Josh Kilmer-Purcell's Blog, page 25

Harvest Festival 2016

 

It’s harvest time!   The world-famous Sharon Springs Harvest Festival is scheduled for September 17 & 18th. If you loved our previous Harvest Festivals, you’re going t0 really be excited about the new things we have in store this year.  Two big new developments:

1. A Main Stage will be set up under the Chalybeate Park Pavillion with amazing presentations, demos & events scheduled throughout the day.

2. Etsy is back! We’ve been big fans of Etsy’s for many years. They’ve helped thousands of craftspersons earn a living doing what they love.

3.  Special screenings of the critically acclaimed new documentary, Miss Sharon Jones! Directed by Academy Award winner Barbara Koppel.  (featured in film festivals around the world this year and in Rolling Stone, the New York Times, on NPR).  This documentary about soul singing superstar Sharon Jones, her personal battles, and the special roll Sharon Springs has played in her life (3:00 and 8:00pm on Saturday)

 

 

For the third year in a row, we are partnering with Etsy to create the “Etsy Makers Village” right here in Sharon Springs!

 

 

Here’s the schedule of events as it currently stands. Check back often to find new additions & any schedule changes. For the most up-to-the minute updates, messages from vendors and visitors, follow along on Facebook by clicking here

 

FRIDAY 9/16

Harvest Feast at the American Hotel  – A 4 course dinner with Schoharie County Beverage Trail  incorporating their spirits/beer/wine into the menu. Call 518.284.2105 for reservations.

 

SATURDAY 9/19

All Day – Beekman 1802 Farm Tours. Click here for tickets.

All Day – [Beekman 1802 Mercantile] Brent and Josh will be in the second floor showroom of the Mercantile all day signing copies of  books, magazines, and whatever else you put in front of them

All Day– ETSY Maker’s Village and festival vendors

All Day – (while supplies last)  The American Hotel will be serving fresh-from-the-Cape Lobstah Rolls and Clam Chowda on the lawn of the hotel

All Day — tinsmith demonstrations of making tin icicles on the steps of the Cobbler & Co shop

10AM – Over 150 Vendors will open their booths scattered throughout the village.

10AM – “Etsy’s Makers Village” opens. Etsy takes over one of the streets in town to highlight the wares of some of their very best regional craftspersons.

Noon – Become an Official Sharon Springs Honorary Citizen. [Chalybeate Park Pavilion] Show up to take the Oath of Honorary Citizenship, (and get spritzed by Mayor Doug,) to become an official, card-carrying, honorary Sharon Springs Citizen. (Super Secret ID Card included.)

1:00PM – Tractor Parade! [Main Street] Line up to celebrate our farmers as they parade their new and antique models down Main Street (from Sharon Springs School to Sunnycrest Orchards.)

3:00PM-  4:30pm Miss Sharon Jones!  screening [in the high school auditorium].  Seating is limited and is on a first-come first-served basis.  Screening is fee but donations are welcomed to support the renovation of the Klinkhart Hall Arts Center on Main Street

3PM – All about Honey  [Chalybeate Park Pavilion] Learn how to harvest honey, and about all its great benefits. Plus try samples!

 

SATURDAY EVENING EVENTS:

Harvest Feast at the American Hotel  – [American Hotel]  A 4 course dinner with Schoharie County Beverage Trail  incorporating their spirits/beer/wine into the menu. Call 518.284.2105 for reservations. Call 518.284.2105 for reservations.

8:00PM- 9:30pm Miss Sharon Jones!  screening [in the high school auditorium].  Seating is limited and is on a first-come first-served basis.  Screening is fee but donations are welcomed to support the renovation of the Klinkhart Hall Arts Center on Main Street

 

 

Local Dining

Thinking about your dinner plans? Check out our amazing local restaurants (be sure to call ahead for reservations):  204 Main Bar & Bistro, or Sharon Tavern.

 

SUNDAY 9/20

All Day – [Beekman 1802 Mercantile] Brent and Josh will be in the second floor showroom of the Mercantile all day signing copies of  books, magazines, and whatever else you put in front of them

All Day – Beekman 1802 Farm Tours. Click here for tickets. [Beekman Farm]

All Day– ETSY Maker’s Village and festival vendors [South Street]

All Day — tinsmith demonstrations of making tin icicles on the steps of the Cobbler & Co shop

Noon – Become an Official Sharon Springs Honorary Citizen.[Chalybeate Park Pavilion] Show up to take the Oath of Honorary Citizenship, (and get spritzed by Mayor Doug,) to become an official, card-carrying, honorary Sharon Springs Citizen. (Super Secret ID Card included.)

 

SUNDAY EVENING EVENTS

Harvest Feast at the American Hotel  – [American Hotel]  A 4 course dinner with Schoharie County Beverage Trail  incorporating their spirits/beer/wine into the menu. Call 518.284.2105 for reservations. Call 518.284.2105 for reservations.

Other area attractions to visit during the weekend: Cooperstown Farmers Museum, Fenimore Art Museum, Howe Caverns, Arkell Museum

 

ABOUT PARKING

All parking is free either at the Sharon Springs Central School (signs will be posted) on the corner of US 20 and State Route 10, or at Sunnycrest Orchards (7869 State Route 10, 1 mile north of Sharon Springs Center.)

There are free shuttles that run between the village and the school throughout the day.  Signs will be posted throughout the village with the locations of pick up and drop off points.  While you wait for the shuttle at the school you’ll be able to get a free Beekman tattoo!

