Pickings from Sanborn Mills Farm

Farm Pickings

News and Updates from Sanborn Mills Farm

— November 15, 2023 —

I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual.

– Henry David Thoreau

Farm-Made Wreaths for Sale for the Holidays

Bring a bit of Sanborn Mills Farm into your home this holiday season with one (or more!) of our holiday wreaths now available on pre-sale. These wreaths are made by our Gardens staff, including Head Gardener Helen Westergren and Assistant Gardener Madison St. George, and they are truly beautiful.

Our wreaths come in two sizes, 18-inch diameter and 24-inch diameter, with a choice of ribbon color. Your wreath will be available for pick-up at the Winter Market at the Farm on Saturday, Dec. 2, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. (see below).

Quantities are limited, so don’t hesitate to order your wreath today. Click here to order.

Winter Market at Sanborn Mills Farm December 2

Coming Soon…

Our schedule of 2024 workshops at the Farm will be published on the Farm’s website at the end of November. You’ll want to keep your eyes peeled for the announcement — many of our workshops sell out quickly, even months in advance, so if you see a 2024 workshop on the new schedule that you’d enjoy, register soon.

What We’re Reading

Book of the Month

Donald Hall ranks with Robert Frost as a definitive New England poet. Like Frost, his writing is lauded nationally — Hall was the Poet Laureate of the United States in 2006-2007 and he was given the National Medal of the Arts by President Obama in 2010. For many years he was the poetry editor of The Paris Review.

His writing, which includes essays and articles besides poetry as well as tributes, memories, and expressions of love for his wife, the poet Jane Kenyon, turns the everyday and mundane into lyrical art. His pen often found wonderful expression when he wrote about Eagle Pond, his family’s ancestral farm in Wilmot, N.H., where Hall and Kenyon lived for many years. Colin Cabot, who owns Sanborn Mills Farm, and SMF board member Lynne Monroe both serve on the board of At Eagle Pond a non-profit which purchased the house and much of its contents when it went up for auction in 2019.

This book, simply titled “Eagle Pond,” includes the previously published “Seasons at Eagle Pond” and “Here at Eagle Pond” as well as the poem “Daylilies on the Hill” from “The Painted Bed.” The book also includes several uncollected essays about the joys and quiddities of life on the farm, the pleasures and discomforts of a world in which the year has four seasons — maple sugar, blackfly, Red Sox, and winter. It’s a beautiful book to read while the seasons transition, as fall is moving into winter now.

To learn more about the At Eagle Pond non-profit, click here. To purchase “Eagle Pond” from Google Books, click here.

Photo Credits

Top photo by Steve Bjerklie.

Wreath Sale, Winter Market, and Sneak Peek graphics by Lea Rossignol.

“Eagle Pond” cover courtesy Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.