The Farmers' Museum

Pumpkins for All: Part 2

2011-11-29T09:00:00.003-05:00

By: Marieanne Coursen, Agricultural Interpreter

In part one I showed the three varieties of pumpkins we grew this year at the Lippitt Farmstead. In addition to making a wonderful pie ingredient, pumpkin is also a great food for our farm animals. To make it easier for them to eat, it is first chopped into bite-sized pieces.

I offered the freshly chopped pumpkins to several of our animals at Lippitt Farmstead and got mixed results. The pigs of course ate them, but then, they will eat anything!

The turkeys were skeptical...

...the geese gave it a try...

...but in the end they were not interested.

The chickens, however, loved it!

Ollie, our Southdown sheep, remembered eating pumpkin in the past and dug right in.

The rest of the sheep were not impressed, but I have been feeding them pumpkin sprinkled with grain for several days and now they eat it right up. Animals tend to be neophobic and often hesitate to try new foods, but once they sample it with no bad results they are happy to add it to the menu.

Last but not least, Seraphina is a huge fan of pumpkin.

Of course this is only appropriate since you may recall from an earlier blog post, her namesake was also fond of pumpkin!

Pumpkins for All: Part 1

2011-11-22T11:46:00.000-05:00

By: Marieanne Coursen, Agricultural Interpreter

We grew three varieties of pumpkins on the Lippitt Farmstead this past summer. The New England Pie Pumpkin is an adorable small pumpkin, generally between five and eight pounds. This pumpkin is my personal favorite.

It has a wonderful sweet flesh that is excellent for pies.

The Long Island Cheese Pumpkin is a larger, buff-colored pumpkin also excellent for pies.

Although it has a pale outer skin, the flesh inside is a deep orange color.

This pumpkin has a wonderful aroma when we cut it open. Shari, interpreter in the More House, made these beautiful pies with it, and I can attest that they were delicious!

This recipe is from The Frugal Housewife by Lydia Maria Francis Child, published in 1830.

These pumpkins will keep in a cool place for a few months but not necessarily until late winter or early spring, so some of the pumpkin is dehydrated for future use. One way to do that is to slice the flesh and hang the slices in the kitchen where they will dry from the warmth of the fire. Another way is to stew the pumpkin, then spread it on a pan and leave the pan in a warm oven until the pumpkin becomes leathery and can be lifted off the pan in one piece. Pat, our interpreter in the Lippitt Farmhouse, has been preparing much of our pumpkin this way.

The third pumpkin we grew was the Connecticut Field Pumpkin.

This is the type of pumpkin typically grown nowadays for Halloween. It is a large, nicely-shaped pumpkin, perfect for a jack-o-lantern. While it can be used for cooking, it is rather plain tasting and somewhat watery.

Its real claim to fame is as an animal feed. In part two of this blog post, I'll report the result of my farm animal survey regarding the eating of pumpkin.

Shall We Have Christmas?

2011-11-17T10:00:00.002-05:00

By: Kajsa Sabatke, Manager of Public Programs

We're introducing a new program at the museum this year. Some of you may have come to our Holiday Lantern Tours in previous years. This year we've moved from the tours to focus even more on the experience of the winter holidays in the nineteenth century. If you're looking for a chance to visit The Farmers' Museum and experience a quieter and more historic atmosphere than Candlelight Evening, I hope that you'll come to the museum on Saturday, December 3, between 4-8pm. (And the week after that, please come and see the entire village aglow for Candlelight Evening.)

Our new program is called Shall We Have Christmas? During the nineteenth century, Christmas was not the major holiday that it is today. It was celebrated in similar, smaller-scale ways, though. Shall We Have Christmas won't be as large of an event as Candlelight Evening, but activities will be taking place in many of the buildings: holiday gift-making in the More House, singing and socializing in the tavern, wagon rides, holiday foods in the Lippitt House, greeting card printing in the printing office, remedies for winter ailments in the pharmacy, and decorations in the church.

In addition to the staff who'll be talking about the holidays in each building, you'll be able to hear more about the holidays from quotes by people who wrote about their experience of the holidays in the mid-nineteenth century. Susan Fenimore Cooper, daughter of James Fenimore Cooper and also an author, shared many holiday observations in her book, Rural Hours:

The festival is very generally remembered now in this country, though more of a social than a religious holiday, by all those who are opposed to such observances on principle. In large towns it is almost universally kept. In the villages, however, but few shops are closed, and only one or two of the half dozen places of worship are opened for service. Still, everybody recollects that it is Christmas; presents are made in all families; the children go from house to house wishing Merry Christmas; and probably few who call themselves Christians allow the day to pass without giving a thought to the sacred event it commemorates, as they wish their friends a “Merry Christmas.”

Gwen Miner, our Supervisor of Domestic Arts, has also found quotes from historic diaries from the region that related to each of the buildings that will be open.

We hope to see you for at least one of our holiday events in December!

Seeing the Details, Part 2

2011-11-15T14:18:00.000-05:00

By: Christina Ely, Registrar for Plowline: Images of Rural New York

After writing my last blog post titled "Seeing the Details" about a 19th-century photograph in the Plowline: Images of Rural New York Collection, I received an email from Steve Kellogg, Supervisor at the Field Blacksmith Shop at The Farmers' Museum. The email was very enlightening and conveyed some great information regarding pressed hay in the 19th century that I thought I would share with you.

Detail, 19^th Century Farm Scene, 1880-1890, by W.H. Bell, F0003.2011. Plowline: Image of Rural New York. The Farmers’ Museum, Cooperstown, New York.

As it turns out the two "sleds" that I noted in the foreground (seen in the detail above) are the "bobs" to a farm bobsled. Steve notes in his email that the bobsleds were used in winter for farm hauling and, in this case, were probably used to haul pressed hay.

Most notable from his email is the following information, which really sheds some light on why farmers in the image were pressing hay in the winter months:

"The hay was cut in mid-summer and had been in the barn for months. Why are they baling it when it clearly was already stored in the haymow loose? Judging by the A-frame, chain, and hay hook the baled hay is very hard to move by hand."

Detail, 19^th Century Farm Scene. F0003.2011.

Steve also notes the following about how the pressed hay was used:

"You pressed the hay to ship it by Canal or Train to NYC. Rectangular bales fit efficiently into a rail car. New York City had a lot of livestock, and a voracious appetite for good hay in midwinter. You would make more money selling it in winter than you could selling it in the summer. Therefore pressed hay was an excellent crop to sell in midwinter. The photo not only documents the farm family using expensive equipment, but also producing a high-value export at the same time."

I found this information very helpful in explaining why this type of work would be done in winter as opposed to summer, and I hope you find it an interesting comment on hay pressing and sales in the late 19th century as well.

Many thanks to Steve Kellogg - who also has a blog - for the follow-up email and information!

Seeing the Details

2011-11-03T09:04:00.000-04:00

By: Christina Ely, Registrar for Plowline: Images of Rural New York

19th Century Farm Scene, 1880-1890, by W.H. Bell, F0003.2011. Plowline: Image of Rural New York. The Farmers’ Museum, Cooperstown, New York.

Recently, I used the photograph above with a group of students to discuss looking at agricultural photographs. It proved to be a fruitful and valuable discussion, better than I could have hoped for. Before the session I had spent quite some time looking at this photograph, discovering the details and thinking about the purpose and background of this 19th century image. Here I will discuss a little bit about what I discovered through looking closely at the details and a little research.

When we added this image to the Plowline: Images of Rural New York Collection last January, I thought I had created a fairly comprehensive description. It wasn’t until a couple weeks ago, that I found there was a lot more to learn about this photograph. Let’s take a look!

What do you notice first when you look at the photograph? I noticed the barn, five men, the stack of loose hay, the hay on the wagon that the two men stand on, the team of horses and the sleigh. Those seem to be the main features of the photograph for me. When looking a little closer, I noticed there are two sleds turned upside down in the foreground; bales of hay and of course, snow. Here’s what I didn’t notice or think too much about until I was preparing for the class last month.

As I was thinking about this photo one night at home, I thought “wait, how did they make those hay bales in the photo?” That thought led me to wonder when the hay baler was invented.

Detail, 19th Century Farm Scene. F0003.2011.

I came into work the next morning and immediately took out the photo. I looked closely at the “wagon” of loose hay the two men are standing on and realized that THAT was how they made those hay bales.

Detail, 19th Century Farm Scene. F0003.2011.

It wasn’t a wagon at all. I immediately started researching when the hay baler was invented, and found that the predecessor to the baler (a term coined in the 1920s or 1930s) was a “hay press” and it was invented around 1870. That was a fairly new machine the men were using. There were different types –horse powered and another type that was invented in 1881 which was controlled by a pressure gauge. I am still not sure which type this is as it is difficult to discern what is in the faded recess behind the hay press, horses and men. It could be the pressure gauge press, but there are also clues that this may be a horse powered press.

This led me to thinking more about something else I had researched when the photo came to us - that prominent sleigh so nicely placed in the foreground. It looks like a very nice sleigh and with a little research; I discovered it’s a VERY nice sleigh. The sleigh is an “Albany Cutter.” Not only is it an Albany Cutter, but it’s a four seat Cutter! This was the primo sleigh of the time period. It was the “Cadillac” of the day. Upon further research, I learned that just as cars are updated from year to year, so was the cutter. Paint features upon it let people would know approximately when a person purchased the sleigh. This was a very nice thing to own.

Detail, 19th Century Farm Scene. F0003.2011.

These two objects led me to question: why there was such a nice sleigh and hay press with loose hay upon it (not to mention all the other hay and bales we see) outside in the winter? What was the purpose of this photo? The more I looked at the photo and thought about these details the more I realized that this was not a photograph taken by a photographer who just happened by this nice farm scene during a leisurely drive in the county. This was a photo to show prominence, ownership, success. The nice sleigh, the newly-invented hay press, all that hay suggesting a fair amount of land was owned, the strong team of horses - all these show that the farmers were doing pretty well for themselves at the time and they wanted to have a record to show it. Of course, with all these things discovered – I still have a multitude of questions about what I don’t see in the photo or have knowledge of. What type of farm was this- gentleman or dairy, perhaps otherwise? What did the house look like? Who ARE all these men in the photograph? Where exactly was this farm in Cortland County, New York? When was that barn built? How much land was part of the farm? Did they lumber, sugar, ice harvest in the winter and spring months (maybe that’s what they are alluding to with those two small upside-down sledges)?

When we look closely and think about the details in a photograph, the purpose of the photograph, the photographer’s and subject’s intent, and what we DON’T see in the photo we can learn a lot more than we initially might from a simple quick glance. It can be quite a rewarding experience.

Stories of Food

2011-10-25T09:00:00.003-04:00

By: Sue deBruijn, Visitor Services and Retail Manager

As we continue our focus on foods of New York State to coincide with the Good Eats! New York’s Fabulous Foods exhibit, The Farmers’ Museum Store has become a fabulous resource for cookbooks.

There are so many to choose from, but book buyer Donna Williams has been very selective, procuring several relating to the exhibit; such as Hog Island – Oysters Lovers Cookbook, Ice Cream, the delicious History, Jell-O Classic Recipes.

Most notably is one that we stumbled upon recently, and we’re proud to say that we are one of only 25 stores within New York State that is carrying it so far! The title is Taste and Tales of New York, by Ann Pieroway. At first sight we knew it was a perfect fit for the Store. It is unique in several ways. Not only does it have 200+ incredible recipes, many of which come from New York State landmarks such as Tavern On The Green and The Otesaga Resort, but it’s also full of delightful facts about New York State.

One of the first things that struck me as I leafed through the cookbook was the thoughtful dedication; “To the brave men, women and children who lost their lives on September 11, 2011, and to the first responders who sacrificed their lives to save others. Always Remember!” Also, a portion of the profits from the cookbook are dedicated to selected projects throughout New York State.

From there you turn the page to find interesting short stories and illustrations regarding historical facts and places of New York State. The Appetizers and Beverage section begins with an illustration of Henry Hudson’s ship, “Half Moon.” Soups and Salad is adorned by none other than Lady Liberty, Entrees has the Erie Canal in 1825, and so on.

The stories keep you turning pages. From a half page story about Henry Hudson, to the Search for Mia, an escaped Egyptian Cobra from the Bronx Zoo in 2011, they cover all spectrums. And be sure not to miss those which relate to The Farmers’ Museum and the Fenimore Art Museum as well!

Many of the foods highlighted in the Good Eats! exhibit have their history described in the pages of this delightful cookbook as well as related recipes, such as Egg Cream for One, Thousand Island Dressing, and Buffalo Chicken Wings.

So far my favorite recipe is Tapenade Dip on page 18, although I leave out the anchovies!

This is truly the quintessential New York State cookbook, and we are delighted to offer autographed copies in The Farmers' Museum Store. It's coming son to our web store as well.

“Thrashin’ Day”

2011-09-20T09:00:00.006-04:00

By: Christina Ely, Registrar for Plowline: Images of Rural New York

Recently The Farmers’ Museum purchased three photographs for the Plowline: Images of Rural New York collection which really piqued my interest. The photographs show threshing equipment and the process - something I knew nothing about until these photographs entered my office. As it turns out it is quite a fascinating and somewhat complicated subject. Threshing machines made of wood were used as far back as the Civil War. The greatest advances to the machines took place in the latter part of the 19th century when J.I. Case, the Masseys and McCormick & Deering starting producing and selling the giant machines like those we see in these photographs. Most threshers and threshing companies were located in the “western” part of the country (not necessarily what we think of the West now, however), as that is where the large grain farms were located. However, I was surprised to learn that the thresher in one of the photographs was manufactured by the Pioneer Company, out of Shortsville, New York, located in Ontario County.

Hart Parr Tractor and Pioneer Thresher, by unidentified photographer, 1931, F0017.2011(01). Plowline: Images of Rural New York. The Farmers’ Museum, Cooperstown, New York.

Threshing was a large and costly job in which an entire year’s crop was put through the machine in one day. Since the machines took a large capital investment, they were acquired in three different ways. Generally one or two local farmers who owned a machine would assist all the local farmers with the duty of threshing grain and those local farmers would pay the owner(s) a fee for use. Sometimes the neighborhood or town farmers went in together and purchased the thresher, all owning a portion of the equipment (and upkeep). This meant that literally the entire community would help thresh everyone’s crop. Neighborhood threshing was the norm. In the west, custom threshing crews were assembled to run the engine and thresher and the farmer provided the rest of the crew from the neighborhood. The custom threshing crews traveled from farm to farm with the machine, from south to north helping each farmer process his annual crop. The threshing crews were quite large as well, requiring up to twenty to twenty-five men to harvest and transport the crop from the field and to storage, run the machines, pitch the grain into the thresher, bag the grain and heave the straw in a pile or on a wagon, as well as other jobs dependent of the time period. The process of threshing can be seen in the two Plowline photos below.

W.E. Vile’s Thresher and Oliver Tractor, by unidentified photographer, 1930-1940, F0017.2011(02). Plowline: Images of Rural New York. The Farmers’ Museum, Cooperstown, New York.

Threshing, by unidentified photographer, 1942, F0017.2011(03). Plowline: Images of Rural New York. The Farmers’ Museum, Cooperstown, New York.

