Few farmers have time to relax mid-field during the busy harvest season. But occasionally an equipment breakdown or waiting for a ride can afford an opportunity to pause.
So, you settle back in a corner of the crop, or perhaps in grass at field’s edge, stretch out and briefly contemplate the blue of the sky and the chances of those puffy clouds emitting enough rain to stop the combines.
Mere seconds later, you feel it.
The first movement of an insect up your sleeve, around your shirt collar, across your ankle or down your pants. A short squirm later, you’re stabbed by stubble shards or dry thistle and buzzed by wasps.
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Your peaceful contemplation is over.
Not that I have any personal experience with lying down on the job (wink, wink) but it was the aforementioned short-lived contemplation that came to mind when I read about the Bett im Kornfeld, a German hotel that literally means bed in cornfield.
According to the news service Agence France-Presse, guests at this hotel pay a nominal fee ($10.85 per night) to sleep in a field. Perversely, considering the name, it is a field of triticale rather than corn, but perhaps the guests don’t care or can’t tell the difference.
In any case, they bed down in the crop, with a length of foliage separating them from other guests, and revel in the rustic absence of standard hotel amenities.
How long before the insects begin their night dance, the straws work their way through the bedding, the mosquitoes pester and the skitter of field mice attracts the owls? Not that long, I’ll bet.
Perhaps the familiarity of the field environment obscures the romance for farming types. After all, we can see an array of stars on just about any night that clouds don’t get in the way. For residents of populous and light-polluted Europe, it’s a novelty to be close to nature at the “1,000-star hotel.”
I suppose there are pockets of people in Canada who don’t know their corn from their triticale and who would welcome the chance to sleep in a field.
In fact, this column has frequently fretted over the widening gap between people and food production, so maybe there’s a prairie opportunity for a similar venture.
The window from mid-July to mid-September would offer sufficient crop height for privacy while being warm enough for comfortable star-gazing and snoozing.
Would-be farmer-hoteliers will want to avoid offering fields of mustard, flax or canola to their guests. Too scratchy. Barley is a bit itchy as well.
Stick to wheat or oats – not that I have any experience with lying down on the job or anything. Did I say that already?
