Farm Lane, Early November

Ten years ago, I moved from town out to what counts as "country" around these parts. Some of the things that I love about the area where I live are the big rolling hills and the wide, spacious farm fields. There are cows and horses everywhere, there is elbow room to breathe, and I feel like I have come home.

Alas, though, each year, there is more development out where I live. More houses go in where once were none. Big housing developments suddenly appear. McMansions pop up like mushrooms in what were formerly big, open farmers' pastures. Fields where cows once roamed suddenly disappear. I worry about the future of the farming life. I don't want to see it end.

Almost since the beginning of my so-called country life, I have been looking down this farm lane and wanting to take a picture of it. It's along route 550, the road I drive to and from work each day, but there's nowhere easy to stop.

But on this day, a beguiling field full of hay bales (or more likely, cornstalk bales) one field over called my name. I'd been watching the farmers make those bales for the past few days. To see the bales scattered at organized random intervals through the field (looking a lot like this) gives me a pleasure I can barely describe. The bales call my name; I don't know why I love them but I do.

And to top it off, as I drove by, there were quite a few farm machines lined up nearby; I was afraid that by afternoon, the farmers would have the bales loaded up and hauled away. Was this my only chance at some photos? And so I screeched to a halt, pulled over onto a nearby lane across the road, parked the car in such a way that I wasn't blocking anybody's access, scrambled out with camera, and carefully crossed the road.

Tripping over corn stalks in my work shoes, I quickly took some photos of those bales. And then, on my way back to the car, I thought . . . Hmm . . . there's that lane I've been admiring. Almost as an afterthought, I snapped this picture. And of course it turned out that this last-minute snap turned out to be my favorite of all of my morning shots, hay bale or no.

The farm lane is unpaved, of course. Made of grass and dirt, and now covered in golden leaves, it wanders down into the field, over the hill, and down again. Beyond that is a row of trees, mostly bare now, but still with bits of brown and red and maroon visible.

And beyond that is one of the ridges of our famous Appalachian Mountains, which were once very high but are now old and worn down. Beyond that far ridge and about an hour further to points east is where I was born. This rolling stone hasn't rolled too far, I guess.

In the left foreground is the rubble of a barn. I had wanted this photo with the barn in it, of course, but the barn didn't cooperate. It fell down, or maybe was torn down, about a year or so ago. The pile of rubble speaks to me of the passage of time; of things lost that once had purpose and function and beauty.

Scratch that. For these things still have beauty, but of a different sort: the kind that makes your heart ache; that reminds you to savor and appreciate, for time she is a-flying. And as a great poet once wrote, nothing gold can stay . . .

The soundtrack to this image had to be a country song, and there were so many good choices, but this is the one I picked. Montgomery Gentry, Daddy Won't Sell the Farm.