Thursday, October 16, 2008
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Friday, October 10, 2008
QUILTING DAY
Tomorrow is quilting day at Howell Farm. I don't claim to know a lot about quilting, but here's the pertinent information:
http://www.howellfarm.org/calendar/quilting/quilting.htm
http://www.howellfarm.org/calendar/quilting/quilting.htm
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
FALL FESTIVAL
One of the highlights of this past weekend’s “Fall Festival” at Howell Farm was a 10-ton Case steam engine powering a large wheat thresher. The spelt grain that was threshed will be used as horse feed, and the leftover stalks will be used as straw for bedding.
According to farm historians, these giant wheat threshing rigs and their crews rumbled through the Mercer County countryside circa 1900, stopping at all the local farms who hired out their services. An alternate plan some farmers employed was to commune with their neighbors to buy a shared thresher, which they took turns using.
Below are a few pictures of the action. Follow this link for a lot more (though unedited) shots taken at the festival:
http://picasaweb.google.com/JTFlesher/FallFestival#
According to farm historians, these giant wheat threshing rigs and their crews rumbled through the Mercer County countryside circa 1900, stopping at all the local farms who hired out their services. An alternate plan some farmers employed was to commune with their neighbors to buy a shared thresher, which they took turns using.
Below are a few pictures of the action. Follow this link for a lot more (though unedited) shots taken at the festival:
http://picasaweb.google.com/JTFlesher/FallFestival#
Friday, October 3, 2008
HOWELL FARM PHOTOS
Nymph stage harlequin bugs are eating the kale in the kitchen garden. They are a member of the stink bug family.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
HOWELL FARM IN THE NEWS
Check out my article about Howell Farm that was published in The Christian Science Monitor today:
http://features.csmonitor.com/backstory/2008/09/24/farming-interns-sow-their-sustainable-oats/
Also, here's another article of mine related to sustainable living they published back in 2007. I discovered today it's one of the stories featured on The Monitor's Centennial Page. Good choice editors!
http://www.csmonitor.com/centennial/events/monitors-stories/2008/07/his-energy-bill-is-0/
By the way, take some time to look at the design and content of the Centennial Page. I think it's the best-looking newspaper website I've ever seen.
http://features.csmonitor.com/backstory/2008/09/24/farming-interns-sow-their-sustainable-oats/
Also, here's another article of mine related to sustainable living they published back in 2007. I discovered today it's one of the stories featured on The Monitor's Centennial Page. Good choice editors!
http://www.csmonitor.com/centennial/events/monitors-stories/2008/07/his-energy-bill-is-0/
By the way, take some time to look at the design and content of the Centennial Page. I think it's the best-looking newspaper website I've ever seen.
HOWELL FARM PHOTOS: THE ROAD GRADER
The farmers hooked four horses up to an old-fashioned road grader this morning. But they weren’t fixing roads. They were going over the field where the plowing match was held last month and trying to flatten everything out.
FOUR PIGS WENT TO THE MARKET
Howell Farm’s four pigs were delivered to the market in Hackettstown last week to be auctioned off. This is the destiny of most animals that are raised on farms, and many other pigs in New Jersey get raised in buildings with cement floors, so I didn’t feel guilty or sad or anything like that. I saw with my own eyes that the Howell Farm pigs lived a decent life, at least for the six months they were here.
With that said, my time interacting with the pigs here has convinced me that they are very social, intelligent, friendly animals, almost like dogs. For me, personally, that’s given me enough to think about that I’m now considering cutting pork out of my diet. I do love the taste of bacon though — breakfast would never be quite the same.
In comparison, I’ve spent time around the oxen and I still have no qualms about eating beef, provided the animals get to live a healthy life with lots of time spent in a pasture eating grass. And chickens, they’re good eating too.
Below are pics of the four new piglets who arrived on the farm this week:
With that said, my time interacting with the pigs here has convinced me that they are very social, intelligent, friendly animals, almost like dogs. For me, personally, that’s given me enough to think about that I’m now considering cutting pork out of my diet. I do love the taste of bacon though — breakfast would never be quite the same.
In comparison, I’ve spent time around the oxen and I still have no qualms about eating beef, provided the animals get to live a healthy life with lots of time spent in a pasture eating grass. And chickens, they’re good eating too.
Below are pics of the four new piglets who arrived on the farm this week:
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
HOWELL FARM PHOTOS: ROOFING
Farmers Ian, Peter, and Matt have been replacing the cedar shingle roof on the carriage barn. Pics below.
