Canon 5D Mark 3 | 70-200 Canon L IS lens | Off Camera Speedlight with Fong Diffuser
Hay mow (or, hay loft) basketball is a foreign concept to many young, up and coming basketball players these days. Back in the day when big red barns were more of a farm standard, the hay mow was the closest thing young people had to basketball skills camp. I’m sure the reffing was questionable and rules may have been bent, adapted or even eliminated. How did they ever survive?
This lucky young man along with his siblings and cousins have spent many hours playing basketball in this hay mow. Memories made and life lessons learned.
What are YOUR memories of games or shenanigans in the hay mow?
Canon 5D Mark 3 | 24-70 Canon L lens | Off Camera Speedlight with Fong Diffuser
Maybe we all just long for some connection to a life where a rooster still crows in the yard…As farms become larger and automated with huge equipment, (Hey, you don’t even have to steer the tractor these days!) the farmers of yesterday have found themselves in the category of nostalgia. Fewer farms today require daily manual labor of the past… cows to milk, a variety of animals to feed/butcher, eggs to collect and bailing hay meant stacking heavy bales on the hayrack by hand. Farm kids didn’t need the weight room to excel in sports as their daily chores took care of that. Kids were not asked to work, but rather expected toearn their keep. (as my father-in-law used to say)
Sounds like a tough way of life, but those who grew up on a farm “back in the day” most likely also have fond memories of life as well as a tremendous amount of respect for the parents who raised them.
The past has floated away like fluff on a dandelion as the prairie winds blow across the old abandoned yard. The young girl’s grandmother has long since passed away, but the old house from her childhood still stands as if to be a testament to her very existence.
The skeleton of a house is what remains, but in the mind are memories… laughter, tears, struggle and joy are carried by the wind as it flows through the empty windows. Heat radiating from the wood burning stove, smells of fresh baked bread permeating the air, the cluck of chickens in the coop to the sound of chicken sizzling as it fries in the old cast iron skillet…
RJMeyerArts 