Harvest then and now

Surprising how little has actually changed over a period of 450 years.
Since Pieter Bruegel painted the corn and hay harvests around 1565 and how farmers harvest today.
Only the means of harvesting have changed. Where people in the sixteenth century would spend a day scything wheat, bundling it and threshing it, now it only takes one machine about an hour to mow & thresh and another to make bales.
It only looked impressive to me for the first time this year because I had the Bruegel paintings in the back of my head.
Makes you a bit nostalgic. Farmers don't loiter about in the shade sipping beer anymore. Well, not in my neighbourhood anyway.
And there are no haystacks about anymore. So no frolicking about with the milking maid either.
Or needles lost to be searched for.
But lying about on hay makes you come out in a rash anyway. It is teeming with things that make you itch and sneeze and isn't soft at all. It's a bit like carpet burns. You never find out how bad it is until some time after. Sorry if I've burst someone's romantic bubble.