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The Farmhand
Fall 2021
The Year Winds Up
The rye is threshed. The dye garden is harvested, the pumpkins are collected, the flax is drying, and the corn will be picked in a few days. The hogs are fat, the chickens are plump, and the apples are in the bin. The old rhythms of harvest time repeat for another year at Sanborn Mills Farm.
The slanting light, the chill in the nights, and the carpets of crisp leaves of autumn will often bring a sense of winding down, of looking back, of putting things in order, of tidying up for what’s to come. But here at the Farm, this fall our year is winding up, not down. We are looking forward, not back. Next year, for example, for the first time in more than a year we will open a full schedule of workshops. Program manager Molly Bolick has been working hard to put the finishing touches on an impressive variety of 2022 workshops, from our popular blacksmithing workshops to workshops about working with draft animals to a new series devoted to working with natural dyes. Watch your email In box and the Sanborn Mills Farm website for announcements.
We’re also very busy this fall! A new utility shed is going up at the Merrill Farm on the upper end of Sanborn Mills Farm. This timber-frame structure will include a vegetable washing area for our CSA (community-supported agriculture) deliveries as well as a workshop for machinery repairs, classroom space, and a bathroom. We’ve also installed the brick sill and the cast-iron framing for our 1919 Lord and Burnham greenhouse. Over the winter we will make repairs on the greenhouse’s wooden joinery, and next spring we’ll install all the glass.
In addition to these two structures, work continues on finishing the dye studio in the basement of the Grange, and upstairs some windows and doors have been installed in the beautiful, restored building. Our fiber arts program, including natural dye-making workshops, will launch and use the studio beginning next spring. As part of our growing fiber program, the Farm has now become headquarters for the new Northern New England affiliate of Fibershed, a non-profit organization that helps develop natural fiber and dye communities.
This fall we hosted the Draft Animal Power Network (DAPNet) for the organization’s two-day annual meeting. This hugely successful event brought more than 100 people from several states to the Farm as well as several teams of horses and oxen. Farm manager Ray Ramsey, who is a member of the DAPNet board of directors, says plans are already being made to host the DAPNet annual meeting again next year.
In the meantime, be sure to watch our new video, “Fall at the Farm.” Go to the Sanborn Mills Farm website, scroll down the home page halfway, to find the video. Or watch it here on Vimeo.
Timber framing on the new Merrill utility barn.
Reopening the Farm to Tours, Workshops, and Visits
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We are receiving an increasing number of requests from people who want to visit the Farm, take a tour, or sign up for a workshop. This is, of course, gratifying: the growing public interest in the Farm and what we do here indicates an increasing desire to reconnect with traditional farming and craft. Our efforts here focus on preserving, honoring, and sharing traditions and knowledge that encourage sustainability, the development of hands-on skills, and growth of community-building.
At the same time, the Farm continues to be an active construction site and, due to the ongoing pandemic, the Farm’s COVID-19 protocols remain in place. As we have stated from the start of the pandemic, the safety and health of our staff and our guests is our first priority.
In 2022 we will host a full schedule of workshops and events at Sanborn Mills Farm, including a number of new workshops devoted to natural dye-making to be held in our new dye studio downstairs in the reconstructed Grange building. For-the-public events we plan to host next year include an Open Farm Day in the summer, with music, food, and presentations on the operation of our water-powered mills and farming with draft animals. Watch the website for details to come.
Please note that for the time being, and pursuant to recommendations of federal, state, and local health officials and institutions, the following COVID-19 policy is in place for any visitor to the Farm:
1. Students attending SMF workshops and guests at Sanborn Mills Farm will need to show proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test dated no more than two days before arriving at the Farm.
2. Any guest who is not vaccinated must wear a mask when inside any building or outside when social distancing is not possible.
3. Beginning Feb. 1, 2022, all guests of Sanborn Mills Farm, faculty, and staff must be vaccinated. All attendees of workshops following that date will need to show proof of vaccination to participate. If you are not vaccinated but have signed up for a workshop that takes place after Feb. 1, 2022, your registration fee will be refunded.
Come and Watch the Up-and-Down Saw in Action, Nov. 12
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On Friday, Nov. 12, from 10 a.m. to noon, Brian Clough, sawyer extraordinaire at Sanborn Mills Farm, will host a demonstration of our newly completed water-powered up-and-down saw in the sawmill at the Farm.
Up-and-down saws, which date back to the 18th century, were the first mechanical saws in widespread commercial use. While slow, they revolutionized lumber milling — no longer did timbers require arduous, labor-intensive hand-sawing. Up -and-down saws were especially important in the sawmills of the early United States, which needed lumber to build growing cities and towns and lumber exports to support the young American economy.
The original sawmill at the Farm, built in 1830, had an up-and-down saw; the mill was an important source of sawn lumber in central New Hampshire. Later, in the 1870s, a much faster water-powered circular saw was installed in the mill, and the old up-and-down saw was removed. Today, we believe the sawmill at Sanborn Mills Farm is the only water-powered mill in the U.S. with both an operating circular saw and an up-and-down saw.
Come and see for yourself! Brian will not only demonstrate the saw on logs, he’ll answer questions about the 10-year labor of love that brought this remarkable saw from the scrap heap to full operation.
To see a brief video of the saw in action, go to this page on the Sanborn Mills Farm website.
Don’t Miss “Fall at the Farm”
Be sure to click on the Sanborn Mills Farm website to watch our new video, “Fall at the Farm.” And if you have your computer’s or phone’s sound muted, you’ll miss the sounds of the Farm and a lovely piano version of music by J.S. Bach. Scroll down the page halfway; the video is just below the “What We Do” and “Featured Courses” blocks.
Photo Credits:
Photosby Steve Bjerklie.