Fond Childhood Memories of Harvest Time
by Elmer Prather, guest blogger
My latest puzzle is titled Harvest Time by Greg and Company. Before I spend time putting a puzzle together, I must have a connection to it. My connection to this puzzle is the beautiful farm scene depicted in the puzzle picture.
Pictures tell a story and this picture has many different chapters in its story. When I first saw this puzzle, I was amazed at how real it looked. It has some of anything you will find on a farm. The 1950s model Ford F100 pickup truck is the center piece of the picture. It has its original green and black paint and its aged patina. It appears well maintained.
"Harvest Time" assembled and photographed by Elmer Prather
The truck is loaded with pumpkins and chrysanthemums. The owners of this farm must grow chrysanthemums and pumpkins because they are everywhere in the picture. There are several different colors of chrysanthemums in the bed of the truck and in the front and back of the truck.
There are two dogs in the picture, one is a Golden Retriever and the other is a Border Collie. The farmer would use the Border collie to move and control his sheep because there are several sheep standing in front of the truck. These Border Collies are highly intelligent animals and they can be trained to manage and move sheep from one location to another.
There are three birds in the picture, one is a Blue Bird the second is a Ruby Throated Hummingbird. I was not able to determine the type of bird the third one was. There was a butterfly flying around pollinating each of the flowers it landed on. There are several free-range chickens in the picture. The farmer probably has more chickens that he uses to lay eggs that he sells at the local market.
Behind the sturdy wooden fence holding the sheep is a stately old red barn. As I got a closer look, I was interested in why most old barns like this are painted red so I did some research and found that old barns are painted red to keep them from weathering. Early farmers painted their barns with a protective coating made from linseed oil, milk, lime, and iron oxide. The linseed oil protected the wood from weathering, while the iron oxide prevented mold and fungi growth. The mixture dried to a red-orange color. Cost was the driver of the paint mixture. Red paint was often the cheapest color to buy because the iron and oxygen compounds in the paint were plentiful in the earth. As a side note, Today the U. S. Postal service celebrates red barns on postage stamps.
When I was about twelve years old, I started working on my neighbor’s farm. When harvest time came around, we would pick the vegetables he had grown, put them in bushel baskets and take them to the Georgia State Farmers Market in Atlanta to sell. This would make for long days because we would start at daylight and not go home until we had sold all the produce we took to the market. One night on the way home I was in the back of the pick-up truck when the farmer I was helping pulled into a Dairy Queen and bought me and the rest of his helpers an ice cream cone. This was my first Dairy Queen ice cream cone and I will never forget how good it tasted. What a fond memory this puzzle reminded me of.
Elmer Prather
Canton, Georgia
U. S. A.
