The Farmhand: News from Sanborn Mills Farm

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At Sanborn Mills Farm, preserving the past and planning for the future go hand in hand.

The Farmhand

News from Sanborn Mills Farm

August
2019

www.sanbornmills .org

Space Still Available In These Workshops

Program Manager Molly Bolick reminds friends of Sanborn Mills Farm that there’s space available in several upcoming late Summer and Fall workshops, including:

Click on any of the workshop titles for more information and to register.

A Good Time Was Had By All…

The draft animals at Sanborn Mills Farm are always a big draw on Open House Day, especially for children. These two oxen, “Rough” and “Tough,” were raised from calves by Emma Ramsey, farm manager Ray Ramsey’s daughter.

The weather may have been a bit on the warm side, but the people who came to Sanborn Mills Farm’s Open House Day on July 28 told staff they had a wonderful time touring the grounds and watching demonstrations of the water-dr
iven Sawmill and Grist Mill. This year
Alex Ray, a member of the Sanborn Mills Farm board of directors, served food from the Common Man’s food truck
, and there was music, too, inside the Sanborn Barn, performed by one of the Farm’s carpenters, Jeremy Morse, and his singing partner Britta Lemontagne. Farm manager Ray Ramsey demonstrated plowing with a team of oxen, and garden manager Michelle Smith answered questions about the display gardens and the
abundant day lilies in bloom. In the Sawmill, Colin Cabot explained
the difference between the up-and-down mechanism and the circular saw mechanism
— “Lots of good questions from people!” he said later.

Many of the day’s guests who have come to our Open Houses in the past commented on the many improvements they saw at the Farm, from the new rock work behind the Main House to the nearly completed Fifield Hall to the ever-expanding gardens and cultivated fields. “It’s really amazing what’s happening here,” one guest said. “It’s one of the most beautiful farms in the state.”

Youngsters fascinated by draft oxen — and keeping a safe distance!

Farming Flax for Linen

Farm Manager Ray Ramsey pulls flax during the harvest.

Back in May, Farm Manager Ray Ramsey planted a 60-foot-by-60-foot field in flax (
Linum usitatissimum
) — the first step in creating a plant-to-linen cycle at Sanborn Mills Farm. In late July the flax was harvested — traditionally, flax is harvested by pulling rather than cutting, and gathered into bundles.

The full cycle to take the plants from flax to fabric involves several steps. Following harvest
, the flax is dried, de-seeded (“rippled”), stored, and then subject to a process called retting, which frees
flax fibers from the inner core and the outer epidermis of the flax stalks by means of dissolving the pectins that hold the plant together. Retting requires bacteria and water, either in a tub or a pond or, sometimes, dew-wet grass works — the bacteria in retting essentially rot the flax stalk, and it takes a while, often weeks. After retting, the flax is dried again in loose bundles, then the woody inner stalk is broken into pieces called shives and removed with a tool called a scotching knife. Hackling prepares the flax for spinning; the flax is pulled through various sized hackles to remove the straw and split the fibers. Well-hackled flax has a gloss and suppleness that make it ideal for spinning. Once the flax goes on to the spinning wheel, the process is much the same as spinning wool into yarn. Spun flax thread is then woven into linen.

It’s a little difficult to imagine a field of blue flowers eventually becoming linen, and one must admire the people who, millennia ago, figured out how to turn flax into fabric. But at Sanborn Mills Farm, the process lives again.

Blooming flax is topped with beautiful sky-blue blossoms.

Shady Oasis: The New Sawmill Garden

Tucked in a shady glade below Sanborn Mills Farm’s sawmill, the new Sawmill Garden is a place of quiet, cool tranquility. This woodland garden is a setting for sun-avoiding plants to thrive in, and at the same time it provides garden staff with a nice place to work on a hot day.

The newly planted Sawmill Garden occupies a spot just below the Sawmill where the mill’s and the pond’s spillways converge.

The plantings are mostly native perennials, according to Michelle Smith, Garden Manager. They include different ferns, including Maiden Hair (
Adiantum pedatum
), Royal (
Osmunda regalis
), Thick-Stemmed Wood Fern (
Dryopteris crassirhizoma
), and Autumn Fern (
Dryopteris erythrosoea
); two kinds of Asters, Blue Wood (
Aster cordifolius
) and Big Leaf (
Aster macrophyllus
); Appalachian Sedge Grass (
Carex appalachica
); Creeping Phlox (
Phlox stolonifera
); False Solomon’s Seal (
Maianthemum racemosum
); and several outstanding flowers of the forest, including Foamflower (
Tiarella cordifolia
), Baneberry (
Actea
), Columbine (
Aquilegia
), Cardinal Flower (Lobelia c
ardinalis
), Wintergreen (
Gaultheria procumbens
), Twinleaf (
Jeffersonia diphylla
), Painted Trillium (
Trillium undulatum
), and Jack-in-the-Pulpit (
Arisaema triphyllum
). The garden will also eventually include trees and shrubs, including Eastern Hemlock (
Tsuga canadensis
), Korean Maple (
Acer pseudosieboldianum
), and Pagoda Dogwood (
Cornus alternifolia
).

The garden was planted in patches, or what Michelle calls “drifts,” to create a nice visual impact. Two pumps submerged in the Sawmill’s spillway pump water up to the new garden. Michelle points out that the new plants require regular watering for at least a year to establish root systems robust enough to make it through winter. “Woodland gardens are just another way to garden, but with plants that like shady or wet conditions,” she says.

Appalachian Sedge Grass planted in a drift in the Sawmill Garden.

Photo Credits

Photos of Flax by Molly Bolick.

All other photos by Steve Bjerklie.

Sanborn Mills Inc. | 603-435-7314 |
info@sanbornmills.org |
www.sanbornmills.org

A traditional New Hampshire farm and nonprofit organization dedicated to sustainability, creativity, and preserving folklife skills and agricultural knowledge so that the best of the past can help shape our future.

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