At this time of year, at harvest time, if you have any crops, even if it’s just a small vegetable patch like ours, making a scarecrow can be fun for children. At the state fair a few weeks ago, we came across a few good-looking scarecrows, and they reminded me of the scarecrow we made years ago.
We’ve never had an abundant harvest from our small vegetable garden. Even though we’ve imported soil (our soil is horribly acidic because of the pine trees) and watered the crops faithfully, all we ever get is a few sparse vegetables, not really enough for even a salad for one dinner. The birds were eating the few crops we actually had one year. That’s when we decided to make our first scarecrow.
To make the scarecrow, I unscrewed a broom handle for the back of the scarecrow, so that we had something to stab into the dirt, and so that the shirt and pants wouldn’t fall apart. I found an old piece of hose, which I poked through both arms to make them more stiff. I used a pillow case stuffed with plastic grocery bags for the head. We chose a plaid, long-sleeved shirt and denim overalls for the body. After stuffing all of it with plastic bags (we could have used pine needles, come to think of it!), we put a straw hat on the head. My husband’s snow boots finished off the look. Oh, and I almost forgot the gloves that we used as hands. I safety-pinned those on, because gravity would have caused the scarecrow’s gloves to fall off the moment we put the scarecrow upright.
My children were so proud of the scarecrow they had made. We kept it up for a few weeks until the first frost, when all the crops were frozen anyway. We pulled it all apart, putting the clothes in the laundry. All in all, it took less than an hour to make, and the kids had a great time.
