Some Old Farming Pictures

[HoneyBerry]

I ran across some scans old farming pictures on the library web site. I selected a few to share with all of you gardeners. The first picture is Japanese farmers est 1925.

[applestar]

I was thinking of you when I saw that photo. Will that ever happen, @marlingardener? I think it would be really fascinating.

Do you work with horses, too? We're more likely to see horse drawn carriages around here -- mostly for tourists in historical Philadelphia, but I think same folks bring them to run rides around the upscale mini-mall parking lots during holidays and fairs/festivals during the warmer season too.

I love that some of these old photos are still around. A few years ago, I took the kids to a local historical cranberry farm -- dilapidated buildings, most of them limited to exterior views and peeking from open doorways and peering in from windows... some old photos and objects in a small part of the original farm house...

The farm has been purchased by the county and turned into a park since we were there so I don't know ...maybe it's been "restored" even more with better organized displays -- but if they rebuilt the buildings, I bet the "flavor" of the place might have been lost.

It used to be that they had run out of funds for "properly" maintaining the cranberry fields with scheduled application of chemicals and fertilizers, or proper harvesting, so they opened the farm to visitors to for guided tours and picking the berries as much as they wanted using traditional harvesting tools. I actually loved that they hadn't been able to chemically treat the crops.

[digitS']

Were these Japanese American farmers, BirdLover? I owned a house that had been built on a Japanese American farm just outside of Coeur d'Alene Idaho. Except, it was a long way from being outside by the time I moved in, during the 70's . That home was built about the time of your pictures.

The second photo might have been of my grandfather, except, I'm fairly sure his mules were not white. He established his second little farm in New Mexico's Rio Grande valley in the 1920's.

Dad said that they raised alfalfa and peppers. I wonder how much alfalfa fuel the mules demanded out of the profits . Grandfather was too cheap (or poor) to pay his property tax with cash. Instead, he hitched up the mules and did county roadwork for a week or so, every year.

Steve

[imafan26]

I remember even in the 60's the plantation still used mules. They carried seed cane and they would go into the field and fill in the spots that were missed or didn't take.

I remember that oatmeal was originally horse food. When cars took over the streetss and there were fewer horses the oat makers had to find a new market for their oat meal.

[imafan26]

There are a few horses here but they are expensive to keep. Most people can't afford to feed them well. The ranches here started using motorcycles and atv's to round up cattle instead.

[HoneyBerry]

Yes, they are Japanese Americans in Sumner WA, just south of Seattle.
I will load a few more old pictures berry pickers later. I tried but the images are too big to load. I will reduce the size in Photoshop and then load them for you to see.

[HoneyBerry]

Many of my friends have or had horses. I don't know why that is. I stopped riding friend's horses because I don't like getting bucked off. I spent 2 weeks riding bareback at a horse ranch in Wilbur WA when I was 15. (Wilbur is a tiny town over in eastern Washington not far from Idaho's panhandle.) It was a fun time. Lots of rattle snakes in those hills. I heard over 100 rattles on just one day ride. One rattler spooked my horse and he bucked me off. I was glad that I didn't land on a rattle snake. Some of the guys trapped one of the rattle snakes in a hole covered with wire mesh. They tortured that snake and then killed it and barbequed it. I didn't eat any of the barbequed rattle snake, but they said it tastes like chicken. That's what people say about everything odd like that: "it tastes like chicken".