Another aspect of “Thrashin’ Day” was the community dinner that was served by the farmer’s wife and daughters for whom the work was being done. This small group of women would cook up a meal for the large group of men and boys completing the job. It was an effort that the women and girls took great pride in (and served as an act of competition among the women as well). The meal preparation started at or before the break of dawn, if not the day before. The meal consisted of sweet summertime drinks, many kinds of roasted meats, vegetables from the farm, fresh baked breads, and an assortment of freshly baked fruit pies, cakes and cookies. As you might assume, the farmer whose wife was an excellent cook and baker had no problem recruiting help the next time he needed it.

Threshing machines vastly increased productivity and the prosperity of the farmer within a few short years by allowing him to expand his crop and harvest. When using hand tools such as a sickle less than an acre could be harvested per day, the scythe increased this four-fold. (Threshing was then left for the winter months,) With the threshing machine a farmer could process his entire crop in one day with a suitable sized team, and the entire job was complete.

Prevalent Potatoes

2011-08-23T09:00:00.000-04:00

By: Keelin Purcell, Manager of School and Farm Programs

In preparation for a new Lippitt Farm Walk and Talk program, my intern Jenna and I did a lot of research on farms in 1845. One of the topics that I explored was the history and use of the potato (Solanum tubersoum).

Our potatoes growing in early July.

Potatoes are fascinating in that they are so prevalent in our culture’s food, and yet many people do not recognize the growing plant. Make sure to visit to see and touch the plants growing in our Interpretive Field Garden across from the Lippitt House. Another interesting thing about potatoes is while they are referred to as a root vegetable, they are actually tubers, which are enlarged underground stems. So when we eat potatoes, we are eating stems! In contrast, a sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) is a true root, as are carrots, beets, and parsnips.

Our potatoes growing in early August.

Potatoes were very important in 1800s agriculture. They supplanted many other root crops, in part because they can be easily propagated asexually by cutting up (eyeing) and planting the previous year’s potatoes. An acre of potatoes also produces four times more dietary calories than an acre of grain.

Because potatoes do not grow true to type, they were almost always propagated asexually. However, by growing them to seed, many different varieties were produced. In 1845, there was a large selection of potato varieties to choose from, though most families grew one or two types. Potato epidemics were fairly common, because all the potatoes of a given type were clones and therefore very susceptible to contracting the same disease.

Potato choices from a 1881 seed catalog in the collection of the NYSHA Research Library.

Potatoes are harvested once the tops die back and would have been dried before going into the root cellar. Potatoes were steamed, mashed, boiled, fried, and roasted, as well as made into flour and starch.

This year we are growing Green Mountain, Red Natural, and Kennebec potatoes in our Interpretive Field Garden, as well as Fingerlings in the Kitchen Garden. I enjoyed the chance to learn more about the history of potatoes, and I am looking forward to seeing this year’s crop. My sources included Judith Sumner’s American Household Botany: A History of Useful Plants 1620-1900, Charles Bosson’s Observations on the Potatoe, and a Remedy for the Potato Plague, and U.P. Hendrick’s A History of Agriculture in the State of New York.

What I Did For My Summer Vacation

2011-08-16T12:29:00.000-04:00

By: Jenna Peterson, School and Farm Programs Intern

Friday, August 12^th was my last day as an intern for The Farmers’ Museum. Working as the School and Farm Programs Intern this summer was a great chance to really test out my interest in museum education. It also gave me the chance to put into practice all of the theory and ideas I learned in my museum studies graduate program.

I had some amazing opportunities; at the beginning of the summer, I dove right into planning the week-long experience for 5-7 year olds, Down on the Farm. I now know a lot more about what it takes to run a summer camp type program, and just how much communication needs to happen between the different departments to make sure such a program goes off without a hitch.

The geese following our wagon ride during Down on the Farm

For my next big project, I got to write background and structure for several of the Lippitt Farm Walk and Talk lessons. Now the farmer staff can give extra lessons on corn, poultry, and some of the odd crops we grow like tobacco and mangel-wurzels.

The last major project I tackled this summer was rewriting one of our popular school tours, Ox-Cart Man, to align with the new Common Core Standards that New York adopted. These standards are more focused on skills rather than facts, and the new lesson will help teachers and students make the most out of their visit. Although I am fairly certain I can now recite the curriculum in my sleep, I am very pleased with the finished product. I am glad I’ll be around this fall to see the Museum Teachers take it for a test drive.

One last visit to the Children's Barnyard

This summer has been an amazing experience, both for the work I got to do as well as for the camaraderie. If you haven’t yet met the museum’s staff, you should make a point to do so. They are all amazing people, and those that I got the chance to work alongside helped make this summer very special. I want to make sure to thank Mary Kuhn, who tolerated me stealing her desk and computer on a near daily basis throughout the summer. I also had the chance to work next to the amazing Public Programs Intern, Meredith, and I wish her all the best as she travels to Russia this semester.

Finally, I want to thank Keelin Purcell, the Manager of School and Farm Programs. She had only been employed by the museum for a few short weeks when she had an intern dropped into her lap. I have had internships in the past where I spent the whole time answering phones and making copies, but Keelin made sure I had a rewarding experience throughout the summer.

If you are interested in interning with either the Farmers’ Museum or at the Fenimore Art Museum, make sure to check their websites for upcoming information on potential internships.

Making Hay While the Sun Shines: Farm Life in August

2011-08-12T13:56:00.001-04:00

By: Garet Livermore, Vice President for Education

Summer Farm Scene, Old New England Illustrated

One of the realities of farming is that it is outdoor work requiring the farmer to work in conditions as varied as the blizzards of January and the heat of summer. This is especially true during the hot, sunny days of July and August when farmers need to go out into their fields make the hay that will feed their animals throughout the year. Even, like in the illustration above, the farmers’ cows have the good sense to find a cool shaded section of stream to stand in, the farmer and his family must toil in the sun and heat to cut, dry and gather the hay to store in the barn for colder weather. Haymaking was demanding work that required whole families and communities to work together to successfully bring in the crop.

Cutting Hay, Old New England Illustrated

Despite the perception amongst some that cutting hay is simply a large mowing job, haymaking is a very critical process that requires much planning and knowledge of the crop and local weather conditions to be successful. The old adage “making hay while the sun shines” was a vital fact of life for 19^th century farmers. They needed to cut whole fields of hay with scythes and allow for drying time. Scything was best done in a group so that whole rows could be evenly cut at a time. Neighboring farmers helped out and competed with one another as to both the speed and the quality of the cutting. Jared Van Wagenen described a typical 19^th century cutting party in Schoharie County:

“Always they laughed and gossiped and chaffed a little . Then the man whose turn it was to lead struck three sharp taps on his stone with his scythe, a sound that was both a signal and a challenge, and they were off. If someone lagged in his stroke, the fellow literally at his heels cried out the jocular warning: “Get out of my way or I’ll cut your legs off.”

A talented man with a scythe was hard to find and a valuable addition to the haying crews. It was said that the best men could cut an acre of hay a day by hand. This was soon superseded by the horse drawn mowers of the 19^th century that could easily cut 15 or more acres per day.

Bringing in the hay, by Charles Fredrick Zabriskie (1848-1914), Cyanotype photograph, PH 19634. Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, New York.

Cutting the hay was just the beginning of the process. The farmers then had to dry the hay before it could be put in the barn. Hay needed to contain less than 22% moisture to avoid spoilage or, worse, causing a barn fire through spontaneous combustion. Drying was managed by raking the hay into long windrows and then periodically “tedding” or fluffing the hay with a rake or other device to completely dry the stalks in preparation for storing the hay in the barn.

Woman Driving Hay Rake, Unidentified photographer, ca. 1907-1915. F0014.2011(08). Plowline: Images of Rural New York.

In the 19^th century, hay dried in the field then was brought in bulk on a haywagon to the barn for storage in the attic, or hayloft. This required forming a chain with many people moving the hay into the loft with pitch forks, a very labor intensive process in the heat. By the early 20^th century new machinery had been invented that more efficiently compressed the hay into bales into the field which could then be stacked in the barn.

Gathering Hay for Storage, Pierstown, NY, by Charles Fredrick Zabriskie (1848-1914), black and white photograph, PH18830. Fenimore Art Museum, Coopertown, New York.

Midday meals brought out to the fields, called “dinner” in the rural Northeast until fairly recently, were a welcome respite from the hot, dusty work of haymaking. Typically haymakers, wives, sisters and daughters brought hampers of cold meats, bread, cheese and pie to the fields and layed out blankets under nearby shade trees. The favored drink of the season was switchel, a thirst quenching beverage made from cold well water, honey or maple syrup, apple cider vinegar and ground ginger. The taste of switchel has often been compared to a combination of lemonade and ginger-ale. Here is a recipe to try on a hot day:

Switchel, or Haymaker’s Punch

1 cup Honey or Maple Syrup

1 cup Apple Cider Vinegar

1tablespoon ground ginger

2 quarts water
Mix together the evening previous store in the refrigerator and enjoy.

Chase hay Pressing, by Arthur J. Telfer (1859-1954), dry collodion negative, 5-07492. Smith and Telfer Collection, Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, New York.

Hay Wagons on Main Street, by Arthur J. Telfer (1859-1954), dry collodion negative, C-508332. Smith and Telfer Collection, Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, New York.

Junior Livestock Show

2011-08-11T09:00:00.001-04:00

By: Meredith Doubleday, Public Programs Intern

Despite the fact that I have lived locally my whole life, I have never attended the Junior Livestock Show until this year. I have driven by the grounds a hundred times but never stopped to see what all the excitement was. However, since I am working in the Education Department this summer, I had the opportunity to help out at the event.

One of my tasks was to assist Richard Walker as he photographed portraits of many of the participants and their animals. The first thing that struck me was how much these kids cared for their animals. It was even evident during the photography shoots. The strong bond established over the many months leading up to the livestock show was clear in the intuitive and easy manner with which they handled their animals. This photo of Austin Ainslie of Herkimer County with his Jersey Dairy Cow is a good example.

The parade of champions on the last day was definitely the highlight of the three-day event. All the winners led their animals into the ring with pride one final time while their names were announced. My favorite part was when Fuchsia R. Holly, the pig, was led in by Shannon Spargo of Schoharie County. Unlike all the other animals who were led by their exhibitors, the pig was rolled into the tent in a cage with wheels, which was made by a local 4-H member.

This is Nathan Hay of Schoharie County and winner of the Livestock Cup. He is pictured with Ms. Justice his Simmintel Beef Cow, his sister Sarah Hay, Paul D’Ambrosio, President and CEO of The Farmers’ Museum, Joseph Booan, Mayor of Cooperstown.

This is Victoria Opalka of Montgomery County, winner of the Dairy Goat Cup, and her goat Secret Star Farm Summer’s Eve. She is presented with the award by Paul D’Ambrosio and Assemblyman Bill McGee.

The last award, the Dairy Cup, was given to Clyde Sammons of Montgomery County. He stands proudly with his Hostein Dairy Cow, Stonecree Advent Adorable-Red, Commissioner Darell Aubertine, and Assemblyman Bill McGee.

Lippitt Farm Walk and Talk Lessons

2011-08-07T09:00:00.004-04:00

by: Jenna Peterson, School and Farm Programs Intern

Part of my internship this summer has been gathering information on different agricultural topics, and using it to write interpretive lessons to be delivered by our farm staff. The farmers do an amazing job of talking about a variety of farm subjects, and I was able to provide them with more primary source material to work with, including census data, journal articles, and seed catalogs all from the middle of the 19^th Century.

One of the reasons to have a goose on the farm is to collect their down feathers for use in pillows.

There are four different talks that can be given based on these lessons; corn, poultry, crops, and the interpretive field garden. The corn talk focuses on changes in technology and farming practices, and how that impacted corn growers in the 1840’s and today. While I don’t think I was assigned to research corn because I am originally from Iowa, it probably didn’t hurt! The poultry talk focuses on the different varieties of poultry farmers would have had, including chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, and even pigeons. We have everything but the pigeons here at the museum, so it is a great chance to see how they would have been raised. For the crop talk, the focus is more on the unexpected crops farmers grew alongside those we think of today. This means looking at things like buckwheat, barley, hops, tobacco, and my personal favorite, mangel wurzels. Be sure to check out this post from Farmer Marianne about mangel wurzels if you are interested in learning more!

Mangel wurzels, a type of beet, were commonly used as animal feed.

The final talk is not actually given by our farmers, but is instead led by myself or my supervisor. We take visitors through the interpretive field garden planted in front of the Lippitt House, and discuss the history of these field crops, as well as the different parts of plants that we eat. Did you know potatoes aren’t actually the root of the plant? Come listen to our talk and I’ll tell you all about it!

Corn was planted in a checkerboard fashion with squash and beans, modeled after the Native American Three Sister's Gardens.

These talks will take place at 2:00pm every day through Labor Day. They leave from the steps of the Hop House, and are open to all visitors. If you happen to be near the museum, stop by and learn more about farming in 1845.

Faces of The Farmers' Museum: Ted Shuart

2011-07-19T14:40:00.000-04:00

By: Garet Livermore, Vice President for Education

Ted Shuart, Printer, The Farmers' Museum. June 2011.

How did you get involved in museum work?
You could say that I was born into it. My whole family was in the antiques business, and I even slept in a rope trundle bed as a small child. When the centennial of the Civil War came around in the 1960s, it really stimulated my interest because I read everything I could about the units and the battles. Eventually I became involved in reenactments and helped to start a local group of reenactors who traveled to schools and historical societies to do presentations. My day job as a graphic artist at a local newspaper gave me some of the basic skills that I continue to practice here in the Printing Office. I came here as a Museum Teacher twelve years ago to get a foot in the door of the museum and eventually became the printer when that job opened up.

What did it take to learn the craft of Letterpress printing?
The first thing I did was review the notes and books of the museum printers who had worked here for more than sixty years; they are a treasure trove of information. After that I started working with other museum printers, including staff from the Shelburne Museum and the Smithsonian Museum of American History. They helped me understand the finer points of printing from typesetting through inking and on to printing pressure and press mechanics.

What is your favorite object in the Middlefield Printing Office?
It would probably be the Robert Hoe Washington Hand Press. It was made in 1828 and is one of the oldest presses of its kind in America. It was used by the Freeman’s Journal here in Cooperstown for many years. A few years after the paper bought it, they moved to a larger page size that required a new press. Most small town presses were used intensely, and the surviving presses are suffered and are difficult to use, but this press was put in storage for many years until it came to The Farmers’ Museum in the late 1940s. As a result it is a pristine piece of equipment in wonderful condition that is great to work with.

What is your next big project?

I’m presently setting up a children’s book based on one printed by Elihu Phinney here in Cooperstown in the nineteenth century. That edition will run to 1,000 copies and will use the original illustrations. Also, since this is the Sesquicentennial of the American Civil War, I am researching and reproducing recruitment posters from the early years of the war.

Why do you think it is important for people to understand early printing techniques?

Letterpress printing is the basis of all of our graphic arts today. Books, magazines and newspapers all had their start in printing offices like this. Even the basic terms of printing – like font, typestyle, upper and lower case – all refer to letterpress techniques that have carried over to digital printing. Many of the visitors who are most interested in the shop are modern designers and printers who have become interested in letterpress printing not only because it is the roots of the current industry, but also because the quality of work printed on presses like these has yet to be duplicated digitally.

