They started in October 2007. Every month, a postcard featuring a Western Producer photo was mailed to every farm mailbox in Western Canada. That’s about 138,000 mailboxes. The photos were selected monthly by yours truly, based on seasonality and beauty and perceived resonance with our farm readers. They are prairie shots taken by staff members and we’re proud to have them in our archives.
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So far we’ve sent photos of horses, cattle, pigs, sheep, chickens, bees and dogs. We’ve sent photos of combining, quilting, cattle herding, canoeing, seeding, silaging and loading irrigation pipe. For good measure, we’ve thrown in photos of crocuses, canola seedlings and soil squeezing. Once we even sent a reproduction of an original painting by a prairie artist. We hoped people might form a collection of the postcards as a slice of prairie Canadiana.
The reverse side of our cards have each featured a list of stories readers could expect in the following month, plus a chance to win prizes. We’ve had good response to this promotion and your calls and comments about both the photos and prizes have been welcome.
The most recent postcard, the one for November 2009, is a departure from the pattern. It’s a bit of a teaser, because we plan to launch a new look for The Western Producer in November. More details will be coming later, but for now we thought you might enjoy seeing the full collection of postcards. Click here to view.
