|
Summer Season
begins MAY 8!
- Property Tours begin, Children's Farmyard, Farm Cart open MAY 8
- Welcome Center & Farm Store summer hours begin MAY 8:
9:00 am - 5:30 pm
- Inn opens MAY 7 for dinner and accommodations. Call 802-985-8498 or reservations@shelburnefarms.org
- Is your membership current? Check with Lenore Budd: 802-985-0318, lbudd@shelburnefarms.org
- Walking Trails open year-round. Please leave your dogs at home beginning MAY 1.
Upcoming Programs:
All Listings. Register at 802-985-8686.
- Leaping Lambs & Shear Delights Saturday, APRIL 17
- Digging Soil with Dr. Wiggles Wednesday, APRIL 21
- Sheep Shearing Clinic, Sat., APRIL 24 Register at 802-524-6501
- Words Take Wing, Retreat for Poets & Writers,
Fri.-Sun., APRIL 23-25
- Calf Open House, Sunday, MAY 2
- Mother's Day Tours of The Inn at Shelburne Farms Sunday, MAY 9
- Searching for Critters... Life under a Log, Saturday, MAY 15
- Restoring the Historic Breeding Barn, Thursday, MAY 20
- Bedrock to Birds RESIDENTIAL PROGRAM, Fri-Sun, MAY 28–30
|
|
Get your photo in our 2012 Wall Calendar!
If you take a great photo on the property this year, share it with us, and we may select it to be featured in our 2012 Shelburne Farms Wall Calendar. Details on our web site.
Need some inspiration? Check out this ever-growing collection of Shelburne Farms photos on FlickR. |
|
|
| They're busy at the Dairy!
We've had 11 heifer calves born so far this spring, with 62 cows still expecting. We're currently milking 82 cows, a number that will go up through June as more cows calve. Dairy Manager Sam Dixon is looking towards an early May "release" of the herd onto some fresh spring pasture. See you at Calf Open House on May 2!
In the Market Garden
Josh and his team just transplanted spinach, beets and scallions from the greenhouse into the hoop house, "potted off" tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants (started mid-March) into 4" pots, and are getting the peas in. Sound busy? They're also starting to host school field trips down at the Market Garden.
Of Sheep & Lambs
This lambing season our ewes had 105 lambs (an average of just over 2 lambs per ewe). Here's a funny video of the lambs racing in the farmyard, taken by apprentice Evan Snow. Ross Mohn, one of our Facebook fans, also shared this fiddle tune: "horny ewe"(!).
April is Grilled Cheese Sandwich Month!
Have we mentioned that our cheddar makes a GREAT grilled cheese sandwich? You can't really improve on the simple combination of melted cheese on bread, but
if you want to spice it up, try these ideas from Eating Well Magazine or take a look at the Great Grilled Cheese cookbook by
Laura Werlin. And don't forget to order a grilled cheese sandwich at our Farm Cart during your next visit (starting May 8).
Ellen Fox will be at City Market in Burlington on Friday, APRIL 16, 11:00 am - 2:00 pm, sampling our 4-month cheddar (which City Market is now using on breakfast sandwiches) and our 2-year.
Bricks & Mortar
If you enjoy bricks and mortar, take a look at this recent article in Masonry Design on the ongoing restoration project of the Formal Gardens at the Inn.
 It's a cattle breeding wheel
Dave Egelson, Michael Cassidy, Lesley Graham, and one other person correctly identified it. (A lot more of you peeked at the original image on FlickR.)
 A Vermont Wedding Site Like No Other
On the shores of Lake Champlain in the historic Coach Barn at Shelburne Farms.
For information on booking a 2010 or 2011 wedding, email Andrea Van Hoven, or call her at 802-985-0405.
Join us on:
   |
|
|
 Rub, rub here, Rub, rub there
Whether you're tin or brass
That's how we keep you in repair
In the Merry Old Land of Oz!
--The Merry Old Land of Oz, The Wizard of Oz, 1939
Dear Friend of the Farm,
Like clockwork, the Inn comes alive in early spring. By April, the concept of "spring cleaning" takes on a whole new meaning. You might not realize as you enter the Main Hall of the Inn this season, that 55 heavy boards have just been removed from the first floor exterior windows and doors, or that 238 windows are now being washed.
Keeping the Inn "in repair" each season involves many people with many talents. Inside, hundreds of sheets shrouding furnishings are slipped off, while many works of art emerge from winter storage and are carefully dusted and re-hung. Nine pieces of furniture will be reupholstered with fabrics selected in Boston back in the fall of 2009. Jennifer Baker, a local Monkton conservator, will spend no less than one week at the Inn treating upwards of nearly 40 pieces of furniture while Gary Butler, longtime painter, will return for his 23rd season to keep the rooms looking fresh. Rugs (including some new gifts of period rugs) will be unrolled and furniture moved back into place. If you don't see the large oval portrait of Frederica Webb by Benjamin C. Porter in the Tea Room when you visit, it's because both the painting and its original frame are receiving conservation treatment from Sharon Morrison and Suki Fredericks.
