Living Museum Explores, Celebrates
Contemporary Rural American Life
Behold! New Lebanon, the living museum of contemporary rural American life, has announced its Rural Guide schedule for Saturday, August 22, the eighth week of its inaugural summer programming. The new museum without walls celebrates the rich historical and cultural heritage of New Lebanon.
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Unlike any other museum in the country, BEHOLD! New Lebanon offers a variety of tours by locals – Rural Guides, not costumed docents. These guides welcome visitors to their places of work, avocation, or enjoyment, introducing museum goers to their own roles in today’s rural America.
The August 22 programs include:
10 to 11:30 am: Nature Walk at Hand Hollow, with Bonner McAllester
Visitors join fun loving naturalist Bonner McAllester for a leisurely walk in Hand Hollow, the Columbia Land Conservancy’s magnificent property. Amble through meadows and forests, along the streams and ponds with beaver dams in this home to hundreds of birds including a heron nesting. Outdoors. Comfortable shoes for walking, hat, sunscreen, and bug spray are advised.
10:30 am to noon: Homestead Living: Making Farmer’s Cheese: Paul Rix And Anna Duhon
Paul Rix and Anna Duhon invite you to visit their homestead and join them as they make their weekly batch of farmer’s cheese from their goat’s milk. Come meet the goats, explore life on a homestead and experience making a simple cheese that can be done easily at home. All ages welcome. Indoors and Outdoors.
2 to 3 pm: A Jam for All Seasons: Deborah Gordon
What do you do when all your fruit ripens at one time? If you’re Deborah Gordon, you make jam, and that’s what she advises. In this workshop chef extraordinaire Deborah Gordon will show you how to turn seasonal produce into a delicious treat to enjoy for months after harvesting. Deborah always brings a sense of adventure to her jams, and with combinations like red onion and orange, and strawberry and rosemary, this workshop will stretch the culinary imagination. Indoors.
4:30 to 5:30 pm: Making Jazz: Monte Wasch
Can your favorite tune become a jazz song? Learn how a familiar tune can be transformed into jazz with Juilliard graduate Monte Wasch at his welcoming home music studio. In the process, learn what distinguishes jazz from other musical forms. Indoors.
All photos courtesy of
Ed Bride.
With 60 different tour programs over the course of the summer, Rural Guides greet visitors at their farms, studios and workspaces, where they practice cooking, farming, cattle raising, automobile racing and mechanics, wood-working, foraging and much more. These presenters are not costumed actors or docents recalling old-world skills; they are the real townspeople of today, whose lives and work challenge the quaint myths about country life.
Tour shuttle buses depart from the new Behold! Station and General Store, which serves as a gateway and launch spot for museum tours and other activities, in a picturesque Victorian house located at 438 State Rte. 20. The shuttle generally boards a half-hour before the tour starts, check web site or box office for further information.
Advance ticket purchase is recommended for all programs, which are generally priced at $15 per tour. Family discounts are available; ages 12 and under are admitted free. More information, including full descriptions of all programs and the online box office can be found at www.beholdnewlebanon.org, 518-720-7265, or by emailing info@beholdnewlebanon.org.[/private]