A Note about the Faces of The Farmers' Museum series: This series of blog posts combines staff portraits made in the style of nineteenth-century occupational photographs using film-based photography. The idea came for this when I found a box of long-expired film in a museum storage area. Using the film from the early 1990s, a fifty-year-old Rolleiflex camera and ancient photographic chemicals gave a reasonable facsimile of the images of farmers, tradesmen and community leaders that were popular 150 years ago.

Empire State Carousel’s Sam the Bear

2011-07-15T09:00:00.000-04:00

By: Mary Margaret Kuhn, Supervisor, Empire State Carousel and Country Fair

After going around in circles for five seasons with the animals of the Empire State Carousel, I have gotten to know the animals intimately. All the animals have names, and stories as to why they are part of the museum you can ride.

One story that is especially fun to share with our guests is that of Sam the Bear. Created by William Cooper, Sam tells the story of Waterloo, NY. You can find Waterloo hugging Route 20 as you drive between Seneca Falls and Geneva. It is a pretty little town that has a connection to the anniversary weekend of the Empire State Carousel – Memorial Day. In fact this year marks the 145^th time Memorial Day has been honored in Waterloo, and Sam is part of the celebration’s logo.

If you look at Sam, you might wonder why he holds a flag from the American Revolution in his jaws. The current town was founded in the year 1792 by Mr. Samuel Bear – get it?

Sam’s saddle blanket has a map of the Finger Lakes, with a medallion marking his home town.

If you see the items Sam carries behind his saddle, a canteen, bedroll & saddlebag – they are reminiscent of those carried by Civil War soldiers. Waterloo held the first formal observance of Decoration Day on May 5, 1866, honoring both Union and Confederate soldiers who had given their lives defending their homes.

The Dezemo Family of Walden, New York

2011-07-13T09:00:00.004-04:00

By: Christina Ely, Registrar for Plowline: Images of Rural New York

One of the remarkable things about working with the Plowline: Images of Rural New York Collection are the stories that you see through the images from small family “snapshot” collections. Plowline has two such groups of negatives and photographs, both acquired in 2010. The Dezemo Family Snapshots Collection were the first that The Farmers’ Museum attained. The Dezemo’s were a farm family from Walden, New York located in Orange County. The photographs and negatives show the children of George and Myrtle Dezemo from infancy in the 1930s through their late teenage years in the early 1950s. In the photos you can see them grow from the days they were photographed on Dad’s lap until they themselves were helping to run their small family farm.

Man with a baby and toddler, ca. 1933-1934, unidentified photographer. F0006.2010(136). Plowline: Images of Rural New York.

George, Anna, Myrtle and Don Dezemo, 1947, unidentified photographer. F0006.2010(047). Plowline: Images of Rural New York.

George, Myrtle and Anna Dezemo on a tractor, 1947, unidentified photographer. F0006.2010(049). Plowline: Images of Rural New York.

Images in this collection not only show the children posing with the prized families Farmall H, but also with rabbits, calves, dairy cows, horses, chickens and ducks, large mounds and heaps of hay, in the apple orchard, shoveling snow, and with a recent catch (a woodchuck).

Two children in an apple orchard, ca. 1939, unidentified photographer. F0006.2010(009). Plowline: Images of Rural New York.

Since the negatives were not in chronological order, it took me some time to piece together who was who at various ages (especially the children), and thankfully there were a handful of photos with names, ages and/or dates on the back which helped even more. My favorite notation was in a child’s early elementary handwriting stating "$200 cow. George Dezemo and Myrtle. Name daisy."

Another fascinating aspect of the images in this collection is “Grandma.” Grandma appears often throughout the collection. We see her with the children, posing with them in front of a car, presumably the family’s prized car. And she appears incrementally throughout the years. In the images, she is rarely dressed up, only once is she in her “Sunday Best”, usually she is posed in stained work clothes and apron, which tell us she was a hard worker. I think Grandma was the cornerstone of the family, taking care of the household while Myrtle (mom) helped out on the farm. Given that Grandma seems to always be around for the family photos, in all seasons, it is my thought that she might have lived with George, Myrtle and the children. Here we see Grandma in a typical photo with the grandchildren and the other without her hair covered and in her best clothing – making it almost hard to recognize her!

Grandma Dezemo with children, ca. 1939, unidentified photographer. F0006.2010(152). Plowline: Images of Rural New York.

Two women, a young boy and young girl posing outdoors, ca. 1935-1940, unidentified photographer. F0006.2010(121). Plowline: Images of Rural New York.

These are the types of collections that are really enjoyable as you can follow a family’s history, triumphs, defeats and see the very fine aspects of a country life, which is what this collections initiative is all about.

The Legacy of Family Recipes

2011-07-11T09:00:00.001-04:00

By: Sue deBruijn, Visitor Services and Retail Manager

Churches, Ladies Auxiliaries, Fire Halls, Animal Shelters: these are just a few of the multitude of charitable organizations who produce cookbooks chock full of recipes from friends and neighbors. These cookbooks come in all shapes and sizes, handwritten or typed, bound or stapled. They are a collection of tried and true recipes compiled by hard working volunteers, and there are legacies of love inside.

To go along with the New York’s Good Eats! exhibit, we decided to carry some of these locally produced cookbooks in The Farmers’ Museum store. I put out an All Points Bulletin looking for organizations that may have some for sale. Immediately I received several responses, but only two with cookbooks that we could procure – The Grace Episcopal Church of Cherry Valley and Susquehanna Animal Shelter. Everyone else had a story they wanted to share about their own cherished local cookbook. One friend responded that his favorite included a recipe for Turtle Soup. It began with “Step 1 – Go down to the crick and catch a turtle.” One of my personal favorites was in the “Men’s Recipes” section where I found a recipe submitted by my Uncle Rudy. It read, “Sloughter Pot Pie – Ingredients: 1 chicken stolen from a hen house, plucked and cleaned.”

This prompted me to pull out my favorite – the Middleburgh Reformed Church Cookbook. As I leafed through the yellowing pages, I found recipes from my grandmother, my mother and my aunts, all of whom are no longer with us, but left a legacy behind in their recipes. I felt myself drawn closer to these women as I read their recipes and pictured them, wearing homemade aprons, lovingly making these meals for our family.

The cookbook also had a surprise for me. In what I consider the best section, Desserts, I came across Hot Fudge Sauce by Sue Grogan. Wait, that used to be me! In my family, the recipe was more commonly referred to as Soozers Sooper Sauce. I had completely forgotten about the recipe, which had actually been my mother’s. I always helped her make it so that I could lick the spoon and dip my finger in the fudge sauce while it was still warm. Graciously, my mother pretended that it was my own special recipe and must have submitted it to the cookbook 30 years ago when it was first printed.

A few months after finding that recipe again, my five sisters and I were gathering for our annual Sisters’ Weekend. To their surprise, each of them received a jar of homemade Soozers Sooper Sauce, and we spent hours reminiscing about cooking with Mom. All thanks to that beautiful old cookbook.

Fourth of July at The Farmers' Museum

2011-07-08T13:22:00.001-04:00

By: Mary Margaret Kuhn, Carousel Supervisor

The Fourth of July was celebrated at The Farmers' Museum with gusto this year. The weather was lovely, and lots of happy families came to share in the fun. It was my pleasure to bring the efforts of many talented folks together to make a memorable day for our guests. Like many of our special event days, this fun was made possible by a cadre of volunteers who willingly shared their time and talents.

Visitors were greeted at the Country Fair by Martha Duke and Katie Curran taking registrations for the Apple Pie Eating Contest, sponsored by the Fly Creek Cider Mill, who donated the pies and the prize of a $50 gift certificate. Folks could also sign up for an iron skillet throwing contest and a quoit pitch.

Next, our guests found a fabulous puppet show titled "Rabble Rousing" in the blue and white fair tent. Performed five times by Jai and Nancy, the story was about the colonists rebelling against the British government after one tax after another was levied on them.

The ladies researched and wrote the show, made and clothed the eleven puppets and even created the scenery! Nance teaches puppetry in the Theater Arts program at Utica College and generously shared her expertise.

Volunteers John LaDuke, Hannah Blystra and Michaela LaChance ran old fashioned contests like sack races, egg races and wheelbarrow races all day on the green between the Empire State Carousel and Todd's General Store for the delight of young and old alike.

Ted Shuart marshaled the (truly volunteer) militia on the Bump Tavern Green and led the musket salute as Tom Heitz read the Declaration of Independence from the tavern's upper porch. Katie Boardman entertained with her varied repertoire of patriotic songs played on the lower porch for the enjoyment of all.

Guests could quench their appetite and thirst at the new Crossroads Café housed in the William’s Carriage Shed next to the Tavern. Zeb pulled the ride wagon as Farmer Rick and Ray took turns driving and Doodle Grubb gave his time as the wagon rider.

A highlight came in the afternoon when Garet Livermore announced the name selected for the horse who returned to ride the Empire State Carousel mechanism after 15 years. Cooper the Colt was chosen from over 500 submissions. This name was suggested by Osha & Jaia French, Jennifer Evans, Diane Williams & Emily Davidson, Marty Smith, Kevin Carley, Jim & Joan Ford, Siobhan Hayden, Claire Reichard, Dakota Halwig, Jeff Dickert, Ian Garvin & Tracy Olmstead and Gage Halverson. Our congratulations go out to these folks who will all receive the brand new Empire State Carousel cloisonné bookmark.

Gage Olmstead and his mother, who were present for the announcement of Cooper the Colt.

Our heartfelt thanks go out to all who did so much to make this a day of fun at The Farmers' Museum!

A Week Down on the Farm

2011-07-06T11:53:00.000-04:00

By: Jenna Peterson, School and Farm Programs Intern

Have you ever wondered what it would be like growing up on a farm in 1845? The Down on the Farm Week-Long Experience gave a gaggle of five to seven year-olds the chance to find out. This program ran during the last week of June, 9:00am to 12:30pm. Each day was assigned a season to show the sixteen children how the changing weather impacted farm life. We began with year-round activities, followed by fall, winter, and spring, and ending with summer.

Like any day on the farm, the kids started out every morning doing chores with the farmers. They learned how to feed the chickens, to brush the cows and oxen, to gather both chicken and duck eggs, and how silly geese act when you let them out of the barn. Their favorite activity was learning all about what it takes to be a shepherd, especially “herding” the sheep into their pen every morning. This involved lining up, yelling “Good Day!” very loudly to get the sheep ready, and then following them as they ran to their pen. They also learned about shearing and even got to take home a little piece of wool.

Once the morning chores were done, we explored our seasonal themes. On Monday, we talked about things that would have been done all year, regardless of the weather. We made fritters over the hearth, got the chance to try on some period clothing, and had a lesson on etiquette before making some stops around the village. Tuesday was all about autumn. We got to practice some harvesting and food preservation techniques, and made cobweb chasers out of broom corn. We also took a ride on the carousel and visited the Country Fair tent. On Wednesday, we focused on wintertime. We got a special ride into town on the ox cart, and stayed busy visiting the pharmacy, the schoolhouse, the blacksmith, and the print shop. Thursday was focused on the spring. The kids got to do the bean baby activity that was done as a part of Museum Quest, and they all enjoyed wearing their seed necklaces. We also practiced weeding in the Lippitt kitchen garden and fed baby animals in the Children’s Barnyard.

Finally, Friday came around and it was time for summer. It was a very full day, but a good one. We got to watch the cow being milked, see the cheese that had been made in the Lippitt House, and then make our very own butter using small glass jars. Everyone got their own jar with a little cream, and they had to shake the jar while we practiced our patriotic songs for the parade later that day. Eventually, everyone’s cream turned to butter, and we got to taste it on some bread. It was voted better than the kind you buy in the store! Once the butter was done, we took a quick nature hike up on the hill behind the museum. There were lots of things to look at, and puddles to jump over! The rest of the day was devoted to getting ready for the Down on the Farm Independence Day Parade. There were banners for every season that needed to be colored, and sashes with their names on them to be assembled. Finally, we got in line behind the steer calves and paraded around town. We ended the parade, and the camp, with one final ride on the carousel.

For me, this experience was very special. When I was the same age as these kids, I attended the day camp at Living History Farms, a museum in Iowa that is similar to The Farmers’ Museum. Now, I am a graduate student in History Museum Studies, and I have no doubt that going to that camp is what started me on this journey. Being able to work with these children this week was incredibly rewarding, and I feel like part of my life has come full circle. We were thrilled to have the camp wrap-up successfully, but also a little sad to say goodbye to the kids that we had gotten to know so well. Hopefully, they will be back to visit the museum soon!

Poultry Progress at the Farm

2011-07-05T09:09:00.000-04:00

By: Meredith Doubleday, Public Programs Intern

Since Marieanne’s last broody coop update, we have had a lot of poultry excitement. Most of our eggs have hatched, and we now have chicks, poults, goslings, and a duckling scurrying around the Lippitt Farmstead.

On May 18^th, our broody hen hatched three Dominique chicks. Marieanne fed them the traditional 1840s diet: a mixture of chopped hard-boiled eggs with breadcrumbs, oatmeal, and milk. It was quite an experience to hold in my hand a trembling bundle of new life. As I gingerly held this ball of feathers, its quiet cheeps were a delicate contrast to the persistent clucking of the mother hen nearby.

Now, a month later, they have been out of the coop for a few weeks and are no longer mothered and guarded so closely by the broody hen. They are starting to look and act much more like grub-pecking chickens.

Though I have spent most of my life in either Otsego or Herkimer County, I have never lived on a farm nor raised poultry so I was unprepared for the following. I had always assumed that chickens would only set on chicken eggs, and turkeys would only nest on turkey eggs. However, I soon discovered that this was not the case!

A chicken hen nested on five duck eggs and hatched two ducklings on June 4^th. Not one, but two hens played mama duck with the ducklings as they adjusted to the world (or the coop) around them. Like chicks, ducklings also had a very specific regimen: usually a wet mash of bran, flour, cornmeal and beef scrap moistened with water. Unfortunately, only one duckling survived, but I managed to get a picture of both of them following one of their “mama” hens when they were just a week old.

Our one duckling is now growing rapidly, but it still thinks it is a chicken! Hopefully soon it will realize it has webbed feet and will waddle into the water.

As Marieanne mentioned in her last post, our turkey hen was sitting on nine eggs in the turkey house. On June 6^th, one of the eggs hatched. Much to our surprise it was not a poult but a chick! A chicken must have snuck into the turkey hen’s nest and laid an egg unbeknownst to the turkey and farmers alike. Since turkey and duck eggs take twenty-eight days to hatch, and chicken eggs take only twenty-one, the five poults hatched a almost a week later on June 12^th and 13^th. Here is a picture of two of the baby poults exploring the barnyard on their second day.

The last fowl update is news on our goslings. They are now over two months old and always travel in a cackling mass. Their voices are starting to change as they mature into grownup geese.

Come to the Lippitt Farmstead and visit our growing brood of our lively feathered friends!

