| Weekday Programs | |
Program Descriptions For more information or to register a group - contact Susan DeVore at 609-737-3299 or email. |
ICE HARVEST: Station Activities
Ice Harvesting: Work with farmers on the frozen pond, where volunteers from your group will help to score, cut and float ice. Everyone will help when it is time to pull the ice blocks up a wooden track to the icehouse. Blocks are lowered into the icehouse via a chute, and then packed in layers of sawdust. (If there is no ice on the pond, your group will work with commercial ice just as farmers did in 1900 if winters were mild.) Ice Cream Making: Find out why neighbors once called Howell Farm “The Ice Farm”. Volunteers from your group will use ice tongs to carry ice to the circa 1900 farmhouse kitchen where they will meet the predecessor of the modern refrigerator--the icebox. You will learn how to tend to the box by emptying the drip pan and replacing the ice. Everyone will use a hand-cranked “ice cracker” to chip ice. Then, using this “home grown” ice and other products, you will make a batch of hand-cranked ice cream. Tasting is encouraged! Winter Farmhouse Activities: Gather in the farmhouse parlor among colorful quilts, and learn what makes those quilts so warm as everyone participates in a quilting bee. Learn the origin of the quilt pattern names derived from farm life, such as sawtooth and churndash, as you hear the story of quilting. Everyone will reach into the farm scrapbag to choose their own fabric and then sew and autograph it before it is sewn into a “friendship” square for the teacher. While making this square, volunteers from your group will use a flatiron to press the seams and try their skill on a treadle sewing machine. Winter Animal Care: Special care and equipment is needed for the horses that are used in ice cutting operations. You will learn about horses’ “winterwear” - ice shoes, safety ropes, and wooden traces. You will also learn how barns, bedding and special feeds are used to keep horses and other animals warm. |
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