Have you ever seen a haystack in person?

Or was it painted on a canvas?

Nature photo of the day: haystacks in a part of the world you probably have never seen.

If you’ve noticed, there are a lot of haystacks around our home. Enough for us to have been inspired by the many dotting the landscape.

At first we just looked on in awe at the many of them. We noticed that they had a particular shape, one that could be carved by the rain and the wind.

Their shape is also the result of how quickly or thoroughly they were raked and patted down. There is an art to haystack making here in the Maramureș region of northern Romania. We invite you to come one day and marvel at them for yourselves.

Until then, we hope you are content with the semi-romantic images we take. After all, it’s better to see them in real time, rather than viewing a hundred-year-old painting. This way you can feel that some traditions are definitely worth keeping.

Poem incoming…

beanstalks won’t ever reach the sky
let me tell you why
they are rooted to the earth
seeds placed in mounds of dirt
they grow as tall as they need
to produce a new generation of magic seeds
their goal is not to reach a place,
rather to feed your happy face
for beans were built for survival
to keep us grounded and content
satisfied and complete
on this beautiful and loving turf
- Cheryl M.

Every day we take a photo of nature. At the end of each month we put them together in what we call a photo quilt. Here is what the month of June looked like for us:

At the end of the year, it will be interesting to see how the colors change as we bring them all into one big “blanket”. Maybe it’s something you want to try yourself?! To keep track of the sky, the weather, what’s blooming over here and over there… Most importantly it gets you outside to see what nature is doing in your neck of the world.

You can find our monthly photo quilts as prints in our Etsy shop - Earth Gratitude Studio.

And your journal prompt of the day:

If I was a bug for a day what would I like to be? What would I eat, where would I wander, how would I spend my time?

Bugs don’t get much credit for all the hard work they do, much like us and you! Imagine that you could be any bug at all, how would it feel to go about life unnoticed by people at all.

What sort of bug would you choose to be? Leave a hint in the comments below!