by Thaddeus Flint
On a damp morning last Thursday in the packed dining room of the Abode, the Sufi headquarters up behind Darrow School in New Lebanon, Josh Wood was starting a fire with two sticks and some tinder set on top of a kitchen chair. With a lot of work, a bit of smoke appeared and then there were sparks and then a wisp of fire. This was Behold! New Lebanon.
[private]Behold! began pretty much the same way as that fire, and this weekend New Lebanon’s living museum of rural American life, the creation of Ruth Abram who founded the Lower East Side Tenement Museum in Manhattan, comes to life.
“We have in New Lebanon so many resources in the people here of every kind, it’s amazing!” said Abram as she introduced some of the “country guides” that will be demonstrating their skills, crafts, harvests, art and food over four weekends starting August 29 and ending November 2.
After the fire, hop farmer, Alex Olchowski, passed around some of his harvest. “They have a really great smell to them,” he said
“That’s because they smell like beer,” said someone. If you have tried some of the beers from either the Beer Diviner in Stephentown or the Chatham Brewery, that smell might be familiar. They come from Spring Hill Hops, the only large scale hops farm in Columbia County.
If you want to learn more about hops, Olchowski will be guiding his part of the Museum, called “Hops Makes The Beer” at Spring Hill Hops this Sunday at 1 pm.
After the hops, Phoebe Young made everyone hungry talking about the sausages she makes out of Cynthia Creech’s Randall cows. Young and Creech will be guiding the sausage making – and eating – process, called “Stuffed” on September 13 at 6 pm, but visitors can learn about the Randall cattle and see unstuffed ones, this coming Monday, 10 am, at “Cow Tails.”
“We hope they’ll think about Cynthia’s famous maxim, ‘Cows know more about how to be cows than we do,’” said Abram.
Outside, Sarah Steadman and Evan Thaler-Null were hitching a cart to the Belgian draft horses they use to cultivate the 7 acre CSA farm they manage at the Abode.
“Rural life is alive and well here in New Lebanon,” said Abram “It is energized by young people attracted to its challenges.”
Thaler-Null and Steadman will be demonstrating plowing with the horses, named Belle and Lou, at “Hitching the Horse to the Plow” at the Abode on Saturday at 10 am, and probably nowhere will you find someone as energized as Steadman describing such difficult work. Truly something to behold.
The list goes on and on. From Larry Benson’s handcrafted toys to Bud Godfroy’s auto shop, there is something for everyone.
“We hope that people from surrounding cities and suburbs will visit Behold! New Lebanon and enjoy their interactions with our marvelous country guides and our magnificent landscapes which have for centuries captured visitors’ imagination,” said Abram.
The complete schedules, tickets and more information can be found online at http://beholdnewlebanon.org or at the visitors’ center set up at the Shed Man, which opens this Friday, on Route 22 just off Route 20. Residents of New Lebanon, Canaan and East Chatham can get half price tickets at the Shed Man.
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