Agricultural Ambiguity

It's a confusing time of year for local farmers. On the one hand, it's finally warm enough and dry enough to start setting out seed, so the corn farmers have been busily plowing and fertilizing (which adds a lovely olfactory dimension to my daily commute) for the last week. On the other hand, we've had adequate sun and heat for growing alfalfa since February, so the cattle farmers have started bringing in the first hay crop of the year. Pity the poor dairyman who grows feed corn for his herd - he's working round the clock right now to get everything done.

It makes for slightly disjointed scenery - one field is freshly plowed, rich, black earth, the next newly shorn, pale green stubble.

I don't know when this image was taken (thanks, Google Maps!), but it's pretty close to what I see on my morning drive (from a slightly different angle, of course - where are the hovercars we were promised?!?). The brown fields have just been plowed, the light green ones freshly hayed, and the dark green ones belong to lazy farmers.



My route's marked in red, and the big grey mass at the bottom left is Boundary Bay - the tide was out, otherwise that bit would have been dark blue.