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Season’s Greetings from Sanborn Mills Farm
December 2020
The Best of the Past:
Thriving in the Present,
Shaping the Future
“When going back makes sense, you are going ahead.”
― Wendell Berry
It is tempting, almost overwhelmingly so, to think of this year, 2020, as a year like no other. In many ways it is, of course: each new day, in fact, brings new challenges and outcomes unique and unlike those of all the other millions upon millions of days that have passed since the beginning of time.
But instead of viewing the past as dusty, lifeless history, we choose to view it is a wild river of information, lessons, failures, achievements, discoveries, epiphanies, disasters. At Sanborn Mills Farm, we believe the best of the past can thrive in the present to help shape the future. Every day, we apply knowledge gained from traditional, time-honored techniques and craft to our tasks at hand. The Farm isn’t a museum of “old timey” tools, skills, and structures; it is a laboratory – including a research library, if you will – to figure out what has worked in the past and how that knowledge can be useful and not be forgotten in our increasingly hurried age. For when we forget what has worked before, we risk having to continually reinvent the wheel. Trial and error is not the way to achieve balance between people and the land we live on.
And so here we are at the end of a year that many of us are more than happy to see behind us. Yet even this kind of year has happened before, time and again across the centuries, and people and communities not only survived and endured those years, they learned to thrive. That is our task at Sanborn Mills Farm for 2021: “Going back,” in the sense Wendell Berry uses the phrase, to gather and reapply the best skills, tools, craft, and experience of history to go ahead – to not just weather this storm, but to harness its power, learn from it, and sail on.
We wish all of you a holiday season that, while it may be different and quieter than holidays before, can still be full of inspiration, connection and community. And good food and wine – don’t forget the food and wine! And maybe even whiskey made locally from grain raised organically, harvested with animal power, and ground on water-powered millstones – no petrochemicals involved! Now that’s a future we can look forward to.
Colin and Paula Cabot and the Sanborn Mills Farm Staff
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There’s Still Time to Give a Gift Certificate to a
Sanborn Mills Farm Workshop
If you’re still looking for a truly unique and special gift this year, consider a gift certificate for a workshop at Sanborn Mills Farm. There’s still time to arrange for a gift certificate before Christmas.
To see the full range of workshops at the Farm, click here for the 2020 list of workshops — an updated 2021 catalog will be available soon. Contact Molly Bolick, our Program Manager, for gift certificate details and costs at molly@sanbornmills.org.
Photo Credits:
Top photo by Molly Bolick.
Bottom photo by Steve Bjerklie.