The Quest for Bean Babies

2011-07-01T09:00:00.001-04:00

By: Jenna Peterson, School and Farm Programs Intern

The school year is coming to a close, which means that school tours at NYSHA are wrapping up. This year, students visiting had the opportunity to participate in the brand new Museum Quest activity. Museum Quest is a series of up to eleven stations scattered across the Farmers’ Museum and the Fenimore Art Museum, including the Mohawk Barkhouse and the newly relocated Seneca Log House.

Each station boasts its own theme, and lasts around twenty minutes. Museum Teachers lead students through activities like discovering just what 1840’s underwear looks like, learning how to barter and trade using limited supplies, or seeing what materials make up the art in the Thaw Gallery.

Last Wednesday, I got to teach the “Bean Babies” activity. Planting is such an important part of agricultural life, and being able to see a plant grow is always an amazing sight. The activity starts by looking through the gardens at Lippit Homestead. I asked kids to decide which plant was their favorite, and to tell me five words that described each one. This led to discussion of the parts of plants and seeds. Funny thing was, one of the visiting schools had just taken a test on plants, and knew a lot more than I did!
Once the kids taught me everything I had forgotten from 6^th grade biology, we moved to actually making the Bean Babies. It is pretty simple, but I think they are pretty neat. A damp cotton ball and a bean are put into a small plastic bag. The baggie is then put onto a string, and the bean baby necklace is complete. I had a handful of bean babies that had been made over the previous weeks, so the students could see just how quickly their beans would grow!

Even though things have been a bit chaotic, we have been thrilled to have so many students at the museums. Our record was 651 in one day! Around 3,500 students were able to participate in the Museum Quest program. We cannot wait to offer this program again next spring.

Next stop, Week-Long Experiences!

Order up!

2011-06-29T09:00:00.001-04:00

By: Joshua Harley, Historical Interpreter for Todd’s General Store

Todd’s General Store will occasionally receive a request for the historic craftspeople. Since Todd’s most often works as the go-between, and I am the shopkeeper most often in Todd’s, it is my job to then take the specifications of the request and consult with the appropriate historic craftspeople. Our main focus at The Farmers’ Museum is education, not production, and as such it is not always feasible for the craftspeople to meet both needs. In that event the experience and education of our visitors on site comes first. However, being the stellar group of people that they are the historic craftspeople are often able to do both with adroitness and polish.

In one such instance I received a request for a number of the spade finial hooks made in Field’s Blacksmith Shop. The couple making the request wanted to make a unique pot rack utilizing a few of our hooks, with some minor customizations, to accommodate their various sized pots and pans. I went to our lead blacksmith, Steve Kellogg, and after discussing the requirements he immediately began working. Emails were sent back and forth; details were finalized in these correspondences, questions of aesthetics and style, measurements and hook strength. Finally the hooks were ready to be shipped out. It was not long after sending the hooks off in the mail before I received a small package from the folks that had bought them. The flat rate box was filled with pictures of the completed project and a wonderful note of appreciation!

I was so excited to see these that I immediately emailed the couple thanking them for the pictures and asked if I could write a blog post using their story and pictures. When I was given the green light by them I promptly did not get around to writing it until now (sorry about that folks!). So without further ado here are the pictures of the completed pot-rack.

This is beautiful work combining skills and needs from both the 19th and 21st centuries. As a shopkeeper for The Farmers’ Museum, I was glad to act as the go-between for the historical craftspeople and some of our visitors so that this collaboration was successful. All of the emails, phone calls, and running back and forth was paid in full by seeing these pictures and the knowledge of happy customers with a new well-made addition to their home.

Poultry News at Lippitt Farmstead

2011-06-28T09:00:00.001-04:00

By: Marieanne Coursen, Agricultural Interpreter

Here is a May update from Marieanne - stay tuned for a more recent update and pictures of the chicks next week!

It is May 15th and our Mama Hen is doing great. Eleven eggs were set under her on April 27th in the broody coop. Every day we let her out late in the morning. I always have to pick her up off the nest and push her out the door of the coop.

Once she is out, she has a regular routine. She scratches in the garden eating worms and insects, clucking constantly and puffing out her feathers like a typical broody hen. At some point she squawks and runs for a short distance, and she spends quite a bit of time dusting in the dirt.

Then she eats the food I have put out for her and drinks some water. I feed her a mix of whole grains – corn, barley, oats and wheat. I have looked in several poultry books from the 19th century and they all recommend feeding only whole grains to a broody hen although they don’t explain why. My guess is that she shouldn’t eat a diet that is formulated for laying hens since she isn’t laying eggs at this time; and I also think the whole grains go through her system more slowly which is probably a good thing since she only gets to eat once a day. Because she is eating whole grains it is particularly important that she has access to grit which is readily available in the garden in the form of small stones.

The first few days I had to herd her back into the coop after a half hour but soon she started going back on her own. As we get closer to hatch date she seems to stay out for a shorter time and she always goes back more quickly on cool day.

We found one of the eggs broken one day. I think it probably cracked when the hen was picked up to go out for the day because I heard the sound of 2 eggs clacking together and 2 days later we found the broken egg pushed out of the nest. So there are 10 eggs left that will hopefully hatch on Wednesday, May 18th. In other poultry news, our turkey hen has laid 9 eggs so far in the barrel we placed on its side in the turkey house. Another chicken hen is setting on 5 duck eggs. And we have added 8 goslings to the farm. They hatched on April 18th and arrived by mail on April 20th. With all this activity on the farm, I am finding it harder and harder to get away to the computer so we may have to rely on Facebook postings for a while for the new news from the farm or better yet, come see us for real and check out the latest farm happenings!

What Will I Be When I Grow Up?

2011-06-23T14:20:00.000-04:00

By: Marieanne Coursen, Agricultural Interpreter
While visiting with my mother recently, I was looking through old photographs and found this one:

That is me when I was twelve years old and on vacation with my family. I had never been that close to oxen before and never was again until I began working at The Farmers’ Museum.

Today I am the ox teamster for The Farmers’ Museum and have had the pleasure of training our team of oxen, Jiggs and Buckwheat, who were born here on the farm and are presently 4 ½ years old:

When I was asked as a child what I wanted to be when I grow up, my answer never was “An ox teamster!” You just never know!

Five Years of the Empire State Carousel in Cooperstown

2011-05-19T15:37:00.000-04:00

By: Mary Margaret Kuhn, Carousel Supervisor

On Memorial Day Weekend the Empire State Carousel will celebrate its fifth anniversary here at The Farmers’ Museum. I wanted to share some of the history of the carousel with our readers, and I hope that you will come and ride with us.

Gerry Holzman, a woodcarver and retired teacher, developed the idea for the Empire State Carousel in 1982. With his work and the help of over 1,000 volunteers, carving and painting proceeded until the Empire State Carousel included 21 hand-carved animals, three vintage horses, three bench rides, a vintage spinning Lover’s Tub (now known affectionately as the Mighty Blue Vomit Comet), portrait panels of famous New Yorkers, folklore panels and murals depicting specific historical moments, and the silhouettes of signature buildings from around the state. The dream of the Empire State Carousel traveling to all 63 counties in New York State was beyond economic reach, but it moved around Long Island among a number of temporary homes beginning in 2003. The Farmers’ Museum received the carousel in 2005 and put the animals and mechanism in storage. Work was begun to construct the twelve-sided building to house it permanently.

Altonview Architects of Cooperstown was engaged to design the year-round building. Fred Wyckoff and Sons did a great deal of the construction. In the first photo you can see the fabulous dropped ceiling that they built to conceal the overhead doors when retracted. Philip and Wesley Paddock worked on the plumbing, electrical and radiant heating under the tile floor. The facilities crew of The Farmers’ Museum worked hand in hand to see the building to completion for the Grand Opening which took place on Memorial Day Weekend of 2006.

Night at the Museums

2011-05-10T14:00:00.001-04:00

By: Keelin Purcell, Manager of School and Farm Programs

On May 6th, The Farmers’ Museum hosted a Slumber Party for Girls that was jam-packed with activities and experiences at both Museums. While we still did the traditional Girl Scout badge work that we have done in the past, this year we also opened our doors to all girls ages 8-12. The night started off with the older girls working on their Junior Folk Art Badge and the younger girls working on their Brownie Eco-Explorer Try-It. Then the girls gathered in the More House to make s’mores over the open hearth; a delicious experience for all!
After dinner, our group headed over to the Fenimore Art Museum for a flashlight tour of the Folk Art Main Gallery and the Eugene and Clare Thaw Gallery. After viewing some iconic pieces of art, the girls did a scavenger hunt, looking for items or components of art that are common in the galleries. Seeing the girls’ faces light up when they found what they were looking for made it clear that this was a behind-the-scenes experience that they will remember for a long time.
The next morning, we continued our badge work. The younger kids moved on to the Let’s Pretend Try-It, getting to practice their acting skills by dressing up in period clothing. And the older girls continued their Folk Art badge by creating corn husk dolls. The whole group then got a special tour of our Native American sites, which are due to open July 4th weekend. The morning ended happily, with many families taking advantage of their free admission to both museums for the day. We are looking forward to another successful Slumber Party next year!

Chickens! I'm not in suburbia anymore.

2011-05-05T13:56:00.002-04:00

By: Christina Ely, Registrar for Plowline: Images of Rural New York

When I was a young child, my parent’s owned a dairy farm. Strictly dairy. We had no horses, no goats, donkeys, turkeys….and certainly there were no “free-range” chickens. I had never really encountered a real, live chicken until my first visit to The Farm in Ilion, NY. Then I found that I was followed, surrounded, blocked by and was a curiosity to dozens of chickens of all different types. At first, I was not so fond. But then, the more I visited, the more accustomed I became of them. Now, I really like chickens. Especially, the one we aptly named “Chicken.”

Here's "Chicken:"

Chicken is especially friendly, daring and curious. By offering her sunflower seeds, over time she was trained to come to us and eat from our hand. Now, whenever she sees us, she comes running (which is a funny sight to see). She is a sweet creature, and now, the largest chicken of the bunch!

We don’t have many photos of chickens in the Plowline: Images of Rural New York Collection, but we do have a couple. They too are sweet. There is something about baby chics that is especially endearing, at least to me. However, I realize not all people like chickens and roosters, as evidenced by my friend Mary’s reaction when she encounters them. She loaths any type of bird – especially a bird of such size.

This photo by Daniel Handal, a New York, New York photographer was taken at Phillies Bridge Farm in New Paltz, New York in 2009. These chics are especially cute with their mottled coloring.

This photo was a snapshot taken on Edward Garretson’s Hemlock Valley Farm. I had the great fortune of interviewing Edward when the family donated a quantity of negatives to The Farmers’ Museum last fall. At one point in our conversation he stated that he did NOT like chickens, so when I saw this photo, I was positive it was from another person’s farm. Much to my surprise, they were his! He bought a whole clutch of them one year to raise and sell, but as he states “the price dropped out, and so we ate ‘um up.” Well, that IS the reality I guess for those of us who eat meat.

So, over that last three years I have become fond of the chickens at The Farm, and the fresh eggs! And, I hope “Chicken” spends many more years with us. For fresh eggs from The Farm and other good eats from local farmers, visit the Cooperstown Farmers’ Market on Saturdays from 9 am – 2 pm, May 7 – December 17, 2011.

Images above:

Jessica at Phillies Bridge Farm, New Paltz, Daniel Handal, 2009. F0007.2010(001). Plowline: Images of Rural New York.

Baby Chicks in a Brooder, Unidentified photographer, ca. 1960. F0010.2010(32). Plowline: Images of Rural New York.

Egg basket photo Courtesy Laura Knight

We’ve Got a Broody Biddy!

2011-05-03T13:47:00.000-04:00

By: Marieanne Coursen, Agricultural Interpreter

One of our hens has been in a nest box in the chicken house every time I look in. I tied a string to her leg to make sure it was indeed the same hen every time since they all look alike. She definitely appears to be a broody hen, in other words she is done laying eggs for now and wants to “set” or sit on eggs until they hatch. She has that “Do Not Disturb” look about her:

I placed 3 duck eggs under her to help her stay in the mood while I got the broody coop ready. I used duck eggs because we collect the eggs from the nest boxes twice a day so it is easier to remember which eggs to leave alone should the broody hen be off the nest.

Meanwhile the new broody coop was moved to the Lippitt garden.

I left out the wood floor for now because the dampness of the ground is beneficial to the development of the eggs. I chopped some straw nice and short and placed it in the coop. If left long, the straw can get caught on the hen’s feet when she leaves the nest and she could drag the eggs out. Then I hollowed out a spot in the back of the coop and placed three eggs in it. The coop was ready.

The hen must be moved in the dark so that she is more likely to accept the new location. This was rather inconvenient since I am not at work when it is dark but it just so happened that I would be in town last Wednesday evening for dinner. So during the day on Wednesday I dusted Mama hen with Ectiban and that night she was quietly moved to her new location. The Ectiban prevents lice and mites. I sprinkled some in the nest also. In 1845 sulphur was used for this purpose. Chickens like to “dust” or lay in the dirt flapping their wings and rolling around to get the dirt down in their feathers and then shake themselves as their own prevention against parasites.

Unfortunately I would not be back at work again until the following Tuesday, but the hen was in good hands with farmers Wayne and Rick while I was gone. On Thursday Wayne let her out to eat, dust and exercise. She did just that, but instead of going back in to the broody coop, she went back to the henhouse and her old nest box. Wayne had to catch her and put her back in the coop. He decided to leave her in there and put food and water in the coop until I got back.

This was her probationary period to see if she was really going to stay devoted to the nest and her job as broody hen. Today I am back at work and so I let her out again. When I opened the roof of the coop she was sitting tight to the nest of eggs. I had to chase her off so I would say she is definitely still in broody hen mode. She spent about a half hour eating and dusting. She almost went back to the nest on her own but in the end I had to catch her and put her back. I would prefer that she go back on her own but it may take a few days for her to understand the routine.

She was fun to watch while she was out and about. The had her tail feathers all fluffed up and she had an important, busy air about her, clucking the entire time.

So the plan is that tomorrow I will let her out about the same time again to eat and exercise. While she is busy outside, I will replace the 3 eggs with the 11 eggs I want her to hatch. Then the countdown will begin. Everyday she will be let out of the coop at about the same time and I will make sure she doesn’t stay out more than a half hour – less time if it is really cold. Stay tuned for updates on how it is going with Mama hen and her clutch of eggs!

Bees and Hops

2011-04-26T15:32:00.000-04:00

By: Kajsa Sabatke, Manager of Public Programs

Last week I watched a screening of Vanishing of the Bees hosted by The Farmers’ Museum and Otsego 2000 as part of our Food and Farm Film Series. The documentary explores Colony Collapse Disorder and the effort to discover why entire hives honeybees are vanishing. (If you’d like to learn more about CCD and Vanishing of the Bees, check out their website: www.vanishingbees.com.) The film series has been one of my favorite programs this year, because it has brought together new and experienced farmers, gardeners, and beekeepers, as well as people who want to know more about their food and how they can support local and sustainable agriculture.

If you’d like to learn more about farming and gardening, you can join us for our new Saturday workday programs at the museum. Once each month from April through September, you can learn about a component of our farm and gardens and then help our farmers with a project at the Lippitt Farmstead or one of our historic village’s gardens.

