Few things represent the image of the harvest season as well as the scarecrow and the Similkameen Garden Club has decorated the downtown planters with 36 Scarecrows.
Did you know?
Scarecrows have been in existence for more than 3,000 years!
It started with the Egyptians using the first scarecrows to protect vast wheat fields along the Nile to the Greeks who scared birds away from their vineyards. The Romans copied the scarecrow custom then introduced it to Europe and in Germany scarecrows originally resembled witches where as in Britain young boys and girls were used as live scarecrows or “bird scarers.” About this same time the Japanese farmers started using scarecrows to protect rice fields.
While scarecrows of one kind or another are still abundantly used today as decoys to protect gardens from the smallest vegetable patch to open fields of produce, as a population, we mostly enjoy scarecrows dotting our landscapes as decoration during the autumn season.
Picture with Club members that put out the Scarecrows on Fri., Sept. 29. The club takes them down each night and puts them up the next day until Thanksgiving October 9.