Round Bales of Hay Store the Season’s Goodness

We take a summertime country drive, and there they rest throughout the Illinois landscape: Round hay bales consistently spaced across a green field or grassy space, rolled tighter than a homemade cinnamon roll.

They measure a bit larger than Grandma’s recipe, about 6 feet in diameter and weighing about 1,500 to 1,700 pounds each. But just as I enjoy cinnamon rolls on a cold winter morning, the cows love dining on a bale when pasture grass doesn’t grow – or doesn’t grow well. That’s always the case in an Illinois winter and sometimes in a droughty summer.

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A friend once compared the sudden appearance of round bales of hay to that of raised mole tunnels in the side yard. You notice the result but usually miss the action. In reality, a tractor is only generally present four times in the hay-making process for mowing, raking, baling and moving the crop. Still, it seems the hay bales magically appear, then disappear almost as quickly to their storage spots, whether hauled to the home farm or placed in neat lines along the field’s edge.

For a time, even if we missed the making, our 4-year-old son would confidently explain the process. From the tractor buddy seat, he had watched Gramps make bales for the cows in his care. He had viewed the procedure repeatedly on his “tractor movie,” a DVD devoted entirely to footage of farm equipment at work. And he had carpet-farmed plenty of bales himself with a 1/64th-scale version of the baler.

A summer round bale makes the day brighter and the rural countryside more interesting and beautiful. Their quiet charm ranks alongside barns and rural sunsets. I’ve snapped several photos of our farm’s bales and those of the neighbor’s. Our daughter posed with round bales for some senior photos. My cousin even handcrafted miniature replicas of round bales out of powdered drink containers tightly wrapped in twine for table centers at her wedding.

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Then and still now, our kids and cousins run and jump across round bales of hay lined along field edges. That rural pastime provides a favorite farm-grown attraction at our town’s agricultural festival, where families make memories as summer gives way to fall.

In the end, those round bales of hay represent a promise made in summer and kept in winter, providing a reminder that we store up good days for harder ones. As the summer’s green pastures turn brown, the bales deliver exactly what they were made to do: give cows – and us – a taste of summer year-round.

About the Author: Joanie Stiers farms with her family in Knox County, where they raise corn, soybeans, hay, beef cattle, backyard chickens and farm kids.