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News and Updates from Sanborn Mills Farm
— April 1, 2022 —
Upcoming Workshops: April, May, early June
Here are the workshops that will open the season at Sanborn Mills Farm, beginning in April. Click on the workshop title to learn more and to register.
Draft Animal: Oxen Basics: April 29-May 1
Natural Dye Basics: Natural Indigo Vats with Extract: May 5-7
Natural Dye Basics: Mordant Dyes on Cloth: May 12-14
Blacksmithing Basics: May 20-22
Beginning Spinning on a Spinning Wheel – Spring Session: May 21
Stenciling Basics – Stenciling Placemats: May 21
Draft Animal: Working Oxen on the Farm and Garden: May 21-22
Rug Hooking: May 21-22
Blacksmithing Basics: May 27-29
Indigo Shibori Dyeing from Itajime, Arashi, Nui, Kumo, and Beyond: May 30-June 3
Sew Something Special – A Week with Great Fabric, a Machine, and a Community: June 6 – 10
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Meet Helen Westergren, Our New Head Gardener
Gardeners know where to look. Back in mid-March, when the Sanborn Mills Farm landscape was still covered in a soup of mud with dollops of old snow, Helen Westergren, the Farm’s new head gardener, know just where to find a bloom: down below the sawmill in the Stream Garden. “Witch hazel,” she says, bending a branch to investigate the tiny blossoms. “It’s one of the first things to come out in our climate.”
Helen comes to the Farm, where she will be responsible for the Ornamental and Stream gardens and will assist with the Dye and Kitchen gardens, from a post at Chanticleer Gardens in Pennsylvania. Prior to that position, she worked at Stonecrop Gardens, the Cabot family’s estate in upstate New York, where she met Colin and Paula Cabot. She was strongly recommended for the position at Sanborn Mills Farm by master gardener Bill Noble, who worked with Helen at Stonecrop. A native of Arlington, Va., Helen also worked as a floral designer in New York City (the Museum of Modern Art was a client) and did a work-study program at the John C. Campbell Folk School in North Carolina.
She has a special affinity for alpine plants and especially looks forward to working with Colin on the Alpine portion of the Ornamental Garden adjacent to the Main House at the Farm. “These plants live in incredibly harsh conditions in the wild, yet they’re delicate and beautiful,” she says. “There’s a message for us in that, I think.”
Be sure to say hello to Helen next time you’re at the Farm — and let her find some new blooms for you.
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Spring Lambs!
In March, our Border Leicester ewes “dropped” new lambs, six in the early going and a couple more later. Is there anything cuter than a days-old lamb? C’mon now, really?
When these guys are adults, they’ll contribute their excellent wool to the fiber program at Sanborn Mills Farm.
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Our First Wool Is Back from the Mill
This is our first processed wool order from Junction Fiber Mill in White River Junction, Vt. Our Border Leicester wool makes beautiful white yarn (pictured) and roving (not pictured) that will be used in various fiber workshops this season.
www.sanbornmills.org
Photo Credits
Yarn photo by Lea Rossignol
All other Photos by Steve Bjerklie.
Sanborn Mills Inc. | (603) 435-7314 | info@sanbornmills.org | www.sanbornmills.org
Hands-on education in traditional craft and farming: Inspiring the future with tools from the past.