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News from Garfield Farm |
CAMPTON HILLS- Garfield Farm Museum is currently
taking reservations from school groups for its annual Student Harvest
Days event on Friday, October 1st from 9 am-2 pm. During this event,
children will have the opportunity to connect with their rural heritage
through period demonstrations of common farm activities, such as candle
dipping, flailing wheat, shelling and shocking corn, and making apple
cider. Harvest Days provides children and adults an opportunity to
learn about the realities of our rural heritage. The historic
demonstrations remind us of the incredible amount of effort it took to
survive in a non-mechanized world. As wheat is run through the fanning
mill, children can see firsthand how the grain that made the mid-west
so important, was processed in the 19th century. Fall was the time to
harvest the bounty of the orchard, and apples were a versatile and
important crop. The flash of red and clatter of gears, the sweet
fragrance that arises as the apples are crushed, and the golden brown
cider flowing into the bucket captures the attention of young and old
alike at the cider pressing demonstration.
The demonstrations of 1840s household and farm
skills at Harvest Days stimulate young minds to be creative in problem
solving. Their imaginations are even catered to by the words and tall
tales of Reid Miller, Teller of Tall Tales, whose traditional yarns and
songs fit the historic setting of Garfield Farm.
Tours of the 1846 brick inn will be ongoing. These
tours often spark conversations between grandparent and child as
grandparents recall their childhood visits to relatives‚ farms.
Tours of the museum‚s prairie reconnect visitors to nature and
its resilience, as the last prairie flowers bloom and go to seed.
Visitors will have a chance to help screen soil for
artifacts as part of the 5 Year Archaeological Investigation sponsored
by Campton Historic Agricultural Lands. Test pits will be dug in
an effort to find the original well and other features that were on the
farm when the Garfield family moved here from Vermont in 1841.
Harvest Days for the general public will take place
from 11:30 am-4 pm on Sunday, October 3rd. The Schools are invited to
reserve space for their classes on Friday October 1st. The public is
invited to attend on October 3rd when donations are $6 for adults and
$3 for children under twelve. Organized youth groups are asked for a
donation of $4 per person.
The 370-acre Garfield Farm Museum is the only
historically intact former 1840s farmstead and teamster inn being
restored by donors and volunteers from 2800 households in 37 states as
an 1840s working farm museum. Garfield Farm Museum is located 5 miles
west of Geneva, IL off ILL Rt.38 on Garfield Road. For information,
call (630) 584-8485 or email info@garfieldfarm.org.