‘Sheep-to-Shawl'
festival in Sleepy Hollow
Sheep Ready for Shearing, Plus Newborn Lambs,
Ring in Spring at Philipsburg Manor April 26-27
SLEEPY
HOLLOW, NY (April 4, 2008) - Sheep ready to lose their winter coats will be
shorn by hand in the style of the 18th century at Philipsburg
Manor's Sheep-to-Shawl festival, taking place Saturday and Sunday, April 26-27,
from 10 a.m.-5 p.m.
Visitors can see the entire process
of making woolen cloth and participate in many stages of the process once the
sheep are sheared: picking and carding the wool, spinning and dyeing the yarn,
and weaving it into cloth. Interpreters, wearing costume of the 18th
century, also demonstrate the labor-intensive process of making linen from the
flax plant.
While strolling through the site, an
Historic Hudson Valley living history museum which includes a working
water-powered gristmill and a new world Dutch barn, visitors can watch as Mary-Anne
Fallon showcases her Scottish border collies and their instinctive and
impressive ability to herd sheep and chase geese.
As they explore this 18th-century
working farm, visitors will also see nearly a dozen newborn baby lambs born
this spring on site, frolicking about the grounds. Other new additions to the
farm this year include Maebell the milk cow and her calf, Laddie. The site's three-year-old
working oxen, Josh and Jake, will also be part of the day's events.
"This is an ideal time to visit Philipsburg Manor. This
event really gives visitors the full flavor of what we do here," said Thom
Thacker, site director of Philipsburg Manor. Tours and programs at this living history museum and
working farm reflect the daily lives of the 23 enslaved individuals
known to have lived and labored there. Philipsburg Manor is the country's only
fully staffed living history museum to focus on the history of northern
slavery.
Philipsburg Manor's farmers will be
shearing the sheep in the barnyard by hand while costumed interpreters
continuously demonstrate wool dyeing, spinning, and weaving, and lead special
hands-on activities for children. Visitors can enjoy picnic food and
refreshments.
Storyteller Jonathan Kruk, who gives
more than 300 performances and workshops on Hudson Valley lore each year, will be on hand to share his tales.
Tours of the site's Manor House
augment Sheep-to-Shawl. The house reopened in 2007 after a year's worth of
renovations - the first in more than 40 years. Designed to make the circa 1680
building even more authentic to its time, the $500,000 renovations not only
included routine maintenance - replacing systems that have a life span such as
the roof and shutters - but changes that reflect new scholarship and new
discoveries about how residents of the Manor lived and worked there.
Renovations were paid for in part by grants from the New York State Office of
Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation; the New York State Council of the
Arts; Tourism Cares; and Reckson Associates.
Sheep-to-Shawl is held rain or
shine. Admission is $12 for adults, $10 for seniors, $6 for children ages 5-17.
Members of Historic Hudson Valley and children under 5 attend for free. Philipsburg
Manor is at 381 North Broadway (Route 9) in Sleepy Hollow, N.Y., two miles
north of the Tappan
Zee Bridge. Information: 914-631-3992, www.hudsonvalley.org.
Historic Hudson Valley
is a network of six historic sites in Sleepy Hollow Country and the Great
Estates region; Washington Irving's Sunnyside; Kykuit, the Rockefeller estate,
a historic site of the National Trust; Philipsburg Manor; the Union Church of
Pocantico Hills; Van Cortlandt Manor; and Montgomery Place Historic Estate.
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