Our parents owned the farm for about 35 years so I grew up there and have many happy memories of the farm and the district.
Just a few years ago I met a lady by chance who, as a child, was friends with the girl in the first photo below, Heather McKinnon. The McKinnons had owned our farm before us and I was delighted when Heather gave me some copies of old photographs she had of the farm.
It's been interesting to compare what the farm looked like in the 1930s and as I remember it from the 1950s. Some of the buildings were still there, some not. Dad used a tractor rather than horses. Even the trees and vegetation in the background are interesting.
The three photos below were taken on different occasions so I think the cream cart must have been used to entertain visitors as well as their real purpose of taking the cream cans to the end of the lane for pickup and probably for carting other items around the farm as well. Heather was an only child so I imagine she was very skilled with horses and other farm work.
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| Heather McKinnon with her dogs on the horse-drawn cream sled. |
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| Visitors with the dogs on the cream sled. |
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| Visiting children on the cream sled. |
This post has been in response to Sepia Saturday's theme photo of dogs. You can see other responses here.
What a wonderful surprise to be given those charming photos. Children must have loved being given rides on the sled.
ReplyDeleteThat cream sled being pulled by horses could probably have held a lot more weight! I've never seen anything like it. So great to have photos of different times of the same place, showing changes through history.
ReplyDeleteGreat to get photos of the farm from before you lived there. I must ask the lady who sold to us if she has any old photos of the house, as her family had owned it for a few decades and the house next door was owned by her family from about 1914 until her mother sold last year.
ReplyDeleteLooks like it took two horses to pull the sledge....wheels might have helped or was it too muddy.
ReplyDeleteYes, the sleds work better in the mud.
DeleteI've never seen a sled like that, either. Interesting. And obviously, the children had fun either riding or sitting on it - with their dogs, and without 'em. But of course the dogs link your post with the prompt, so good thing the kiddos had them with them in one of the pictures. :)
ReplyDeleteLovely memories of your farming childhood.
ReplyDeleteThese are wonderful photos to connect the history of your family's farm. Horses really make the photos evocative of a different time.
ReplyDeleteFor years I've thought of contacting people who now live in houses I once lived in and giving them photos of what it once looked like. I always thought they might enjoy the history. You've convinced me this might be true.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm betting when that horses tail went up those kids went scrambling. The problem is being so low behind the horses unlike being in a buggy or wagon.
This is the first I've heard of a cream sled. I enjoyed these photos.
ReplyDeleteYes, I imagine the cream sled was lots of fun.
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