Following up on The Round Hay Bale Experiment, I just had to post this stunning photograph for you to see.

There's something deliciously quiet and secret about a barn filled with hay. And no perfume smells better. Ambling through a meadow is better than the day spa.

With the bulk of humanity moving to the cities, I wonder how many people today will never experience this firsthand? No wonder we are losing track of our instincts and the small and wondrous pleasures they afford. One of those very best days I can remember was spending the afternoon sitting in a hayfield in Cimarron watching an impressive looking buffalo grazing on the other side of the fence. He never would come over. I don't think he was anything like a horse. He just didn't seem to know what that red shiny thing was in the palm of my outstretched hand.

As a girl, I used to spend a lot of my spare time in our gracious red barn. (That was Ohio, which is infinitely more civilized than here in New Mexico, where the few old-style barns all seem to be in ruin.) Built in 1942, it had hand-hewn stone floors and big, airy lofts on either side with a creaky stairway leading up. I dream about it sometimes. The kinds of dreams that you're really disappointed to awaken from.

I still love sitting in the hay in my little barn. Although that has gotten me in trouble.

Related link: Well-Groomed