Oh, city boys

As a small-town girl, I am more than familiar with many things farming, as I grew up down the street from a pasture of cows and several fields of corn and hay.


My knowledge was then increased exponentially by my months of working at Farm World magazine, where I was required to learn about unfamiliar farming concepts to accurately write about them.


So as I often do with my colleagues, who think it's funny, I was recently talking about being a small-town girl. I mentioned the fact that every year while I was growing up - and even on a recent trip home - my family and I would make our way to the small town of Erie, Michigan, to pick apples right off the tree, inevitably after a hay ride (or, as I have since learned, the more appropriate term would be a "straw ride." But that's a whole new blog entry... that I will not write.)


Response from a colleague, who grew up on Staten Island: "Oh, a hay ride! Isn't that fun when you get in that bucket they dump you in a pile of hay?"


What?


He went on to explain that his perception of a hay ride was from a children's book he once read, where there were descriptions of activities, and a corresponding photo of said activities. He said he matched all the descriptions with the photos except this foreign concept of a "hay ride." By process of elimination, he was left with a picture with some kids in a bucket-like contraption with wheels that was riding down a train-like track. So he said since then, his idea of a hay ride is riding in this bucket flanked by bales of hay where at the end you get dumped into a giant pile of the stuff.


After I explained the much-less-interesting fact that a hay ride is where people sit on bales of hay in a flat-bed, and are pulled along by a tractor, his face crumbled, and I almost wish I hadn't set him straight. Who wouldn't want to ride along in this roller-coaster-like contraption only to be chucked into a mound of yellow plant by-product? Sign me up!