To race a swallow, Part II

Yesterday gave us another gorgeous summer afternoon, perfect for getting on the motorcycle once more and for racing the swallows as we searched for the lazy hay bales that have sat on green fields all summer, like fat sea lions sunning.

As our luck, and my absolute lack of knowledge about the cycles of farming, would have it, 9 out of 10 fields we passed (the same ones we'd seen on Saturday) no longer had bales strewn around but they had all been picked up and neatly collected (if boringly, for a picture) on the edge of the field.

My husband, however, was not to be deterred, and we rode road after road, many with very cool names, until we hit upon a field with the bales as I'd wanted to show them to you.

The roads with interesting names that we were on included Dog Hollow Road, Eden Church Road, Clutter Road, Camp Ohio Road, and Divan Road (on Saturday we'd gone looking for Owl Creek Church Road, but didn't find a way in, only passed the way out...).

We also went on Black Snake Road, which lived up to its name by being full of potholes and rough stretches, but which led to Purity Road, which was smooth and well maintained. Who says life doesn't speak metaphorically, too?

Summer in Ohio is glorious, as I've already mentioned, and this photo essay is aimed at sharing some of this agricultural country's beauty with you. Even the weeds, the humble milkweed, and the prickly one whose name I don't know, bask in the sun and add something to the view.

My husband had planned for us to leave around 7:30 p.m., about an hour or so before sunset, to get the benefit of the best light, and he was right. Everything we saw shone with the glow of late afternoon sun.

We whizzed by farm after farm after farm, and I remembered fondly the Fisher Price farm set I had as a little girl, which included a black-and-white cow, a red rooster, and a brown horse. I absolutely loved that set but, before moving to Ohio, it was as close as I ever came to a farm. Now, farms are all the eye can see as far as it can see, and now the cows, including the black-and-white (Holstein) ones, and the handsome brown, black and white horses, are all real.

Horses are, of course, a mainstay of life around here, especially for the Amish, who depend on their horses for their transportation.

We, on the other hand, were on a motorcycle, perhaps as far on the opposite end of the spectrum of ground transportation as you can get from the sign above. As the day faded, we raced toward the sinking light, aiming for the little piece of this countryside county we now call home.