We Milked Buttercup!

By: Kajsa Sabatke, Interpretive Projects Coordinator, Kate Betz, Manager of Pubilc Programs and Erin Crissman, Curator Among the many things that the three of us have in common is that none of us had milked Buttercup, the dairy cow at Lippitt Farm . (A few other commonalities being that we all graduated from the same masters program, we all have a keen sense of fashion, and all recognize that ice cream is one of the greatest foods in the world—see, it all comes back to dairy!).

Buttercup is a very patient cow.

At least not until last week, when we arrived at the museum early to help Farmer Wayne with the morning milking. Buttercup is a gentle cow and she patiently allows dozens of visitors to milk her every day under the watchful eye of one of our farmers. After Wayne gave us a tutorial of the basic milking technique (pinch and squeeze), we were ready to try milking Buttercup. Farmer Wayne shows us the pinch and squeeze technique before we get started.

Kajsa milking Buttercup

Kate milking, and not getting her foot stepped on.

I went first and my city girl savviness ensured that I immediately got milk all over my hand (and might have had my foot trampled if Farmer Wayne hadn’t warned me to move my leg out of the way!). However, after a few pinch-and-squeezes I started getting the hang of it. It was really an amazing experience. Now, I saw the steaming buckets of milk when we came in, but somehow my brain did not connect how warm the cow, udder, and milk really would be. Being that close to a living, breathing thing that could produce such an amazing product (please recall the earlier ice cream comment) was a humbling experience. I even got the two-handed milking down (if not mastered) by the end of my turn.

I loved milking Buttercup. I’ll also admit to being a little apprehensive about the whole thing, but I only have to milk a cow for the first time once, right? Erin milking Buttercup My biggest problem, actually, was trying to get dressed in the morning knowing that I would be milking a cow AND attending an important meeting in the afternoon. Thankfully, I got all of the milk to go in the bucket and my clothes stayed clean. Farmer Wayne is absolutely amazing. I understand why so many families run to the barn yard starting at about 3:15, and why our members bring their children after school to ride the carousel and milk the cow. What a way to spend the afternoon!

Here's Steve Kellogg, our blacksmith. It was his first time milking, too. He also served as our photographer for the milking adventure. He blogs about blacksmithing and working at The Farmers' Museum. Thanks, Steve!

Smokehouses Today

By: Gwen Miner, Supervisor of Domestic Arts Smokehouses still exist today in the back, or more often side, yards of many older homes. The ones that still stand tend to have been constructed of common field stone. Some are still in good shape and living on to serve other purposes, while others are falling in. A couple of years back Anneke Nordmark, a student in the Cooperstown Graduate Program, came to me to ask about smokehouses because she had to write a paper on them for a vernacular architecture class. We looked at the Lippitt Farmstead smokehouse, but she wanted to look at others. Because I was also interested in tracking down a few others, I suggested a road trip. Growing up driving around the area surrounding Cooperstown, I knew where several of these smokehouses existed. Early one morning, Anneke and I got into my car and proceeded to track down many of the smokehouses that I had seen. I had two questions burning in my mind that I wanted to get answers to. First, what was the location of the smokehouse and its average distance away from the house? Second, what was the average size of a smokehouse, and what materials were used to make it? After driving around that morning, we came to several conclusions. Most smokehouses were located within 100 feet of the house on the rear side. Almost all were made of stone, some having very creative masonry. On average, the houses were about 8’ square and about 5’ high. Door openings tended to be framed from ground level, spanned almost as tall as the house itself and had about a 30” opening. Perhaps most interestingly, some still had residual ash in their fire pits and creosote residue on rafters and interior walls. Do you have an old smokehouse on your property? We want to know about it. Leave us a comment so we can add it to our list.

Wild Times!

By: Erin Crissman, Curator This week we’re putting the finishing touches on the graphic materials and object lists for Wild Times! A New York Animal Road Trip, the new Main Barn exhibition opening on Memorial Day weekend. This fun, nostalgia-themed exhibition invites you to follow Lulu and her brother Max around New York State on their summer vacation as they solve a list of 11 animal riddles from their Dad. The exhibition team has learned a bunch of fun facts about New York’s flora and fauna throughout the year-long development process. Just today, in the frenzy to complete some of this work before the production deadline, I received a great flyer in my mailbox for an appropriately themed program sponsored by the Cooperstown Graduate Program--“Folklore is in Our Nature.” Varick Chittenden, founder of Traditional Arts in Upstate New York, will be presenting the annual Bruce Buckley Lecture across the street at the Fenimore Art Museum on May 7th at 7pm. His talk will center on folk culture of the Adirondacks, an area that is highlighted in the Wild Times! exhibition. Can’t wait to attend and learn more about this area of my state. The lecture is free, and open to everyone. If you‘d like to attend, and need more information, call the Cooperstown Graduate Program at 547-2586.

Law Office Silhouettes

By: Kajsa Sabatke, Interpretive Projects Coordinator

Have you noticed the silhouettes in the law office? As a graduate student, I worked with a group of my classmates from the Cooperstown Graduate Program to develop this exhibit. To create exhibit panels in the shapes of people, we used historic photographs that we found through the Library of Congress. We chose these images because they represented a variety of people who lived in the 1850s (the time of the Dred Scott decision) and because their subjects had silhouette shapes that could fit the text and images we added to the panels. Some people are famous – like Dred and Harriet Scott and William Sidney Mount – and some are not. In fact, my favorite silhouette comes from the only person not identified on the LOC website. He probably worked in a foundry since he is photographed holding a floor rammer, a tool used for packing sand around a pattern to create the mold for a metal casting. After creating his silhouette from the photo (he’s the one on the left), we began to refer to him simply as Ears. The silhouette captures many details: the tilt of his hat, the wrinkles on his pants, his rolled sleeves, his straight posture, and the shape of his ears. I’m not sure why this silhouette is my favorite, but it catches my eye whenever I visit the law office.

Top: Occupational portrait of two men, standing full length holding floor rammers, foundry tools used for packing sand against molds. ca. 1850. Libraryof Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZC4-11324