What are these men doing?

[Bigcypresshunter]

There was a discussion at my Moms, last time I visited, over a plate that she has. We cannot figure out what these men are doing. Does anyone know? I told my Mom that TN would have the answer.

 

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[BioProfessor]

Here we go again. We've been there done that.

Daryl

 

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[bbqcook]

irrigation ditches for the orange grove they are just keeping the water flowing ?

This is my guess also.
When I was young, many yrs ago, I would sit in my Granddads orange grove in Ft Pierce Fla and keep an eye on the gasoline water pump and move it from row to row as they filled up. the grove had a canal all the way around it for the water source. You would fill the ditches between the rows of trees.
Thats my story and I'm sticking to it
Earl

 

[jeric2]

clamming?

 

[Red-Coat]

Just tidying up some blasts from the past (including some very ancient ones), largely for the benefit of anyone searching the site for information.

Here’s the same (design of) platter from an eBay seller, who says it’s a vintage Noritake piece and that it’s for serving bread. I think he’s wrong on both counts. Noritake-ware was made in Japan and the mark on the bottom clearly says “Made in China” with no sign of a Noritake mark. Also, although you could of course use it for bread, I think it’s for anything you might want to bring to the table for people to help themselves from. Since it also says “Microwave Safe” it’s unlikely to be from before the late 1970s when microwave ovens began to be commonly seen in domestic US kitchens.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/352968948865

Notwithstanding that (and I don’t exclude the possibility of it being a later copy of a piece from Noritake), the design, if mirror-imaged, has remarkable similarities to this 19th Century line engraving from the ‘Bridgeman Images’ library, captioned (by the original printer, not the library) “Irrigating an orange grove in Southern California”: