Breath back...

So there we are.
That time of year again.

Fields of gold everywhere and combine harvesters and tractors laden with black round bales of straw slowing the traffic, making the world wait as they bring in their precious loads.

Straw is such a useful by-product, although I’m never really sure of what. Is it wheat, or barley, or rye, or is it all and any of them?

I remember angular straw bales stacked high in the fields. You don’t see that so much any more. These days the straw is collected into huge round wheels, like the rollers of old steam engines, then poly-wrapped in black or light blue plastic.

I like the round bales on the landscape, although I’m not so keen when they are stacked in their plastic like a dark spreading spot.

I sometimes find it hard to breathe. I’m not talking simply physically, sometimes I feel enclosed as if there’s no space around me. Not wrapped in black plastic like a bale of straw, but not at all free either. I’m not particularly claustrophobic but if I were I imagine it’d feel like that hard to breathe feeling. I don’t like it and I’m always relieved when it passes.

It was on me as I wandered through the close cropped field, trespassing but up to no harm, trying to lose myself in the straw and the day for a few moments, trying to get my breath back. Nothing much happened.

I breathed in.
Nothing much happened.
I breathed out.
Nothing much happened.

Enclosed and heavy until some crows in the distance of the hill flapped their way slowly up into the warm air catching my attention as a breeze blew a whistle around my legs, the stumps of the straw scratching at my bare ankles whilst the wind turbines far away turned and whirled and turned until my breath came back.

Better, I stood breathing in the air for a few moments then decided not to trespass any longer and walked back to the lane.

Just a bit breathless, nothing to worry about.