Travel Back in Time at Garfield Farm Museum's Harvest Days
Oct. 6
CAMPTON HILLS—On Sunday, October 6th, from 11:30 am-4 pm, visitors can step
back in time and discover life before modern technology at Garfield Farm
Museum’s 32nd annual Harvest Days.
Harvest Days provides children and adults alike with
the opportunity to learn about the realities of our rural heritage. The
historic demonstrations remind us of the incredible amount of effort it took
to survive in a non-mechanized world. Children can see firsthand how the
grain that made the mid-west so important was processed in the 19th century.
Fall was the time to harvest the bounty of the orchard, and apples were a
versatile and important crop. The flash of red and clatter of gears, the
sweet fragrance that arises as the apples are crushed, and the golden brown
cider flowing into the bucket capture the attention of young and old alike
at the cider pressing demonstration.
The demonstrations of 1840s household and farm
skills at Harvest Days stimulate the minds of the young and the old. Their
imaginations are catered to by the words and tall tales of Reid Miller,
Teller of Tall Tales, whose traditional yarns and songs fit the historic
setting of Garfield Farm.
Tours of the 1846 brick inn will be ongoing. Tavern
tours often spark conversations between grandparent and child as
grandparents recall their childhood visits to family farms. Children will
delight in seeing the museum’s farm animals. These include mostly rare
heritage breeds of chickens, turkeys, sheep, hogs, and oxen. Tours of the
museum’s prairie reconnect visitors to nature and its resilience, as the
last prairie flowers bloom and go to seed.
A bake sale will be held and refreshments offered in
the museum‚s visitor‚s center, the Atwell Burr House. Donations for Harvest
Days are $6 for adults and $3 for children under twelve and under.
Garfield Farm Museum is the only historically intact
former 1840s Illinois prairie farmstead and teamster inn being restored by
donors and volunteers as an 1840s working farm museum. Garfield Farm Museum
is located 5 miles west of Geneva, IL off ILL Rt.38 on Garfield Road. For
information, call (630) 584-8485 or email info@garfieldfarm.org. For more information about Garfield Farm send an e-mail message to: info@garfieldfarm.org
or call 630/584-8485.
