Hay Bales and More

If you have traveled Georgia Hwy. 212 lately, you may have noticed many fields being mowed as hay balers followed behind picking up the hay and forming large round bales wrapped in netting, sometimes weighing up to 3,000 pounds.

Seeing the hay bales sitting in the scorching sun in contrast to the green pines and hard woods lining the hay fields with amazing blue skies, white clouds overhead, creates an amazing picture. A picture that might remind many of the famous “Meules,” haystack paintings of Monet.

Monet painted 25 of what is now called the Haystack Series. The series included haystacks at sunrise, sunset, shadows, cloudy, direct sun light.. By painting the haystacks at various times, he captured the “en plein air” or the play of light on an object.

Lucky us, we can enjoy the sight of the local fields with their hay bales. If Monet lived here today, he would surely be painting these hay bales. Could it be that the term Making Hay can be more than very lucrative? In the past year, one of Monet’s Haystack paintings sold for $110.7 million.

Monet’s painting style started the Impressionist Period. He painted with dabs, dashes, and squiggles of color. To observe one closely, you only see the dots of color and not the subject of the painting. By backing up away from the painting, the subject comes alive.

Enjoy the natural beauty that Jasper County has to offer. Slow down and enjoy the show, lots of wildflowers including Queen Anne’s Lace, the common orange ditch lilies, and clover full of bees are in bloom.