This Saturday, April 30, from 9am-1pm, you can join us as we install hop poles and prepare the hop field for the season. The farmers will begin with a 45-minute talk on growing hops, followed by a work session and time for questions. Pre-registration for these programs is not required, but you must be 18 years or older. Please come in work clothes and meet up at the museum’s entrance outside the Main Barn at 9am. If you’re not able to make the first workday of the season but would like to receive emails related to the workdays, please email stayconnected@nysha.org.

Hope to see you on Saturday!

The Grange: A Unique American Institution

2011-03-31T12:34:00.000-04:00

By: Christina Ely, Registrar for Plowline: Images of Rural New York

The newest collection of photographs in Plowline: Images of Rural New York captures views of nine Grange Halls in Otsego County and were taken between 2000 and 2002 by local photographer Andy Baugnet. Some of the Granges are still functioning, others have closed their doors. These closed Halls, which were once a center of the community, have become relics and symbols of days long past in some towns and villages. This is particularly true in the community I grew up in. For years, my family and I have driven past an old, closed, decaying Grange Hall that stood like a ghost near the center of the village. It wasn’t until recently, that I knew what that building stood for and the importance of the Grange within the community, especially in the late 19^th and early 20^th century.

The legacy of the Grange lives on however, even if it may be part of rural American society that is partially forgotten. Founded in the late 1800s, the Grange focused on rural life and the business of agriculture. Many public policies, posts and institutions that we perhaps take for granted were born out of the Grange movement. These include food cooperatives, rural mail delivery, mutual fire, life and liability insurance for farmers, a State Railroad Commission and a State Dairy Commissioner. Despite all of their great achievements, perhaps one of the greatest successes of the Grange was a rural brotherhood of men AND women. Initially suggested as a men’s institution, it was Miss Caroline A. Hall of Boston who suggested that women have equal membership in the fraternity.

Baugnet’s photos are an important record of these local Grange Halls, recording their traditions, important rituals and furnishings.

Included in the collection is a photograph documenting the mural of Otsego Lake at the Pierstown Grange No 793 in Cooperstown created for a “dramatic association” performance in the early part of the 20^th century. The mural has withstood decades of time, and is a prominent feature in the Main Hall.

Fellowship was an important aspect of The Grange. Most weekly meetings were preceded or followed by a meal and time for members of the agricultural community to gather together. The significance of this time is evidenced in the number of fellowship hall photographs in this collection, and the focus on these spaces. The following photo shows the kitchen pass-through cupboard at the Fly Creek Grange No 844.

Grangers incorporated music into their meetings, and had a specific office for the “Musician,” as well as a Grange song book. This piano detail from the Springfield Grange No 1523 celebrates that aspect and practice.

Finally, like all fraternal organizations the Grange had its own officers and rituals. One common thread throughout this collection are the images of stations for the various officers. The stations were often ornamented with staves which were adorned with decorative finials. These finials held meaning to the Grangers, represented various attributes of the society and were symbols of the various offices. This station arrangement at the Westville Grange No 540 speaks to the ritual.

The creation, inception and record of the Grange are a fascinating part of America’s rural history, and thankfully one that continues in many rural communities throughout the state and country.

Images Above:

Wharton Valley Grange No 991 - Exterior View, Andy Baugnet, 2001. F0005.2011(49). Plowline: Images of Rural New York.

Pierstown Grange No. 793 - Main Hall, Andy Baugnet, 2000. F0005.2011(02). Plowline: Images of Rural New York.

Fly Creek Grange No. 844 - Kitchen Pass Through, Andy Baugnet, 2000. F0005.2011(20). Plowline: Images of Rural New York.

Springfield Grange No. 1523 - Piano Detail. Andy Baugnet, 2001. F0005.2011(29). Plowline: Images of Rural New York.

Westville Grange No 540 - Rear of Main Hall, Andy Baugnet, 2002. F0005.2011(35). Plowline: Images of Rural New York.

Lippitt Farmstead in Winter – Birds, Bees and Building Projects

2011-03-29T11:11:00.000-04:00

By: Marieanne Coursen, Agricultural Interpreter
During the winter, while the museum is closed, it is a good time to mull over ways we can improve our efforts to interpret farming in the 19^th century to our modern public. This winter I came up with two projects that I hope will enhance our interpretation.

A Broody Coop

Today most chicks are produced using incubators – cabinets that produce an environment that simulates the one provided by a mother hen. In 1845, a farmer would depend on a “broody” hen to hatch eggs. This winter Farmer Wayne was kind enough to help me build a broody coop. This is just a small container to keep a hen comfortable and safe from predators or interference from other hens while she is setting on eggs. It does not need to be fancy; it can be an old wood barrel turned on its side with a front made of wire or lath added, or a wood shipping crate can be converted to a fine broody coop. For our broody coop, however, we used a design from a text book written for an industrial arts class in 1916. It really is like a small dog house, larger than what the hen needs to just hatch the chicks, but this way it will serve as a home for her and the chicks for a while after they hatch. We made this extra sturdy version because we want it to be very safe against predators. The local wildlife around here is well aware that we really aren’t farmers in 1845 with a protective dog and a shotgun at the ready, so we need to take extra precautions.

My plan is to put the broody coop in the back garden and set a broody hen in it this spring. I will be sure to keep everyone posted on this project.

Beehives

Beekeeping was probably as common in 1845 as it is today - not everyone does it but there are plenty of people who do. We keep a few hives here at the museum and offer two beekeeping workshops every year. These hives are located on the grounds, but they are strategically placed high on a hill in a pasture where visitors can’t get very close, obviously to avoid the possibility of bee stings.

I have struggled with how to make beekeeping more of a daily hands-on part of interpretation, so this year we are adding two beehives right by the barns at the Lippitt Farmstead. One hive will be the standard Langstroth hive that was developed by Reverend Lorenzo Langstroth in the mid-nineteenth century and is still widely used by beekeepers today. Instead of live bees, this hive will contain frames with pictures of what you might see “if” it were a live hive. It is an excellent teaching tool sold by Brushy Mountain Bee Farm.

The second hive, will be a reproduction of an old hive in our collection. It is a simple primitive hive made from rough lumber. This is a project I can handle. No scary power tools or high degree of skill required. I am nearly finished and have done it all with “found lumber” and hand tools just like I imagine the original maker did. This hive will be kept free of bees also so that we can freely look inside with our visitors.

Hive, Collection of The Farmers' Museum, Cooperstown, NY F0068.1983

These hives will give us an opportunity to let visitors manipulate a hive without risk of being stung and will be an excellent prop to enhance our discussions about beekeeping.

This ends my Winter at Lippitt Farmstead series; after all, it is spring! April 1^st is opening day and I am looking forward to talking with everyone face to face and sharing our farm from the barnyard instead from our office!

Sugaring Off - Sweet for Volunteers!

2011-03-25T09:30:00.000-04:00

In this post, guest blogger and volunteer docent, Nancy Pfau, provides a volunteer perspective on Sugaring Off. Without Nancy and the army of volunteers like her, we would not have been able to serve a record number of guests last weekend - over 900! With only one Sunday left in March, will you help us make it 1000 served?

We keep looking for signs of Spring here -- one of the first is the removal of the ice fishing huts along Otsego Lake!

When I drove past on my way for Docent training on March 15th, I noticed several of the huts being dismantled, then when I returned to volunteer at Sugaring Off at the Farmer's Museum, the fishing huts had disappeared!!

Nancy Karaman, volunteer coordinator, and myself!

As always, the Pancake Eating Affair was very well attended! Everyone seemed to be having a great time from the youngest to the Seniors!

The crowds enjoying their pancakes, etc.

In fact, Harvey (an octogenarian, retired surgeon) grabbed volunteer Nick Lomingino's name tag and apron to make the rounds of the tables picking up trays and generally having a great time!

Harvey masquerading as Nick!

Lippitt Farmstead in Winter: A New Experience for Jiggs and Buckwheat

2011-03-23T11:09:00.001-04:00

By: Marieanne Coursen, Agricultural Interpreter

Our museum teachers include among their offerings, a tour based on the book, Ox Cart Man.

I try to make sure I have Jiggs and Buckwheat, our team of oxen, hooked up to their cart when I know this tour is being given to enhance the children’s experience. However, the book features a single ox pulling a cart, so it has been my hope for a long time to hook a single ox to a cart to go along with the story. It looks like I will finally be able to make it happen. This winter we bought a single ox yoke from Nathan Hine (www.thehinefamily.com) in Massachusetts. After it arrived, I brought it to Pete, in our paint shop, and we selected an historical color blue.

Next we needed a britchen. We happened to have one that had been hanging in the barn for years. The britchen is just a simple harness that is particularly helpful when using a single ox because it helps stabilize the yoke and also allows the ox to use his rump to hold the cart back on a hill or back it up by pushing into the britchen rather than using the back of his horns against the yoke. We also needed to come up with a back pad with loops to hold the shafts of the cart up. This we robbed from an old horse harness. After lots of tweaking and hunting for bits of hardware and leather, Farmer Wayne and I were ready to do a test drive. Jiggs was our guinea pig. He is generally the more laid back of the two, so it seemed like a good idea to use him for our first try.

He was a little nervous about these new sensations on new areas of his body, but he settled into it quickly. So we headed out for a walk around the grounds.

He did really well. What was really interesting was how Jiggs responded when I asked him to back up. Once he felt how it worked, he really seemed to like that he just had to lean back in the harness rather than push back with his head. All in all, he did very well on his first solo. Another day I will give Buckwheat a try.

This has been a fun winter project and it is great to add to the versatility of our team of oxen. Besides complementing the Ox-cart Man tour, a single ox will be useful for cultivating the gardens where a team would be too wide and for other jobs where less power is required.

We are getting ready!

2011-03-02T14:56:00.000-05:00

By: Marieanne Coursen, Agricultural Interpreter

Jiggs and Buckwheat wait patiently while I unchain the pole we brought up from the drive shed. It will be the top of our nineteenth-century fire arch:

Cement block fire arch in progress:

Arches up, picnic tables in place, firewood stacked and covered:

Farmer Wayne tapping a maple tree on The Farmers’ Museum grounds along Route 80:

Farmer Wayne ready for me to ask Jiggs and Buckwheat to move the cart on to the next tree:

Sap dripping!

Barrels being filled daily with water to swell the wood so that they will hold the sap:

This Sunday starts Sugaring Off at The Farmers’ Museum! I can’t wait to see all our old friends and meet lots of new folks, too. As always, there is a great breakfast to be had in the Louis C. Jones Center in our main barn, our shops will be open, the schoolhouse will have fun activities, maple goodies will be baking in the More House oven, the blacksmiths will be banging their hammers, and of course we will be gathering and boiling sap and doling out jack wax. Come dressed for mud and let’s talk maple!

Maple Sugaring During a Full Sap Moon

2011-02-28T15:23:00.001-05:00

By: Christina Ely, Registrar, Plowline: Images of Rural New York

Maple sugaring, an agricultural endeavor localized to the Northeastern part of North America, goes back centuries. It is well known that the Colonists learned maple sugaring from the Native Americans who had boiled maple sap into syrup and sugar for so long that legends about how it came to be had been created. They also created two festivals celebrating maple sugaring, and had a “Sap Moon” also known as the “Maple Moon” or “Sugar Moon.”

Like ice harvesting, which I blogged about earlier this year, maple sugaring was an activity which farmers traditionally took part in each year. It was a sure sign that Spring was on its way to the Northeast. As the days became warm, but nights went below freezing the sugary sap would start to “run,” and farmers would race to gather the sap before the season’s abrupt end. The purpose of production has changed over time from the creation of a product of necessity (maple sugar) to a product of luxury (maple syrup). In the later part of the 1700s through much of the 1800s it was the production of maple sugar that was popular and useful, not maple syrup, which would spoil more quickly.

In the early, early days of production, people would use the “boxing” technique, cutting a diagonal or “V”-shaped gash in the sugar maple and then insert a reed or concave piece of bark with a wood trough or bucket beneath it to catch the dripping sap. This gave way to the use of wooden spiles around 1810, which were replaced by metal spiles invented during the Civil War. Metal buckets came some years later, with an introduction as late as 1875.

By 1850, boiling down sap moved into its own building. The “sugar shack” or “sugarhouse” began cropping up on farms and in sugarbushes across the Northeast.

By 1959, metal buckets were beginning to be replaced by plastic tubing which proved to have greater efficiency as it could be directly connected to a large collecting tank in the sugarbush or to the sugar shack directly-saving a lot of time and labor.

In the late 1800s, boiling the sap became more efficient with the invention and manufacture of the evaporator. The photo below shows the large and small evaporators at Yancy’s Sugarbush in Croghan, New York. These evaporators were purchased in the 1920s by Andrew Yancey (2^nd generation family owner) and are still in use at Yancey’s Sugarbush today. They are fueled by wood cut from the Sugarbush

Along the way, some producers stopped using horses and sleigh to collect their sap from the sugarbush, and began to use a more modern means of collecting. Even today, some producers insist that the use of a team of horses and sleigh or wagon is the best means for collection out in the sugarbush – an example being the two teams of horses used at Yancey’s Sugarbush today. A romantic reminder for some, reminiscent of days gone by.

Join us during the “full sap moon” and celebrate the end of winter each Sunday in March for our annual Sugaring Off event from 9am – 2 pm and enjoy pancakes, maple syrup and traditional maple sugaring activities.

To view more images of maple sugaring from the early 1950s through the early 1970s visit Plowline: Images of Rural New York, one of our new collection websites.

Images from top to bottom:
Maple Sugaring in Lewis County, NY, 1950. Dante Tranquille. Photographic Negative. H 2.25” x W 2.25”, F0001.2010(069)j.
Maple Sugaring in Lewis County, NY, 1950. Dante Tranquille. Photographic Negative. H 2.25” x W 2.25”, F0001.2010(069)aa.
Maple Sugaring, ca. 1965. Dante Tranquille. Photographic Negative. 35mm, F0001.2010(134)nn.
Yancey’s Sugarbush, 1972. Dante Tranquille. Photographic Negative. 35mm, F0001.2010(127)d.
Maple Sugaring in Lewis County, NY, 1950. Dante Tranquille. Photographic Negative. H 2.25” x 2.25”, F0001.2010(069)c.

Lippitt Farmstead in Winter: Cows

2011-02-22T11:40:00.003-05:00

by: Marieanne Coursen, Agricultural Interpreter

The Marble Barn is home to our cows in the winter. Like Zeb, our horse, the cows spend their days outside where we feed them hay; then at night they come into the barn for more hay, some grain, and a nice bed of straw.

We keep two breeds of cattle, Milking Devons and Milking Shorthorns. Both were common breeds during the mid-19th century.

Begonia, a Milking Devon, is three and a half years old and has developed some very nice horns:

She will be having her second calf this summer. Her first calf was a bull who we castrated last fall. He is growing into a fine beef steer:

Duchess, also a Milking Devon, is identified as a heifer because she is young and has not yet had a calf:

And then last - but not least - is Seraphina, our Milking Shorthorn. Her dam is Daisy Mae and her granddam is Buttercup. For those of you who have been here at chore time in the past, you may remember milking one or the other. Someday Seraphina will be the cow that you come to milk, but for now she still has some growing up to do. As you can see she is doing just that – she has gotten a bit taller since the blog post last summer when we showed her posing with Hugh McDougall, the winner of our naming contest.