FREE PREMIUM CONTENT
Last week I blogged a little about the “Farm School” and “Back to School” programs at Howell Farm. Two longer articles about these events, destined for the farm’s monthly newsletter (The Furrow), are now ready.
The Furrow is typically mailed to members of “The Friends of Howell Farm” who pony up $40 for a yearly membership. We live in an age when information wants to be free, however, so here, just take it:
Pleasant Valley Schoolhouse Recreates 1900s Classroom
From the desks of the historic Pleasant Valley Schoolhouse this month, school children of 2008 got a taste of what school was like in 1900.
On Sept. 13, Howell Farm held its annual “Back to School” program. Students in attendance participated in historical lessons that included cursive writing practice, a science lesson about beavers, and the mathematics of counting corn kernels.
Cheryl Mills, a local Sunday school teacher and community theater actress, assumed the role of schoolmarm.
“The tone is a little different,” Mills said of transforming into a 1900s educator. “There’s a slight sense of more seriousness than a teacher today would have.”
A strict rule for students of 100 years ago was that they were expected to remain silent during class unless called on. A rule for teachers was that they were expected to be single and “well-behaved” socially.
In 1900, there were 15 million school children in the United States. Today, including college students, there are about 75.5 million students.
Many students of the era would have been reading “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” which was published by Frank Baum in 1900. A discussion of current events would have included the devastating hurricane that hit Galveston, Texas, in September 1900, killing an estimated 6,000 to 12,000 people.
The Pleasant Valley Schoolhouse, located on Mercer County-owned land adjacent to Howell Farm, was built in 1889 to replace an earlier school located nearby. It was used as a school until 1936, and in 1938 was converted to a private residence. The building not only provided a place of instruction for area children but also served as a community center for neighborhood meetings, speakers delivering lectures, neighborhood sings, and other social activities.
ALHFAM Farm School: Historian Boot Camp
Howell Farm put a theory into practice this September — that the best way to help people understand something is to let them do it.
On September 8, 9, and 10, Howell Farm hosted the Association for Living History, Farm and Agricultural Museums’ first ever “Farm School” workshop. The aim of the program is to provide living history professionals with hands-on, down-and-dirty training in historical agricultural practices.
“We set it up to be real work,” said Ed Schultz of Great Hopes Plantation in Colonial Williamsburg, one of the workshop instructors. “This is real farming, not pretend farming.”
For three days, the students practiced using horse-drawn walking plows to complete fieldwork in the same way American farmers would have from 1890 to 1930.
“I’m surprised by how many blisters I have,” reported Barbara Corson, co-chair of ALHFAM’s Farm Professional Interest Group, on Monday evening after an eight hour day in the field.
In addition to Corson, who is a veterinarian from Harrisburg, Pa., the inaugural class of farm school students was comprised of Sarah Rice of Longstreet Farm in Holmdel, NJ; Bob Sherman of Middleton Place Plantation in Charlestown, SC; and Darryl Wines of the Simcoe County Museum in Midhurst, Ontario.
“Everyone here knows a lot about something,” said Corson, who helped envision and develop the farm school program along with Schultz and Howell Farm director Pete Watson. She said she hopes the program will help living historical professionals continue to learn historical agricultural techniques when the generation that used them has passed on.
“No matter how much you read about this stuff, it’s hard to find someone to actually teach you,” she said.
For museum preparator Darryl Wines, farm school provided him his first opportunity to work with some of the farm equipment he helps care for at Simcoe County Museum.
“There’s a lot of stuff I know what it does, but I’ve never used it,” he said. “And I don’t like to talk to people about something I’ve never done. I like to have done it.”
Farm school was also Wines’s first experience working with horses.
“Everything went pretty seamlessly, other than that feeling of wanting to collapse after that first furrow because I didn’t breathe for 600 feet,” he said.
Rice, from Longstreet Farm, already uses draft animals in her work as a historical farmer. For her, farm school was a chance not only to hone her skills and learn from others, but also to share some of her knowledge.
“I’m a mule person,” she said, before explaining some of the differences. “Mules are like a semi-truck. Horses are like a sports car.”
Sherman, the historic agriculture and livestock manager at Middleton Place, will take his farm school training back to Middleton and become a trainer himself. The plantation has 8 Belgian draft horses they use for carriage rides and two young water buffalo being trained as oxen.
