hay bales ...

Driving along the Curry's Post Road I spotted a field of fresh hay bales - a sure sign of the oncoming change of season. I turned the car around and entered a small side road to park. A popular subject for photographers (go figure!) I decided it would be a worthwhile  challenge to see if I could come up with a new (and different) angle on these objects. Climbing over the first of a series of barbed wire fences (not a great deterrent other than for wind-blown plastic bags) I'd learned to navigate my way over or between the strands of these at about the age of four and I found myself in a field with three distant donkeys. 

Now I don't know a lot about the reputation of these beasts of burden for friendliness, but knowing that they are popularly a traditional children's ride at seaside resorts I decided they would not be too ferocious and that I'd easily get past them to reach my less animate targets. I stood perfectly still for a minute and having sized me up, they started to approach their unexpected visitor. Snap! 

It turned out they were indeed very tame and friendly, eventually surrounding me, with their occasionally flicking ears challenging the buzzing country insects to try to land on them. I nuzzled their muzzles, realised that it's not just the country folk around here who are so approachable, and went back in the direction of my waiting car. Gotta love country life.

And that's the story behind this picture of a field of hay bales. Different angle eh?