She also had a mind of her own when we wanted to take the picture today and she dragged me all over the barnyard, but generally she is a very sweet heifer who enjoys attention. She is my favorite!

New York Winters: The Fun and Foils of Snow

2011-02-17T11:17:00.002-05:00

By: Christina Ely, Registrar for Plowline: Images of Rural New York
In a small way, I think that I moved north just in time. That may sound a bit odd, so let me explain. In May I moved back to Upstate New York, having lived in Southcoast Massachusetts and in New Jersey for the last nine years. While living in both places, I really can’t say I experienced more than a handful of snowstorms on par with those experienced annually in Upstate New York. I will admit though that I did get accustomed to school or work closing each time a few inches or flurries fell or sometimes when snow was simply forecasted! So, needless to say, getting accustomed to a fifty mile round-trip commute and winter driving again has been a little bit of a learning curve for me this winter. Given the number of winter storms, whether Nor’esters or Blizzards this year that have hit the areas where I formerly lived – I do think that I moved at the right time. For this year anyhow. But, I know that even though we have been fortunate that the coastal storms didn’t track more inland and all that record snow didn’t fall on us…we well know Central New York sees and has seen its fair share of the white stuff. Evidence of this can be seen in images from the Plowline: Images of Rural New York collection. I would like to share with you a couple images that I like (and some that I find a bit scary) from this collection.

First of all, I wouldn’t want something like this happening to me:

Do you see that little black speck (in the photo above) to the left of center? Yes, that is a nearly buried car!

The above photo seems more like what I remember as far as upstate winters when I was a child growing up in Washington County. I can remember snow banks almost this high along my grandparent’s long driveway-they lived at one of the highest points in the town. I especially remember driving my sister back to SUNY Oswego with my Father, getting to Fulton and seeing walls of snow like this on either side of the road. My sister and I didn’t think it was so funny, but my Father couldn’t stop laughing at my sister’s “good fortune” and choice of school.

Snow can also mean a lot of work, regardless of age:

Aside from the not so fun and hazardous side of snowstorms, some fun lies in them too.

And of course, it does give a serene and tranquil look to the landscape, no matter where you live.

Images above, in order of appearance:

Snowstorm in Oneida County, NY, 1947. Dante Tranquillle. Plowline: Images of Rural New York, The Farmers’ Museum, Cooperstown, NY. F0001.2010(165)j.
Winter Scene with Snow Plow, 1969. Dante Tranquille. Plowline: Images of Rural New York, The Farmers’ Museum, Cooperstown, NY. F0001.2010(051)b
The Dezemos Shoveling Snow, ca. 1940-1945. Photographer unidentified. Plowline: Images of Rural New York, The Farmers’ Museum, Cooperstown, NY. F0006.2010(168).
George Dezemo on the Farmall H, Date and Photographer unidentified. Plowline: Images of Rural New York, The Farmers’ Museum, Cooperstown, NY. F0006.2010(076).
Maple Sugaring in Lewis County, NY, 1950. Dante Tranquille. Plowline: Images of Rural New York, The Farmers’ Museum, Cooperstown, NY. F0001.2010(069)dd
Haymarket, New York, Date unidentified. Dante Tranquille. Plowline: Images of Rural New York, The Farmers’ Museum, Cooperstown, NY. F0001.2010(182).

Lippitt Farmstead in Winter: Sheep

2011-02-14T11:36:00.000-05:00

By: Marieanne Coursen, Agricultural Interpreter
Our ewes have been entertaining a guest this winter. He arrived on December 4th.

He is a handsome Border Cheviot ram from Millers Cheviot Acres in New Berlin, New York.

During the breeding season, ewes come into heat approximately every 17 days. They will be in heat (in other words, receptive to the ram) for 24 to 36 hours. We are keeping the ram here until February 1st to allow ample opportunity for him to catch each of the ewes in heat and breed them.

Three of our ewes are exposed to the ram. Daisy is a Border Cheviot, so any lambs she has will be pure Border Cheviot:

The other two, Ollie and Dancin’, are Southdowns so their lambs will be Cheviot/Southdown crosses:

Some shoot for the Easter market, so they want their lambs born in January and February to reach market weight by Easter. These lambs are called hothouse lambs. Other shepherds are more interested in taking advantage of lush pasture in summer, so they want lambs born in spring to sell as feeder or market lambs in the fall. Our goal as a living history museum is to have our lambs born at a time appropriate to the 1800s, but also to share this precious time with our visitors. Given the above information and the fact that gestation is 150 days you may want to plan a spring visit with us during lambing time – I’ll let you do the math.

Ice Harvesting in our Backyard

2011-02-08T10:48:00.006-05:00

By: Christina Ely, Registrar for Plowline: Images of Rural New York

Since first cataloging images of ice harvesting at Millers Mills last May, I have many times returned to the images for another look. For whatever reason, the photos captivated me – soon becoming some of my favorite images in the Dante Tranquille Collection on Plowline: Images of Rural New York.

The tradition of ice cutting and harvesting beckons back to the early 1800s, and a time when people began to find ways to keep meats, dairy and produce fresh for longer periods of time. Before that time, Americans often stored their perishable foodstuffs in deep wells, springs or storage cellars, or opted for salting or drying their meat. In the early part of the 19th century, ice houses began cropping up on family farms where ponds or lakes were present or nearby. Ice harvesting became a community affair taking place in “good ice-makin’ weather” during January and February, at which time the entire community would work to fill everyone’s ice houses in a matter of four to six weeks. Farmers gathered up their axes, saws, ice hooks, sleighs and teams of horses to join in the effort.

Ice harvesting is not an overly complicated process, requiring as few or as many different tools as desired. The harvester could use as few as three or four tools, however, over the course of time around sixty tools were invented to help in the process.

So, how complicated is ice harvesting? Here is an illustrated look at ice harvesting with photos from Millers Mills taken in 1958.
Snow was usually removed from the ice with a horse-drawn scraper.

A hole was then bored in the ice and the depth of the ice measured. In early times, axes and saws were employed to cut through the scored ice-later giving way to markers and ice plows with teeth, each tooth progressively longer than the one before it that carved a straight line in the ice. The ice was marked out like a grid, and then cut through with a four to five foot ice saw or was broken apart with a bar.

Hooks, tongs or a horse rigged to the block, were used to extract the block of ice from the water.

Ice blocks were then slid across the ice and moved to a sleigh, wagon or other mode of transportation and taken to the ice house where they were unloaded using perhaps a tool or two, human muscle and a plank.

Would you like to try ice harvesting yourself? Then join in on a traditional ice harvest in Millers Mills located in West Winfield, New York on Sunday, February 13, 2011 starting at 11 am. This is a long standing tradition there, dating back so many years that no one actually knows when it even began as a community winter event. Traditional tools and methods are used right down to the team of horses and sleigh. Only one modern convenience is used and that is the gas powered machine used to score the ice the day before to the harvest. The harvest is a fundraiser sponsored by Grange #581. What do they do with the 300-500 blocks of ice? They store it in the ice house until the summer when they make ice cream for the town’s Ice Cream Social. A lot of work, but for a sweet reward!

To see more photos of the 1958 Ice Harvest in Millers Mills visit Plowline: Images of Rural New York.

Images above in order of appearance:
Scraping. Illustration from Scribner's Monthly, 1875
Ice Cutting. Millers Mills, 1958. Dante Tranquille. Plowline: Images of Rural New York, The Farmers’ Museum, Cooperstown, NY.F0001.2010(008)f.
Ice Harvesting, 1958. Dante Tranquille. Plowline: Images of Rural New York, The Farmers’ Museum, Cooperstown, NY. F0001.2010(103)a.
Ice Cutting. Millers Mills, 1958. Dante Tranquille. Plowline: Images of Rural New York, The Farmers’ Museum, Cooperstown, NY. F0001.2010(008)b.
Ice Cutting. Millers Mills, 1958. Dante Tranquille. Plowline: Images of Rural New York, The Farmers’ Museum, Cooperstown, NY. F0001.2010(008)g.

Secret Lives of Objects: The Main Barn

2011-02-02T10:00:00.000-05:00

By: Erin Richardson, Curator
The Farmers' Museum's Main Barn was built in 1918. The endeavor was funded by Edward Severin Clark, and was intended to be a model dairy farm. It was called the Cow Palace by Cooperstonians during its construction.

In working on the new online collection project, I scanned the Star Line supply catalog from 1919. Star Line produced barn plans, kits and milking parlor equipment and furnishings. The catalog is extensive. Imagine my surprise when I opened to a page featuring Edward Clark's barn. A whole section of the catalog features details about farms using Star Line equipment.

Here's a photo of our barn from the catalog:

Here's the Main Barn from Plowline: Images of Rural New York. The photograph was taken by Dante Tranquille in 1952:

Here's the Main Barn today:

Within the Star Line Catalog, I discovered that The Farmers' Museum has a sister stone barn that is now a museum. Cooperstonians had no idea what they were talking about when they called Clarks' barn a cow palace. THIS is a cow palace.

The Anna Dean Farm website describes Barn No. 3: O. C. Barber used Star Line Equipment on the Anna Dean Farm exclusively. This photo of Barn No 3 taken looking north west shows this mammoth barn just after construction. This photo was the pride of the Star Line Equipment catalog, and this catalog lists the barn as costing over $1,000,000.

Barber's barn is now part of the Barberton Historical Society in Barberton, Ohio (located in Barberton County, of course!)

If you would like to browse through the whole Star Line catalog (click the small .pdf file link at the top) and see other impressive barns, you can visit the Online Collection.

Lippitt Farmstead in Winter - Zebediah

2011-01-26T09:42:00.002-05:00

By: Marieanne Coursen, Agricultural Interpreter

Zebediah, or Zeb for short, is a major character in our depiction of a farm in the 19th century. He has been with us at The Farmers’ Museum for thirteen years and has become a favorite of staff and visitors alike. He and I share a birthdate, August 10th. He will be 17 years old this year and I will be – well never mind!

Winter on the farm is quiet and comfortable for Zeb. We occasionally hook him up to a sled and take him through his paces, but mostly he is on vacation. He has a spacious stall that he spends his nights in. We clean it every day and make a fresh bed of straw, put a new supply of hay in his manger, fresh water in a tub and a little bit of grain in his feed box.

During the day Zeb is outdoors. We make sure there is a hole in the ice so he can drink water from the pond.

He keeps track of goings-on and seems to find cross-country skiers gliding along the golf course especially interesting (or scary). He spends part of the day eating hay that we put out for him. Sometimes he is upside down:

Zeb always nickers when he hears us come into the barnyard in the morning. I like to think he enjoys our company along with our service. He gets occasional visits from other staff members this time of year, but I am sure he looks forward to the attention lavished on him every summer by our visitors.

Happy New Year from me and Zeb!

When is a pie a scythe? Avoiding data charges in 1906

2011-01-19T13:29:00.007-05:00

By: Erin Richardson, Curator

This year, The Farmers’ Museum, in partnership with the New York State Historical Association Research Library, will be launching a new collaborative collections database. Although still in a pilot phase, you can visit the database at collections.nysha.org. This project will allow researchers, enthusiasts, collectors and museum visitors to research objects in the Farmers’ Museum collection more thoroughly. Enough about the details of this project – more on that in a future post. What I really want to get to is a mysterious parts catalog I scanned as part of the project.

Background: Walter A Wood was a large scale manufacturer of Agricultural Equipment located in Hoosick Falls, NY – a small town between Albany and the Vermont border. Although his business began local, it was eventually an international operation. The NYSHA library has a large and comprehensive collection of catalogs, broadsides, parts lists and circulars for Wood’s company. The Farmers' Museum also has several pieces of Wood equipment in the collection.

In scanning one of the parts catalogs I discovered that each part had its own telegraph cipher. Perhaps I have been reading too many murder mystery novels, but my first thought about this cipher systems was related to German spies. I thought “Did the US government not want Germany to know where all of our grain was grown, so they directied these manufacturers to encode their ordering system?”

Here's a detail view:

(click to enlarge)

There are a number of problems with this conspiracy-theory, not the least of which are that the codes are printed in a readily available catalog and 1906 is too early to be worrying about German spies.

My next thought was “DATA PLAN”! This may seem like a non-sequitur. However, if you have a cell phone, or have tried to upgrade your cell phone recently, you will notice that just about every phone is internet-ready and that you will have to pay for the cost of sending internet data over the cellular network to which you subscribe. It dawned on me that these telegraph cipher codes were a data cost-cutting measure for ordering your replacement parts via telegraph. Rather than sending this:

Scythe, complete, six feet

you could instruct your local telegrapher to send:

Pie.

The cipher method reduces the cost of placing the order by 75%!

Too bad pie is not included.

For a farmer who needed a replacement part during the middle of a harvest, ordering via telegraph could cut the delivery time down by days or weeks – and probably save a crop in the process.

Stay tuned for more on the Collections Access Initiative in future posts and some information about the Walter A Wood artifacts in the museum's collection.

Mangel Wurzels

2011-01-11T09:41:00.001-05:00

By: Marieanne Coursen, Agricultural Interpreter
This time of year our farm animals rely on feeds we have stored away for them. Horses, cows and sheep do occasionally paw through the snow to eat the grass underneath, but mostly they look to us for their sustenance. This usually means dry hay and grain, but in addition, the nineteenth century farmer often fed pumpkins, cabbage and root crops to the animals.

My favorite root crop grown for livestock is the mangel wurzel.

Mangel wurzels are a type of beet with a red or yellow root the shape of a large, fat carrot that sticks halfway out of the ground. The leaves can be fed fresh to the animals through the summer as long as they are not entirely removed until just before the roots are harvested. The roots are supposed to be able to grow as large as 2 to 3 feet long and 4 to 8 inches in diameter! The ones I have grown have never been more than about eighteen inches long and maybe five inches in diameter.

They are harvested in the fall and stored in an environment where they won’t dry out or freeze, either underground (in a simple hole or a root cellar) or in a protected heap on top of the ground, called a clamp. My mother told me that on the farm where she grew up in Germany, a small farm building had a cellar under it where all the root crops were stored, and she would have to go down and bring up baskets full to feed to the animals. In England it seems to be more common to store them in heaps above the ground.

The general rule is to wait until after Christmas to feed mangel wurzels. Apparently a change occurs in storage that makes the root less likely to cause scours (diarrhea). The watery, juicy nature of the root makes it very appealing to cows, sheep and horses, especially after eating dry hay for so long. We have a nifty chopper to break up the root and make it easier to eat.

