A creative couple from Texas has been bringing smiles to people’s faces with their incredible hay bale sculptures.
Jerry Don and Melissa Kelley who are in their mid-50s have created hay bale art featuring bears, cows, and popular characters such as Minions from the movie series “Despicable Me,” and Woody from “Toy Story.” They have no intention of stopping.
“We will continue as long as we are able and we have some paint,” Melissa told The Epoch Times. “We need more reasons to smile; we need a reason to bring laughter and giggles to our hearts, and these creations bring that to this small community.”
Apart from being a wife and mother, Melissa Kelley works as a cosmetologist and home office manager, as well as providing services to widows in the area. Her husband Jerry Don has been a farmer and business owner for over 30 years. The pair who have grown up in Palestine, continue to live there.
“We live less than five miles from where we were raised,“ Melissa said. ”We have deep roots.”
Around six years ago, Melissa was browsing through Pinterest when she came across a bear built out of hay, sparking an idea in her own mind.
“I just thought, ‘we can do that,'“ Melissa said. ”I showed it to my hubby and he agreed we could, so we did.”
In their first year, the couple tried creating a big teddy bear. Soon they created more detailed hay bale structures like a John Deere tractor, pumpkins, and more.
This year their farm was home to hay bale sculptures of a bear, snowman, cow, and gumball machine.
Since the sculptures’ popularity has soared amongst the community, Melissa said that people send her ideas for the hay bale sculptures.
“Friends tag me in a post and encourage me to do this one,” she said. This year, the couple took in the suggestion for the gumball machine. They also took inspiration from their own surroundings to create the cow, which worked well.
The time it takes to complete a single sculpture varies, according to Melissa.
The gumball machine, she said, took less than two hours, whereas the minions took a bit longer to paint. Meanwhile creating Woody took six hours since it had a lot of details.
However, getting the hay takes time since they don’t have it with them and they have to haul it.
Creating these sculptures doesn’t normally have many challenges, Melissa said. However, the “Woody” sculpture blew down once.
“But we got him all put back together and had to touch up the paint a little bit, he never fell again,” she said.
Melissa said the making of these sculptures can start in summer when they have small rolls of hay that they can’t really do anything with. This is how the “Woody” sculpture came about.
The resourceful couple also recycles used, discarded farming materials for their artwork. Woody’s hat was a worn-out tractor tire, while Frosty the Snowman’s cap was made from an old feed tub, with an insulation noodle on the rim.
According to the couple, their efforts are for the sole purpose of making people smile. People in cars pause to snap pictures, some even ride out just to see the colorful, amusing collection of hay bales.
“It’s been fun watching families come out and enjoy the time together,” Melissa said.
Once, when Melissa was going out to the mailbox, she heard giggling coming from a group of ladies who had stopped to take pictures of the sculptures.
