Hibernating buffaloes

Living in the middle of fields in an agricultural community means that we see (and smell ;) constant reminders of our agricultural surroundings. Even during the winter when the fields are covered with snow (and can sometimes be mistaken for lakes) bales of feed litter the landscape just waiting to be fed to cattle.

I quite often call round bales of hay, straw, or feed buffaloes because of a childhood road-trip. When I was eleven and visiting my grandparents in the States, granny and I traveled by bus from Champaign-Urbana, Illinois to Butte, Montana to visit my aunt and great-grandmother. The trip took two nights and three days on the bus each way. To help pass the time on that long trip, my grandmother taught me how to spot buffaloes and indians.

You can probably figure out what the buffaloes were. Indians were trees highlighted against the sky on a ridge, just waiting to come riding down. It’s one of those childhood memories that always brings a smile to my face. Unfortunately Finland doesn’t have many suitable ridges for indians to make an appearance, but we do have our fair share of buffaloes. Although most of them are pre-processed these days.