Come visit us on Mother's Day for a full house tour to inspect our "spring cleaning," and good luck with your own! I have to go move some furniture.
Julie Eldridge Edwards, Curator of Collections
ABOVE: Julie carefully cleaning the model ship in the Play Room at the Inn
EMAIL a CONSERVATOR: Jennifer Baker, Sharon Morrison, Suki Fredericks |
An amazing time for Farm to School
- First Lady Michelle Obama stumps for better child nutrition on the cover of Newsweek.
- Jamie Oliver's "Food Revolution" challenges a West Virginia school cafeteria.
- Senators Patrick Leahy and Arlen Specter introduce their "Farm to School" bill as part of the reauthorization of the federal Childhood Nutrition Act.
 And last week, the USDA selected Burlington, Vermont as a model of how to use locally grown food in school cafeterias. Officials will visit Burlington before school is out to get answers to questions such as how schools develop relationships with farmers.
As founding partners of the Burlington School Food Project, and of VT FEED (together with Food Works at Two Rivers Center and the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont), we are proud to be in the thick of all this activity and pioneers of how to get healthy, locally grown produce to schoolchildren. Our latest contribution is the publication of VT FEED's Guide to Taste Testing Local Food in Schools, which will be available on our web site by May 1. It's on press, now!
Announcing our new book!
The History of Shelburne Farms
Here, at last, is the story of that remarkable evolution from an estate bought with great wealth to a place returned to service -- a locus for a transformative way of tending and attending to the land.
-- Julia Alvarez, writer in residence, Middlebury College
 We are excited to share with you "The History of Shelburne Farms: A Changing Landscape, An Evolving Vision" to be released May 16. Written by our former curator of collections Erica Donnis, and co-published with the Vermont Historical Society, the book chronicles the evolution of this remarkable place by bringing life to the ledgers, letters, photographs, and oral histories that reside in our Archives. Erica will be reading from the book and sharing some of the history at a public event at the inn on Wednesday, May 19. After May 14, you can purchase your copy online, at the Welcome Center, or in area bookstores.
Have you ever heard of "biochar"?
After I explained biochar to my daughter's school Green Club, I realized that the key element I'd brought to the classroom wasn't carbon, but HOPE.
-- Bob Wells, Redberry Farm, New England Biochar
 This April, a team from New England Biochar brought their kiln to the farm to make biochar from sawmill slabs. Biochar is a kind of charcoal (cooked at higher heat). But it's not for grilling hamburgers! Instead, it can enrich farm soils, filter nutrients out of water, and most importantly, combat climate change by storing atmospheric carbon. (The carbon in biochar will remain stable in soil for thousands of years).
This summer, a UVM Plant & Soil Science class will be testing biochar potential in the Market Garden and streams of Shelburne Farms. Explore the world of biochar in this video, in the WCAX story on the visit, or photos from the visit.
 About those solar panels...
Some of you expressed concern about the visual impact of our solar panels on the historic Farm Barn. We are strongly committed to renewable energy, but we also love our barns. The Preservation Trust of Vermont (PTV), which holds a facade easement on the Farm Barn, recognizes that the panel installation supports the barn's rehabilitation for its modern-day use, and is reversible, especially should a newer technology emerge. PTV actually is organizing a symposium on this very issue: retrofitting historic buildings to save energy (details to come). We think our panels are a great addition to the roof-scape, and the ongoing story of the barn. Come decide for yourself. (installation photos)
Making Cheese Part of the Community
A group of culinary students from the Community Kitchen program of the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf will be here next week to learn about how we produce our cheddar. The program prepares students with the skills needed to secure jobs in the food service industry. Chef Instructor, Jamie Eisenberg says, "Visiting Shelburne Farms will give students the chance to see food processed from resources in their own “backyard”. They'll take home the understanding that using foods that are locally produced will help keep our economy, community and landscape sustainable." Cheese and Catalog Manager Ellen Fox agrees,
"We're happy to welcome the group to discuss the connections among land, food, and communities. And we know Jamie through our wholesale cheese business and as a member of our local foods community, so it's nice to continue that connection, too."
 Jr. Iron Chef a Sizzling Success
Here are the results & recipes from the Jr. Iron Chef competition on March 27, where 57 teams of middle and high school students cooked up nutritious, farm-fresh dishes. Visit their photo gallery or meet some of the contenders, profiled by the Burlington Free Press.
Jr Iron Chef is hosted by the Burlington School Food Project and VT FEED. |
Shelburne Farms cultivates a conservation ethic by teaching and demonstrating the stewardship of natural and agricultural resources.
We are a nonprofit environmental education center, 1,400-acre working farm, and National Historic Landmark.