It’s beginning to look a lot like Halloween around South Bayview and no more so than on Davisville Ave. where our happy (straw) friends are on display on a lawn near Millwood (far left and far right). The scarecrow is a fairly obvious device to keep the birds off newly sown seed but this ancient phenomenon has developed a rich culture ranging from Ray Bolger’s straw man in the Wizard of Oz (upper left) to the horrification of the concept in a dozen B minus movies (lower right). In between, we make scarecrows for fun, dress ourselves as scarecrows (very fetching at upper right) and even costume Fido in the scarecrow style. The first scarecrows are practically pre-historic.Wiki mentions one from a Japanese book from the year 712. Don’t be scared, read more.
