Not some high and mighty garden maze

Everyone, I think, has seen big round hay bales. They tend to range in size from abut five feet to six feet around. Most folk see them along the road as they drive through the countryside. They're an easy way to feed a bunch of cattle for a stretch of time, provided you have a tractor with a hay spike to move them. That's an obvious thing, hay to feed cattle, but to a bunch of redneck kids around the world big round bales are so much more.

One round bale out in the middle of a field ain't much good to a child, but a row of them is a country wonderland. In most cases you line them up in rows in the corner of a pasture or lot. More bales equals more fun. The most obvious thing to do is simply to climb up onto them, not an easy task sometimes for a four or five year old. And then once you've achieved the summit the new challenge is to maneuverer this treacherous landscape. Bales stacked end to end are easy enough to run across, but there are the occasional gaps which have to be vaulted over. The stack is never uniform which means there are always fissures scattered here and there. A mean trick is to assist your younger and much smaller brother up onto the stack and them drop him into one of these five feet deep holes. But you must be careful because all these bales are round and can allow for small crawl spaces along the ground that might lead them to freedom.

This brings up a bit of group fun. When you have these bales in large numbers, dozens and dozens of them all stacked together they create a hell of a hide and seek arena. Nooks and crannies abound. Or a rousing game of tag could be played out on top of the bales; they provide a well defined field of play, and the gaps allow for a cat and mouse aspect that you don't get on say a gym floor. A bonus here is that short of falling completely to the ground below you're not likely to get hurt. The bales are like big round soft pads.

Every summer these hillbilly play lands are built for us country rug-rats and then slowly whittled away as the hay gets fed throughout the winter. But while they last they are a simple pleasure all little ones should get to experience.