Farming Memories...
Farming Memories...
When I was very young (4 YO ?), my grandfather would get his scythe, throw it on his shoulder and take me by the hand. We would go to one of his fields, two miles away, and he would spend the whole day cutting his wheat.
This illustration shows a painting by Pieter Brueghel, painted in 1565.
In 1950, two features of this painting were still alive.
First, the men on the left cutting wheat with a scythe exactly like my grandfather (who never had a machine to do the job).
Second, the little pyramids on the right to allow the wheat to dry. I would fall down on my knees and crawl under them. Doing so, I would break some of them, but my grandfather never scolded me.
Of course, the clothing was different !
LT
Interesting coincidence here. There was a Brueghel print (Children's Games) in the living room of my grandparents' home. Did you wear a tie during your wheat play:-) Seriously, harvesting was (and is) very hard and important work.
ReplyDeleteAnn Kennedy Another coĂŻncidence... When I was still professionally active, I had two large framed reproductions of Brueghel's paintings on the walls of my office.
ReplyDeleteOne day, my secretary asked me very seriously "Are they originals ?"
Oh happy woman !
LT
My wife's mother (from north Germany) told us tales of how she used to scythe the fields and also plough the fields with the help of a horse.
ReplyDeleteMy wife's father died when when she was only four and her mother somehow managed their small farm on her own with casual helpers when needed.
My dad was old-fashioned. He used a scythe to mow the grass in the pasture -- up until the 1990s, when he finally got a riding lawnmower.
ReplyDeleteEve Sullivan I think there was something satisfying to the "rhythm" of swinging the scythe and getting the work done that way.
ReplyDeleteEve Sullivan Well ! He surely went from one extreme to the other !
ReplyDeleteLT
This is what I love so much about this community and all of you. The personal remembrances you share. Just wonderful to picture in my mind, and wonderful to think about. Laurent TRUILLET the art work is simply a bonus. Thank you, and thank you Eve Sullivan Mike Perry Ann Kennedy
ReplyDeleteMargaret Siemers Have no fear, Margaret, we'll keep going on in the same direction !
ReplyDeleteLT