Senator Justin Morrill

Free event, 1-3PM

Assist our Master Gardeners with the annual autumn “putting the garden to bed” day at the Justin Morrill State Historic Site in Strafford, Vermont. Tasks include cutting back perennials and pulling annuals, raking, mulching, weeding, bringing old plants to the compost area—generally cleaning up the kitchen garden and ornamental garden beds and preparing them for the winter and the next growing season. (Master Gardeners can earn outreach hours with us.)

All Welcome. No experience needed.

For more information, contact director@morrillhomestead.org

$5 adults, children under 12 FREE - please pay when you arrive

1-4PM

AWARD WINNER! “Top Ten Fall Events” —Vermont Chamber of Commerce

Bring the whole family to a harvest festival at the Homestead. Listen to live toe-tapping fiddle and accordion music. Meet farm animals—the kind that Justin Morrill would have had on his small 19th-century farm. Make your own cider in an antique press, taste heirloom apples, fine artisan cheeses, Vermont ice cream, and homemade apple pie. Play period games, and hike the lookout trail. Also includes wagon rides, gardens, basket-making demo, exhibits, an icehouse, and a historic Gothic Revival home.

For more information, contact director@morrillhomestead.org 

$5, 10AM-12PM

Come join local naturalist Micki Colbeck for a fairly easy walk around the Homestead. We’ll look at mosses, ferns, lichens, and flowers that have all been hiding in plain sight. Bring a magnifying loop if you have one, but it’s not necessary. Kids are welcome, but please leave dogs behind.

To register, contact director@morrillhomestead.org 

Free Event

10AM

Archeologists from UVM’s Consulting Archaeology Program will share what they found and learned from their dig on the grounds of the Homestead.  This excavation yielded some surprising results!

To pre-register, contact director@morrillhomestead.org 

$55 All materials included

9AM-5PM

Come learn the art of basketry with Dona Nazarenko of Country Spirit Baskets. The Traditional Bread and Biscuit  Basket has many uses for storage and organizing or can be a valuable catch-all for every table. Option of adding colors if you would like.

To register, contact director@morrillhomestead.org

$45, all materials included

9AM-12PM

Come make block prints inspired by the gardens and architecture of the Morrill Homestead. We’ll start off with a brief tour of the grounds, and then we’ll meet in the education center to work on making art from what we discover. In this class you will learn basic design, carving, and printing techniques in a relaxed, supportive, and playful atmosphere.  You will come away with a completed print, suitable for framing, embellishing and/or mailing as a card.

To register, contact director@morrillhomestead.org

$45, For Adults and Teens

12PM-4PM

In the workshop, “Making Morrill’s Pink” we will take inspiration from the iconic pink shades of the Morrill Homestead, using natural dyes and watercolor paints. With natural materials like madder, loquat leaves, amaranth, cutch, and sumac, we will dye fabrics various shades of pink together. While the dye baths do their magic, we will turn to our water color paper and continue to study the color pink as well as its complement and analogous colors.

Pre-mordanted cotton bandanas will be provided for the dye portion of the class, but students are welcome to bring small natural fiber items or a skein of undyed yarn to experiment with. A materials list will be provided for the watercolor portion.

Katie is a natural dyer who works with plants foraged from the hills of Northern California and around the Upper Valley, where she grew up. She is passionate about using natural dyes to extend the life of clothes & fabrics that might otherwise be retired or thrown away. Jennifer teaches painting with watercolors at the Morrill Homestead and AVA gallery.

To register, contact director@morrillhomestead.org 

Ages 8-14

Mon-Fri, August 5-9, 9AM-12PM

$150 per child (financial assistance available)

Learning photography is a great way for young people to explore outdoors and appreciate nature.  World Story Exchange teacher Scott McClure Miller has taught photography to children in 11 countries for the past decade.  Join Scott this summer on the lovely grounds of the Morrill Homestead.  Each day will be a fun mixture of practicing photography skills and learning to apply artistic principals through the camera, all while exploring the Homestead and the Strafford village. The week will culminate with a photo exhibit of campers’ work in the Strafford Post Office.  Cameras kits are provided.

To register, contact director@morrillhomestead.org 

Free Event, 4PM

Vermont’s remarkable Civil War battlefield record is well documented, but little is known of how Vermont women sustained the home front. With nearly 35,000 of the state’s able-bodied men at war, the monumental tasks of keeping more than 30,000 farms in operation became very much a female enterprise.  And women took the place of men in factories and worked after hours making items needed by the soldiers. A Vermont woman edited anti-slavery newspapers, and others spoke against slavery. Also, Vermont women served as nurses in the state’s military hospitals and in the war zone, and taught newly-freed slaves in the South.  And at least one Vermont woman appears to have secretly enlisted and fought in a Vermont regiment.

This story is told in their words, from letters and diaries that describe life during the Civil War in the Green Mountain State. A seventh-generation Vermonter, Howard Coffin is the author of four books on the Civil War.

For more information, contact director@morrillhomestead.org 

$5, 10AM-12PM

Please join David Paganelli, Orange County Forester, for an informal tree walk around the grounds of the Homestead.  We will walk the grounds and discuss original plantings that remain and changes that have taken place since Justin Morrill’s time, both intentional and unplanned.   All are welcome.    

For more information, contact director@morrillhomestead.org