“The little bit of experience I’ve had [with draft animals] taught me how much I didn’t know, which is one of the reasons I’m here,” he said. “Now, when I go back, I can go and show other people how it’s supposed to be done.”
The Furrow is typically mailed to members of “The Friends of Howell Farm” who pony up $40 for a yearly membership. We live in an age when information wants to be free, however, so here, just take it:
Pleasant Valley Schoolhouse Recreates 1900s Classroom
From the desks of the historic Pleasant Valley Schoolhouse this month, school children of 2008 got a taste of what school was like in 1900.
On Sept. 13, Howell Farm held its annual “Back to School” program. Students in attendance participated in historical lessons that included cursive writing practice, a science lesson about beavers, and the mathematics of counting corn kernels.
Cheryl Mills, a local Sunday school teacher and community theater actress, assumed the role of schoolmarm.
“The tone is a little different,” Mills said of transforming into a 1900s educator. “There’s a slight sense of more seriousness than a teacher today would have.”
A strict rule for students of 100 years ago was that they were expected to remain silent during class unless called on. A rule for teachers was that they were expected to be single and “well-behaved” socially.
In 1900, there were 15 million school children in the United States. Today, including college students, there are about 75.5 million students.
Many students of the era would have been reading “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” which was published by Frank Baum in 1900. A discussion of current events would have included the devastating hurricane that hit Galveston, Texas, in September 1900, killing an estimated 6,000 to 12,000 people.
The Pleasant Valley Schoolhouse, located on Mercer County-owned land adjacent to Howell Farm, was built in 1889 to replace an earlier school located nearby. It was used as a school until 1936, and in 1938 was converted to a private residence. The building not only provided a place of instruction for area children but also served as a community center for neighborhood meetings, speakers delivering lectures, neighborhood sings, and other social activities.
ALHFAM Farm School: Historian Boot Camp
Howell Farm put a theory into practice this September — that the best way to help people understand something is to let them do it.
On September 8, 9, and 10, Howell Farm hosted the Association for Living History, Farm and Agricultural Museums’ first ever “Farm School” workshop. The aim of the program is to provide living history professionals with hands-on, down-and-dirty training in historical agricultural practices.
“We set it up to be real work,” said Ed Schultz of Great Hopes Plantation in Colonial Williamsburg, one of the workshop instructors. “This is real farming, not pretend farming.”
For three days, the students practiced using horse-drawn walking plows to complete fieldwork in the same way American farmers would have from 1890 to 1930.
“I’m surprised by how many blisters I have,” reported Barbara Corson, co-chair of ALHFAM’s Farm Professional Interest Group, on Monday evening after an eight hour day in the field.
In addition to Corson, who is a veterinarian from Harrisburg, Pa., the inaugural class of farm school students was comprised of Sarah Rice of Longstreet Farm in Holmdel, NJ; Bob Sherman of Middleton Place Plantation in Charlestown, SC; and Darryl Wines of the Simcoe County Museum in Midhurst, Ontario.
“Everyone here knows a lot about something,” said Corson, who helped envision and develop the farm school program along with Schultz and Howell Farm director Pete Watson. She said she hopes the program will help living historical professionals continue to learn historical agricultural techniques when the generation that used them has passed on.
“No matter how much you read about this stuff, it’s hard to find someone to actually teach you,” she said.
For museum preparator Darryl Wines, farm school provided him his first opportunity to work with some of the farm equipment he helps care for at Simcoe County Museum.
“There’s a lot of stuff I know what it does, but I’ve never used it,” he said. “And I don’t like to talk to people about something I’ve never done. I like to have done it.”
Farm school was also Wines’s first experience working with horses.
“Everything went pretty seamlessly, other than that feeling of wanting to collapse after that first furrow because I didn’t breathe for 600 feet,” he said.
Rice, from Longstreet Farm, already uses draft animals in her work as a historical farmer. For her, farm school was a chance not only to hone her skills and learn from others, but also to share some of her knowledge.
“I’m a mule person,” she said, before explaining some of the differences. “Mules are like a semi-truck. Horses are like a sports car.”
Sherman, the historic agriculture and livestock manager at Middleton Place, will take his farm school training back to Middleton and become a trainer himself. The plantation has 8 Belgian draft horses they use for carriage rides and two young water buffalo being trained as oxen.
“The little bit of experience I’ve had [with draft animals] taught me how much I didn’t know, which is one of the reasons I’m here,” he said. “Now, when I go back, I can go and show other people how it’s supposed to be done.”
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