Solar Harvest Farm Pics 8

Every Picture Tells a Story
While I know neither the month nor year of this photo, so much can be gleaned from the hues of the fields and the angles of the shadows. In many ways, we don’t really need to know what day it is any more than the animals do. The rhythm of the sun is both our timepiece and our calendar. At this moment frozen in time, early evening signals the end of a hot summer day. The final clutch of eggs have just been collected, the nest boxes freshened for the next day. The hogs are stretching from their afternoon naps, preparing to explore and roughhouse in the evenings’s shade. The spring batch of pastured poultry are already nourishing hundreds of patrons with their essential pastured proteins while the fertility that is their legacy induces a gradient of greens. In the brooder, the summer batch is already started, the pitter patter of tiny feet resonating through the brooder walls. In the house, the clatter of dishes signals that another supper has been enjoyed. The days eggs will be washed and packed, the next day’s orders bagged and tagged. The hogs will then be fed their final meal of the day, the cattle moved to a fresh evening paddock. On this evening, they are in one of their favorite hot day places for they very much enjoy the shade and wispy winds found on the east side of the barn. It will be another month or so before their rotation brings them back up to the fields by the house. Seems mutual that they enjoy watching us as much as we them. As the sun’s rays shine parallel to the ground with the orange hues seeming to saturate the air, all are at peace with the day. They will graze heavily in the coolness of the evening, dozens of tongues reaching out to draw in, then rip the grass with a twist of their beastly heads. Evening ruminations give the impression of complete, blissful satisfaction. With soft, clean grass beneath them, their nighttime sighs and breathy exhalations exude contentment as the uniquely sweet smell of bovine wisps through the stratifying night air. We know that there will be days that will be not nearly as nice and some so bad that they almost break our will. Yet on this moment forever frozen in time, this was paradise.