Chickens enjoy them also and I like to hang one in their house for them to peck at:

I have tried storing the mangel wurzels two different ways. Here at the museum we dug a hole in the ground one fall and lined it with straw. We threw our mangel wurzels in and covered them with straw and dirt and a wood cover. In January, I dug them out and found they had kept very well. They were not frozen or rotten so this method was successful as far as quality went, but I did find it extremely inconvenient to get them out. This year I decided to try the “clamp” method. I was not completely confident it would work since it is colder here than in England but then again with global warming maybe it would be OK. This time it was at my home farm. In September I made a pile of my mangel wurzels on top of a bed of straw:

I also added rutabagas and turnips, and I covered the pile with straw and dirt. After heavy rains and colder than normal temperatures this fall, I thought my crop was doomed. Well, I am happy to say that I opened the end of my pile after Christmas and found the roots in good condition. The pile seemed to have a frozen skin on it of snow, dirt and straw that was not difficult to break through. I was able to get to the roots easily and close the clamp back up by putting the frozen clumps back over the hole. It seems to work like the “Ag-Bags” that farmers store silage in.

So far I have only found a couple of turnips that rotted and they were at the bottom. I have not gotten to the mangel wurzels yet since they are at the back of the pile, but I am optimistic that they will be fine.

Root crops have never been as popular in America as in Europe for a livestock feed. Most of the information to be found about root crops like mangel wurzels comes from England where they are unable to grow corn well. Nevertheless, root crops do make my life as a small farmer more interesting and satisfying, and hopefully the animals in my care enjoy the added variety to their diet.

Cutting Firewood: Preparing for Winter, Part 2

2010-12-17T15:00:00.002-05:00

By: Garet Livermore, Vice-President for Education

Winter is a good time to cut and get up a year’s stock of firewood. Farmers at this season have less work to perform and wood is easier loaded and drawn when there is good sleighing, than in summer. But remember one thing: Don’t attempt to warm all creation, by working hard to chop and haul fire-wood, and at the same time leave your dwelling so open that the cold wind will rush in on all sides. By all means make your house comfortable. Bank it up and have all of its walls tight with good non-conductors of heat. While taking good care of those in-doors that can can talk, and tell their wants, never forget the dumb brutes in your barn-yard and stables. “The merciful man is merciful to his beast.” -- Editor, Genesee Farmer

In today’s world, heating bills are foremost on many people’s minds as we move into the coldest months of winter. People in early America were also concerned with heating, and they needed to work through the year to provide enough wood to heat their homes and make hot water for cooking, cleaning and bathing. Most firewood was cut in the winter when it could be easily cut and transported into barnyards for processing, but a good part of the other seasons were also taken up with splitting, stacking and moving wood around to keep fires in burning constantly through the long northern winter. Early Americans used prodigious amounts of wood to stoke the flames in their fireplaces. In Colonial times, before the improved efficiencies of the Rumford fireplace and later wood stoves, farmers had to cut, split and manage upwards of 40 cords of wood to keep their homes warm and their farms in operation.

To put those 40 cords of wood in perspective we can compare them to today’s heating bills. According to the U.S. government, each full cord of wood contains about 15.3 million BTU units of heat, so 40 cords of wood equals 612 million BTU units to heat, light and do chores on the average 18th century farm. If we had to purchase that heat in the form of home heating oil it would require over 5,000 gallons of #2 fuel oil. With today’s average cost per gallon of home heating oil in New York State hovering around $3.27 per gallon, the average farm would have an annual heating bill of well over $17,000.

Today heating oil is neatly delivered to our tanks and all we need to do is turn up our thermostats when the house grows cold or call the oil company to top off our tank when it is running low. Americans of the 18th and 19th centuries spent a great deal of their time managing their firewood supply and making sure that they had enough wood to get through the winter. Farms in rural areas generally included 15 to 20 acre woodlots as part of the property. In managing their wood supply, farmers generally cut an acre each year with the assumption that it would grow back to be of usable size by the time they came back to that spot in fifteen years. Farmers also bartered for wood and, if they lived near enough to cities to make transportation worthwhile, sold firewood as a cash crop for as much as $6 per cord in the mid-19th century.

The technology of cutting firewood was vastly different in the 19th century. In the present, people who heat with wood have a wide variety of power equipment available to make the job easier, including chain saws, hydraulic wood splitters and even motorized wheel barrows. Until about 1870, the most commonly used tool for processing wood was the American Pattern axe. Axes were very efficient for felling and limbing trees, but were not as good at splitting the trees into usable chunks of firewood. For this purpose most wood cutters relied on splitting wedges and heavy wooden “beetles” or sledge hammers to split their wood. Cross-cut saws were not often used for felling trees until the last quarter of the 19th century because they were initially not as efficient as axes and were much more expensive to purchase.

In early America settlers often performed a dual function when they gathered firewood, creating a bank of fuel for the year as they cleared land for cultivation. This was a very labor intensive activity that required help. Neighbors often worked as a group to cut and clear the woods, pull stumps and do the initial plowing to open the land for the next season’s crops. This also allowed settlers to share necessary tools and equipment like oxen with sledges, horses and plows as well as hand tools like mauls and wedges. This made full use of a community’s resources to meet everyone’s needs.

The first energy crisis in America occurred in the 1740s when a growing population and inefficient energy practices caused a great shortage in firewood in New England and other heavily populated areas. Open hearth fireplaces were tremendously wasteful. Fully ninety percent of their heat energy went up the chimney, and the fire tended to pull more cold outside air in through poorly insulated walls and windows. Benjamin Franklin developed his famous stove, then called the “Pennsylvania Fire-Place,” as a tremendous advance in wood burning technology. On being asked about the stove he had the following reply, which is as relevant today as it was then: "By the help of this saving invention our wood may grow as fast as we consume it, and our posterity may warm themselves at a moderate rate, without being obliged to fetch their fuel over the Atlantic." The net effect on the lives of average Americans of this stove - and others invented in the 19th century - was dramatic. By the 1850s the average northern farm required 60% less firewood, which meant that it required 15 cords worth of trees rather than the 40 of colonial times.

Christmas and the Oxen

2010-12-07T13:32:00.001-05:00

By: Marieanne Coursen, Agricultural Interpreter

When we think of Christmas the animals that usually come to mind are reindeer, but oxen play a part in the traditions of this holiday also.

In an article found in the Popular Educator, an educational magazine published by Harvard University in 1898, Ella M. Powers wrote:

“Fifty years ago in our own country, Christmas trees were rarely seen and the introduction of this Christmas custom is largely due to the Germans, for Germany is the home of the Christmas tree. The week before Christmas in 1851, a woodman of the Catskill mountains in New York filled two ox sleds with young shapely evergreen trees and drove over the rough snow-drifted roads to New York City. He selected a corner upon the sidewalk and here he displayed his choice Christmas goods from the woodland. The resinous aromatic odor attracted the passing crowds and eagerly the people purchased his sylvan bargains! He returned each year. This was the beginning of the Christmas sale of evergreens in America. Now those mountains of Rip Van Winkle’s long sleep furnish over two hundred thousand trees for the Christmas decorations. Other states furnish quantities and many a schooner laden with spruces from Maine may be seen in the harbors of our cities at the season of the Christmas festival.”

And this from a London journal in 1834: Singular Devonshire Customs on Christmas Eve

A superstitious notion prevails in the western parts of Devonshire that at twelve o’clock at night on Christmas Eve the oxen in their stalls are always found on their knees in an attitude of devotion and that which is still more singular since the alteration of the style, they contrive to do this only on the Eve of “old” Christmas Day. An honest countrymen living on the edge of St. Stephen’s Downs near Launceston, Cornwall, informed me on October 28th, 1790, that he once, with some others, made a trial of the truth of the above, and watching several oxen in their stalls at the above time at twelve o’clock at night they observed the two oldest oxen only, fall upon their knees and, as he expressed it in the idiom of the country, make a cruel moan like Christian creatures. I could not but with great difficulty keep my countenance; he saw and seemed angry that I gave so little credit to his tale and walking off in a pettish humour, seemed to marvel at my unbelief. There is an old print of the Nativity in which the oxen in the stable near the Virgin and Child are represented upon their knees as in a suppliant posture. This graphic representation has probably given rise to the above superstitious notion on this head.”

This legend continues in this poem published by Thomas Hardy in 1915:
(by the way, “barton” means farmyard and “coomb” means valley)

The Oxen

Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.
“Now they are all on their knees,”
An elder said as we sat in a flock
By the embers in hearthside ease.

We pictured the meek mild creatures where
They dwelt in their strawy pen,
Nor did it occur to one of us there
To doubt they were kneeling then.

So fair a fancy few would weave
In these years! Yet, I feel,
If someone said on Christmas Eve,
“Come; see the oxen kneel,

“In the lonely barton by yonder coomb
Our childhood used to know,”with him in the gloom,
Hoping it might be so.
I should go

Our own team of oxen, Jiggs and Buckwheat, will be a part of our holiday celebration on Saturday, December 11th. We will be out and about, dodging the teams of horses jingling their bells and pulling their wagons and will be found later snug in the “gloom” of the Marble barn on the day of that magical yearly tradition: Candlelight Evening. Hope you can come!

Checking the List ...

2010-11-29T15:00:00.001-05:00

By: Joshua Harley, Historical Interpreter for Todd's General Store

Santa Claus is a very busy man. This is a well known fact. With more and more children in the world to visit, sometimes the jolly old elf needs a helping hand. We here at The Farmers’ Museum are happy to help Santa when we can. To that end, we are proud to present our new stocking stuffers, Naughty and Nice bags!

Do you know someone who deserves one (or maybe both) of these hand-printed bags?

Giving gifts to children based on their behavior during the holiday season is a tradition thought to have started in America with the Dutch settlers of New York. At the time shoes were often left by the fireplace for Sinterklaas to fill with candies, toys, poems, or *gasp* coal to those who earned it.

In keeping with this tradition our Naughty bags are filled with our 100% blacksmith-approved coal from our historic blacksmith shop and each is hand filled by our Santa-approved shopkeeper.

Our Nice bag will have traditional gifts of candy and small toys for those who deserve them.

Both the bags were hand printed right here on our historic 1862 Liberty Job Press. It is the oldest Liberty press known to exist - with a serial number of 610 - and was made in Brooklyn.

So come down to Todd’s General Store at Candlelight Evening on December 11, and help Santa out. That should put you on the “nice” list!

Thanksgiving

2010-11-23T12:09:00.000-05:00

by: Garet Livermore, Vice President for Education

THANKSGIVING DAY.--When shall it be? The last Thursday in November falls on the 29th. We petition each and all the State governors to appoint that day for our national rejoicing. Then all the land will be glad together, and union among the people would be a sure pledge of heart-thankfulness to God, who has given to us, as a nation, such wonderful prosperity, such universal blessings. -- Sarah J. Hale, Editor, Godey’s Lady’s Book, October 1855.

Fall thanksgiving celebrations have been a part the American experience since colonial days. The celebration at Plymouth Plantation by the Pilgrims in 1621 is only the most famous example. Celebrating at harvest time with a feast and games was a common practice in all of the colonies, including New York and Virginia. Each location marked the successful harvest with its own traditional foods and activities. It was not until a public relations campaign spearheaded by Sarah J. Hale, the editor of Godey’s Ladies Book, in the middle of the 19th century that the holiday became a national event. The date was first fixed as the final Thursday in November by the proclamation of President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 and later adjusted to the fourth Thursday in November in a law signed by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941. Apparently, Roosevelt felt that in the country would benefit from the extra week of Christmas shopping in those years when November has five Thursdays.

The Turkey as National Dish
The centerpiece of most Thanksgiving meals, the turkey, has an interesting history of its own. Although many people know the story of Ben Franklin’s proposal to make the bird our national symbol, fewer know why it is the almost universal choice for our Thanksgiving meals. When early settlers came to Massachusetts, they were pleased to find fish and game in abundance. They were particularly fond of the bird they called the “Turkey Fowl” because of the belief that it was related to the guinea fowl then being imported to Europe from the Middle East.

Initially, the birds were so numerous that they were a reliable food source for early settlers. Edward Winslow, a Pilgrim leader, described hunting the birds for the first Thanksgiving meal: “Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruits of our labor. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week.” With this kind of unsustainable hunting the birds quickly became scarce, and wild turkeys almost disappeared from New England in the 18th century.

Farmers developed domesticated breeds of turkey to raise for meat and eggs. Although never as popular as chickens or even geese for family meals and holidays, the turkey benefitted from its traditional connection with Thanksgiving and became a specialty animal for farmers to raise and bring to market in the fall. Most of these breeds had strong regional connections, like the Narragansett in the Northeast and the Bourbon Red in Kentucky. The Farmers’ Museum raises a small flock of Narragansett turkeys here in Cooperstown as it was the most common breed of turkey in our region.

Driving Turkeys to Market
Just like today, the demand for turkeys was highly seasonal in the 19th century. Farmers who raised the birds had to drive them to market for the profitable holiday season. “Driving” turkeys in the 19th century consisted of getting the whole flock to walk, sometimes more than a hundred miles, to market under their own power. The flock was led by a wagon filled with grain that a boy sprinkled in front of the group and it was followed by men with long “switches” or sticks that could be used to poke and prod reluctant turkeys along the way. The process had several challenges, including birds’ instinct to roost in trees, on roofs and in the rafters of covered bridges that they encountered. “Turkey trots” were often held up for days while the drovers climbed in trees and on buildings, poking at the birds to get them down on the ground and walking to market again.
Thanksgiving at The Farmers’ Museum
The Farmers' Museum will reopen its doors on the Friday and Saturday following Thanksgiving to offer visitors a glimpse of how Thanksgiving was celebrated in 1845. Visitors will get a chance to see a turkey drive and help the Farmers move our turkeys to market across the museum grounds. You will see our staff prepare a traditional Thanksgiving meal at Lippitt farmhouse and watch the blacksmith forge trivets and fireplace tools. At the Middlefield Printing Shop you can print a traditional Thanksgiving recipe to take home for your own use. Come join the fun and explore the museum!

Make Your House Tight & Snug: Preparing for Winter, Part I

2010-11-19T13:30:00.000-05:00

By: Garet Livermore, Vice President for Education

“Chill November's surly blast makes fields and forests bare and old man Winter with his frosty beard will soon be upon us.” - The Cultivator, Journal of the New York Agricultural Society, December, 1860.

Today we have the luxury of dealing with the change of seasons by simply turning up the thermostat and laying in a stock of snow-melt and other winter necessities of the 21st century. In the middle of the 19th century – the focal period of The Farmers’ Museum’s Historic Village – anticipating winter was a much more demanding, higher stakes activity that took up a good part of people’s times throughout the year, not just in the few weeks of Fall between the times of the leaves having fallen and the first significant snowfall. This blog entry is the first in a three part series, “Preparing for Winter.” In this series I will look at getting the house tight and ready for winter, laying in a supply of wood to keep the house warm and building and keeping the home fires necessary to get you through a long northern winter.

Planning for winter began right when farms were laid out, to simplify and manage the extremes of our northern climate. Farmhouses were placed close to roads to ease access and snow clearing issues, while barns and barnyards were set to shield humans and animals from the worst of the weather while maintaining an efficient work area. In extreme northern locations, farmers would actually build their houses, barns and outbuildings in a single, connected structure so they would always be sheltered during storms. The danger of fire taking out an entire farm was too great to do this in most of the Northeast.

