Among all the topics I like to photograph, the hay is very special. I try to tackle it in most of my photographic trips. Over time, the hay has offered the Romanians a way of life, it has gathered together families and friends and it has created a scented landscape: flowering meadows, endless bee roes and multicolored butterflies. Holiday is the one spent hay working, helping relatives or friends, for many people that have left the countryside to go to the big city. There are still many Romanian villages where neighbors help each other, by turn, working together. Things are managed faster and easier when one is with the loved ones, friends or family. Besides the spirit of the connected community that the hay strengthens, it keeps other beings alive. Did you know that up to 50 different species of grass and flowers can be found on one square meter of hay? The main reason for such high biodiversity being the fact that these meadows have been constantly cut down manually. Other insects, frogs, birds depend directly on hay. Furthermore, a lot of domestic or wild animals depend on these grasslands. Our lives depend on it. If abandoned this ancient activity, the meadows will fill with bushes, trees and weeds in the following years. The hayfields are respected in the countryside. Walking a hayfield, which is about to be cut down, is like desecration. Once upon a time, I put my tent over the night next to a hayfield that was about to be cut down. I remember even now, how the owners were incredibly angry when they came in the morning to work the field… On a hayfield, if necessary, you use only one path, an Indian line, quietly, as if you are crossing a holy place. The hay is like a magnet of life and harmony. It completely preserves the magic picture of “country life”. Although technology, human migration, new habits will surely change its role, it is vital to understand how important it is, beyond its strictly economic role and to seek the best solutions to preserve this viable lifestyle. This is how we can keep our history, tradition, family and in the end we hold to our inner self.
