Haystacks, in Hockney's footsteps

In another life I want to be David Hockney.

Today, we are driving the backroads of the high Yorkshire wolds.  Wolds are ranging undulating hills made of limestone or chalk. These Yorkshire wolds have acquired a topsoil over their stoney base sufficient and plentiful enough to grow grain. Rich rolling fields of golden grain. At this time of the year the grain has mostly been harvested and Yorkshire farmers are now out in force building their haystacks as winter is coming.  

It is these haystacks, and field after golden stubble field that they rest on, that make me long to be David Hockney.  Or Van Gogh.  Some time, in some life, I need to be a painter.   

Hockney has seen these stacks.  Over years he has painted Yorkshire hay fields from every angle and perspective, a whole swag of them, probably these same fields we keep braking to photograph.  Agog and besotted, as we are.   Easel out, canvas prepped, paint brush flying, colour kept.  

We, too, want to save an image of each and every field we see.   They are all so very different.  For years we have been charmed by hay bales of every form and we are finding new forms here that we have not seen before.   So,  I see this blog chapter as a work in progress, evolving during our stay in Yorkshire.  To be added to as we come across new and different ways to bale hay.  Following David.  

From afar these stack looks like a cluster of skyscrapers

This stack is more like a WW11 blockade

This one like a Roman lookout across the wolds

Pyramids of Yorkshire

Idyllic.  Bucolic.  Where is Hockney?

Hay through the arch

Separate towers of hay

Stacking for the winter

The last of the summer grass on the Wolds