Most early settlers in rural New York came from New England and were used to dealing with long, cold winters. The designs of their houses reflected this experience. Predominant forms were Cape Cod, salt boxes and federal styles well adapted to the climate. They featured large centrally massed chimneys which provided for several fireplaces and large amounts of brick to hold heat, steep roofs to shed heavy snow loads and relatively small rooms with low ceilings to conserve heat. Visitors to the Lippitt House at The Farmers’ Museum often comment on those rooms and ceilings, believing that their size is because “people were shorter back then”. Actually it is simply one example of a New England saltbox house built to conserve heat during the upstate winters.

In the early 19th century open fireplaces were the predominant form of providing heat for comfort and cooking. The fireplaces of this time were heavily influenced by the work of Sir Benjamin Thompson (1753 – 1814), otherwise known as Count Rumford. Thompson was a scientist and inventor who is credited with inventing, amongst other things, the kitchen range, drip-coffee pot and thermal underwear. A Massachusetts born New Englander, it is fitting that his most influential work was the Rumford fireplace, which offered great improvements in fireplace efficiency and effectiveness in heating. His fireplaces were relatively shallow, to project more heat into the room and had a very narrow “throat” or opening into the chimney which increased the draw of the fire to reduce smoke and enhance combustion.

As anyone who has done a “gut restoration” can tell you, there are many interesting things to be found in the walls of an old house including shoes, skeletons of small animals and sometimes, for lucky renovators, coins and currency. One rarely finds insulation, though. This wasn’t because insulation wasn’t known at the time: it was. In fact, the concept of building insulation has been around for centuries, dating to at least Greek and Roman times. In early America, insulation was an expensive proposition and only used in buildings built in very exposed, windy locations. Sometimes the insulation consisted of loosely laid brick “nogging” placed between the vertical elements of buildings framed. Other times builders would tightly pack sawdust, wood chips or other material in the walls of houses creating a heat barrier similar to today’s fiberglass batting. Most often, farmers simply “banked” the house by piling straw, hay or other loose materials against the foundation to keep the cold winter winds out of their cellars. This helped keep their potatoes and other foods in the cellar from freezing and spoiling, and also helped keep the house a bit warmer. The illustration at the top of this blog post shows a house “banked” for winter.

In the latter part of the 19th century many entrepreneurial businessmen started recycling industrial by-products left over from textile mills and factories as insulation. These included wood fiber from lumber mills, animal hair from slaughterhouses and cotton and flax remnants from textile mills. Each of these shared the characteristic of being fibrous material that was well suited to make into batts or panels for placement in walls. Perhaps the most unusual insulation material in common use was eel grass, the “seaweed” that you see piled up in windrows along New England’s beaches. Its use in homes started in Colonial times and extended through the 1940s. Samuel Cabot of Boston created a product called “Cabot’s Quilt” in 1893 where he stitched compressed eel grass between two layers of Kraft paper. The insulation was on the market for many years and because of its sound deadening qualities, used in many theatres and office buildings, including Radio City Music Hall and Rockefeller Center in New York City.

Got Grandkids? So do Nancy and Donna!

2010-11-12T11:00:00.006-05:00

Donna Williams and Nancy Castro are Retail Associates at The Farmers’ Museum Shop, as well as two very proud Grandparents.
With 14 grandchildren between us, we want to share with other grandparents how much we enjoy a day at the Farm with our own grandkids.

Donna – When I bring my 5 year old granddaughter, Darien, to The Farmers’ Museum the first thing she runs to is the Cardiff Giant! It absolutely fascinates her. Second only to the Giant is the Carousel. It’s a wonder she can still walk a straight line after going around and around so many times! She loves to ride the various carousel animals, giving each one their fair share of her time, as well as her tokens.

Nancy - Since we live in a farming community, my grandkids love to spend time with the animals, especially milking the cow and feeding the goats. The hands-on experience of farming is genuinely fun and it stays with them long after they leave the museum. When they get home they brag to their parents about their new skills! And the old-fashioned games are what I love to see them doing. Something that isn’t electronic!

The experience continues for all of us when we reach the Museum Shop. Being involved in the selection of merchandise has given the two of us the opportunity to share that experience with other grandparents. (As well as plan our birthday and Christmas shopping!) We stay away from typical souvenirs, but instead look for good grandparent gifts; some educational, some cute, and some just for fun like the Cow Poop paper! Our grandkids particularly like to take home a magnet of the carousel animal they rode, or a good luck mini animal, and always a piece of rock candy!

Here's Nancy organizing the Poo Paper:

Good luck mini animals come in all shapes - but only one size - tiny!

We know from our own experiences how rewarding it can be to spend a day getting back to the basics with the grandchildren, and we hope you’ll feel the same when you come for a visit. Be sure to stop by the shop and say hello when you do!

Broom Corn Harvest

2010-11-09T11:00:00.002-05:00

By: Marieanne Coursen, Agricultural Interpreter.
When I first started working at The Farmers’ Museum in 1997, I worked in the Westcott Shop making brooms. Now I work here as a farmer and have had the opportunity to grow and process broom corn. I find this very satisfying as I like to know how to do things from beginning to end; that is why I grow a garden, bake from scratch, knit with yarn I spun myself, etc. Makes me a little crazy, but happy!

This is our second year of growing broom corn at the Lippitt Farmstead. The plant is not really a corn at all, although it really looks like corn except for the fact that there are no ears. It is actually a type of sorghum. Other types of sorghum are grown as feed for cows: my son grows it to feed to his dairy cows, and another variety is grown in the south for sweet sorghum syrup and is even being studied for use in ethanol production. The variety that we grow for making brooms isn’t good for much of anything besides brooms. The brushes are harvested before the seeds fully mature so there is no grain value, and the plant itself is apparently not very tasty since it is the only crop we can grow here at the museum that does not get bothered by the deer! The seed is sown in rows in mid-May much like corn but closer together in the row and needs to be kept free of weeds. Our broom corn grew very well this year:

Harvesting broom corn is very labor intensive. As the brushes developed at the top we watched them carefully. When the brush emerges from the sheath it is time to “table” it.

To table the brushes, we fold down the stalks between knuckles so that the brushes can continue to harden and mature but won’t bend over from the weight of the developing seeds.

It also protects the brushes from the frosts that are possible at this time of year. I get the impression that all the broom corn was tabled at one time in large fields but since we only grew a small amount we checked daily and folded them down as we thought they were ready. Once it was all tabled, we waited a few more days and then cut the brushes.

I did this with a knife this year instead of pruning shears like last year because that is how it would have been harvested “back in the day.” It was fun but I was very aware of the location of my body parts in relation to the swing of the knife – this could be dangerous. As I went along I left small piles or “gavels” of cut brush between the rows to be picked up later.

Once the brushes were cut and gathered, the outer sheath – a leaf that surrounds the base of the brush and the peduncle (a fun word for the stalk that is attached to the brush) – had to be removed. This is easily done by peeling it off.

The next step was to remove the developing seeds. A book called Broom-corn and Brooms found in our NYSHA Library suggests using a curry comb to clean small lots of brush. This was a suggestion that escaped me last year when I left the brushes to cure with the seeds on and combed them later with a three toothed hatchel found in our broom shop. This worked OK but the curry comb used immediately after harvest worked much better!

Next, the brushes needed to be laid out to cure. Our hop house has the ideal space for this since it has a slatted floor in the second story for hops to dry.

In 1845 broom corn was a significant crop in New York State as there were several broom factories in need of brushes. At the same time, some farmers would just grow a small crop to satisfy their own needs for brooms. Years ago I a made the fancy brooms that are turned out in our broom shop here at the museum, but this winter I will try making a simple twine bound broom for use in our barns from part of our own homegrown broom corn. The rest I will deliver to our current broom maker, Joan Noonan, in the Westcott Shop. The brushes used there today to make the fine house brooms are imported from Mexico and much longer than the ones we grew. But Joan will probably be able to make a whisk broom or two that can be labeled “Grown and Made in Cooperstown, New York!”

So, now that I’ve both grown broomcorn and used it to make brooms, I can confidently say that if I had to, I could produce my own broom! Maybe next year I will grow flax and make a shirt – or maybe not.

Curator on Vacation - George Washington's House

2010-11-03T09:13:00.000-04:00

By: Erin Richardson, Curator

A few weeks ago, I travelled to Virginia for a wedding at George Washington's Mount Vernon. Afterwards, we visited the site for a tour and a walk around the grounds.

Here's my husband and I as tourists:

This trip marked my second visit to George's house. You may recall from my previous post, that George and I are buddies (or at least I thought so in grade school).

The first time I visited George's house, I was in high school on a family trip looking at colleges. I don't remember the site at all. My only recollections are of the aftermath of the trip. My Mom bought some ivy cut from Mount Vernon gardens that she planted when we got home -- it grew all the way up the chimney. The second memory involves my Dad winning a guessing contest. There was a giant jar of timothy seeds in the education center--he submitted a guess as to the number of seeds and won! The prize was an American flag that had spent some time flying over Mount Vernon (a new flag - not an old one).

Today, I was struck by a number of things. Although I have always loved museums, I don't enjoy them in the same way that I did before I became a curator. Sure, I listen to tours and look at furniture, try out activities, ask questions, but I am always watching other visitors' experiences and taking in how the site is managed. And so this visit was much different than the first one.

First, I was struck by the overall spiritual nature of the site. Although I am sure there were thousands of other visitors on site with us, it was very quiet and peaceful. I was awed by the reverence with which visitors treated the site -- like hallowed ground.

Here's a view of the grounds while we were waiting for our house tour:

Second, I was reminded of the age of the site as a museum. Mount Vernon is one of the oldest historic house museums in the United States. The Mount Vernon Ladies' Association began protecting and restoring the home and site in 1834 and they still operate it today.

I was impressed that the current restoration of the site has not eliminated all of the past layers of interpretation. In the area reserved for memorializing the slaves that once worked the plantation, the new memorial maker is set aside from the old memorial marker.

Here's the new marker:

Here's the old maker from 1929 referring to "colored servants." It does not mention slaves at all:

This intrigues me because most museums jump at the chance to modernize their interpretation and erase misguided, misinformed, or racist material from their past information of a site's history. I think it is important to show what we've learned, rather than to push old ways of thinking under the rug. Kudos to Mount Vernon Ladies' Association!

On a completely different note I found myself constantly thinking about how their visitation relates to site maintenance. The site is open 365 days per year and they average 1 million visitors annually. That means there are people are in the historic house every day, a lot of them, all at the same time! This year at The Farmers' Museum, I've been working at creating a plan that will help us to keep our buildings clean. One of the big problems we encounter is dust and grit that comes into our buildings on visitors' feet. This problem is amplified at Mount Vernon. The house is filled with people all day long and all of the paths on the site are surfaced with dusty pea gravel. Although I was listening to our docents, I was also watching visitors, their feet, and noticing the cleanliness (or dustiness) of different parts of the historic interior. And I thought we had problems with dust! If we have dust bunnies - they have dust mastodons!

I must say, none of my "take-aways" from this trip are directly about George Washington's home or about American history. However, I'm sure that other visitors have completely different reactions to the site which are also unrelated to George or American history. Whatever my reaction (on this trip, or the first one), the fact that I'm still thinking about my visit weeks later is testimony to the power of museums in my life. I hope that other visitors find that same power. It is why I love my job.

Giant Hoax: The Musical

2010-10-13T16:00:00.000-04:00

By: Erin Richardson, Curator

No, that title is NOT a hoax. There is, indeed, a musical about the Cardiff Giant coming to Proctor's Theater in Schenectady, NY, in November. I was fortunate enough to see a staged reading of the show last year, and thought it was great! A few weeks ago, the cast came to have some publicity photos with the Giant. You can see the final product above. Here are a few members of the cast and the musical's director during the middle of their photo shoot:

I can't wait to go!

Here is some more information about the show:

The World Premiere of THE GIANT HOAX

Classic Theater Guild presents

"The Giant Hoax"

an original musical by Kit Goldstein

based on the true story of the Cardiff Giant
the 'petrified prehistoric man' currently on display in Cooperstown, NY

Directed by Criss Macaione
Music Directed by Rebecca Benjamin

In this charming family musical, a young girl's belief in wonderful things is challenged when she joins the traveling exhibition of New York's famous Cardiff Giant and gets a behind-the-scenes look at the truth behind the marvel.

Friday, Nov. 5 - 7:30 pm
Saturday, Nov. 6 - 7:30 pm
Sunday, Nov. 7 - 2 pm
Friday, Nov. 12 - 7:30 pm
Saturday, Nov. 13 - 7:30 pm
Sunday, Nov. 14 - 2 pm

Proctors Theater, Fenimore Gallery
432 State Street
Schenectady, NY

For additional information and/or tickets:
http://www.proctors.org/events/5859
or call (518) 346-6204

Invite your Facebook friends!

The cast features:

Bernard K. Allanson

Bill Palmer

Cassandra Wright

David Michael Benjamin Jr.

Doré Schmidt

Jacqueline Ravida

Jo Quinn

Joe Phillips

Kacie Rea

Kate Peterson

Margot Phillips

Mark David

Mary Durocher

Mary Kirsten

Omar Williams

Rebecca Civic

Sadie Buerker

Sarah Durocher

Seana Munson

Sheila O'Shea

Suzanne Baker

Plowline: Images of Rural New York

2010-10-08T16:00:00.002-04:00

By: Erin Richardson, Curator

Today, The Farmers' Museum launches a new collecting initiative. This Farmers' Museum project is possible through generous support of the Gipson Family. Plowline: Images of Rural New York will acquire original photographic works that document changes in rural life, farm families and agricultural practice for the history of photography - from the 1840s through the present. The collection is not limited by photographic format - daguerreotypes, tintypes, 35mm slide shows, real photo postcards, home movies, and born-digital works can all be part of the collection.

Dante Tranquille. Horses in a field near West Winfield, NY. May 11, 1955. Museum Purchase.

Dante Tranquille. Potato Harvest, probably Herkimer County, NY. October 16, 1968. Museum Purchase.

Why are we starting to collect photography now? That is a complicated question. The Farmers' Museum has a few photographs already, but it has never been a focus of our collecting activities. In case you haven't noticed, farm equipment has gotten progressively larger over the decades. When the museum was founded in 1942, the curators were collecting plows and harrows. Those pieces of equipment, while bulky, can be easily stored and moved around by one person. Today, tractors and automated equipment are very, very large and can be very difficult to house and care for (as most farmers today already experience with their own equipment). Although we will still be selectively collecting 20th and 21st century agricultural tools and equipment, this new photography collection will allow us to more thoroughly document New York State agriculture.

Unidentified Photographer (Dezemo Family). $200 cow. George Dezemo and Myrtle. Name Daisy. Walton, Orange County, NY, ca 1945. Museum Purchase.

The best part is that as acquisitions are made, they will be posted to the Plowline website. You can search or browse through the photographs. We've already collected nearly 1000 images this year in preparation for the launch. More than 500 are already available for browsing.

Unidentified Photographer (Cornell University, Department of Dairy Industry). Barns Exterior: Well located, Fairfield Dy. Co. ca 1910. Gift of Eric Hallstead.

If you have photographs in your family's collection, or think there is a collection out there we should know about, please contact me via phone (607)547-1521 or email: e.richardson@nysha.org. I would love to hear from you. And, if you are heading to The Farmers' Museum for Tractor Fest, stop by my tent and learn more about the collection.