If you have purchased tickets for the Beekman 1802 Farm Tour, please park at the School or Sunnycrest Orchards, take the shuttle bus into town, and then board the special Beekman 1802 Farm Tour Shuttle Bus that stops in front of the Beekman 1802 Mercantile.

Through Eyes Not Our Own…

When summer is in full-swing we sometimes forget to enjoy all of the wonders of the farm around us. We get caught up in weeding, picking, harvesting, working, mowing, haying, etc. A farm is full of etceteras, especially in summer.

So when we recently had a friend visit the farm for the first time who happens to be a great photographer, we asked him if he would take some pictures of the farm so that we could see things through his eyes.

Take a walk with us around the farm, and see what we see. (And sometimes don’t.)

<
>

A Do-Over

Basin Harbor Club is an historic resort on the shores of Lake Champlain. This family-owned resort (five generations) has been creating memories for families since 1886 (Yup! That’s 130 years!). With over 700 acres of amazing property, over 70 cottages, dozens of lodge rooms, restaurants, pub, stunning gardens, hundreds of water and land activities, golf course and much more—there is never a dull moment.

We’ve stayed at the resort several times and are charmed by its truly American old-school hospitality.

Basin Harbor Club as recently started renovating (and you know how much we love breathing new life into old spaces) all of their cabins with the help of interior designer Joanne Palmisano.  Joanne specializes in the use of vintage and found objects in her designs.

You might pick up a few ideas from her while picking out a new place on your Bucket List to visit!

<
>

The Summer Chatter

 

We’ve lobbied really hard for Garrison Keillor to give up life in Lake Wobegone and move to Sharon Springs, but thus far he has not answered our letters or returned our calls.

Sharon Springs has beautiful people and above-average children, too, so on to Plan B.

What is a small town village without a small town paper to keep track of what everyone is doing?

Nancy Pfau, the town historian, is now editor of our own little paper.

Each month you can check back here for a new issue and follow the lives of the real village people. If you pay a real visit, you may even want to submit a story idea of your own!

You may not live in small town, but at least you can pretend.

 

 

The Summer Chatter

Beekman | B. Jammin’

 

Aural decor is really important in a retail store (and even in your own home)

All the cool kids on Team Beekman compile a list of the coolest new music each month for our Mercantile playlist.

If you are a Spotify user, you can follow along and B. Jammin’ too!

 

 

Greener Pasteur

c. 1920. Two men in white coats and hats fill bottles with milk in a factory setting. The caption on the slide reads: FILLING BOTTLES/BRAIRCLIFF FARMS/ NEAR NEW YORK, NY, USA.

 

Last year, we were named to the Board of Trustees of the Farmers’ Museum in Cooperstown, NY.  The mission of the museum is to cultivate an understanding of the rural heritage that has shaped our land, communities and American culture.

One of our favorite collections of the museum is the vast photo archive.

Plowline: Images of Rural New York is a collecting initiative. The Farmers’ Museum, with the generous support of the Gipson Family, is actively assembling original photography that documents changes in agricultural practice, rural life and farming families in New York State from the 19th century through the present.

Each week on Beekman 1802 we’ll highlight a photo from the collection that not only depicts where WE come from but where we ALL come from.

 

To learn more about the museum or plan a visit on your next trip to Sharon Springs, click here

 

Celebrate the Fourth of July

 

Give us one reason in the comments section below that you love living in America!

 

 

Earlier this year we partnered with Country Inns and Suites to re-design all of the amenities in their hotels across America.

During the launch they used a clever promotional tagline called “1,802 Reasons to Love this Country”.   It was so clever, in fact, that we stole it.

For sure America has its fair share of problems and imperfections, but at Beekman 1802, we also search high and low for the most positive things, and there’s still PLENTY of positive things going in America.

In honor of Independence Day, we are are going to try to get 1,802 comments on this blog post each giving one reason that they love this country.  We’ll post them all on Facebook (@beekman1802boys) on July 4.

Put the reason you love this country in the comments section below.

 

Blow Your Mind

 

Meet one of the newest members of the B. 1802 Rural Artist Collective, glasssmith Bobby Sharp

 

We are always discovering new artisans in our area, and we “discovered” Bobby in a nearby mall where he had sat up a kiosk selling his hand-blown glass Christmas ornaments.  After a few minutes of discussion, we knew that he had a much greater artistic vision.

Here’s what Robert Horn, U.S. Editor of the Quarterly, had to say about Bobby’s work.

Utility becomes the art of every day in this and that object, worked over in the glass furnace by Bobby Sharp so that the simple shape becomes artistic form. This perfect whiskey glass, that wine carafe or tea pitcher is given the ideal form or proportion of Greek sculpture. In Bobby Sharp’s shop we can identify objects worthy to be titled classical revival, having the ideal of proportions found in ancient Athens, but which is also the certain ancestor of our own early modernism, where decoration was replaced by the value intrinsic to the object itself, the rough stone of Henry Moore or the sensuous marble of hans Arp; and every where around us the volumetric glass of our architecture first conceived in Bauhaus structural design years ago, the curtain wall or this and that architect. Bobby Sharp’s glassware can be and has been, given this art – historical approach.

Just as one can say pitch – perfect the eye takes pleasure in an ideal shape, a form, of whatever use. This tableware provides containers of liquid volume that copy classical ideals of perfect form, and so gratify our need for coherence in a chaotic world.

The geometric form or symmetry Bobby Sharp achieves is used as ground for shades or mere tints of coloration that fills out the proportion of space the object is given, and defines both spectrum and shape, with now decoration added. The flowers or Jugendstil tendrils as they are seen do not impose some irrelevant idea of beauty on the object, curve and curl as they do natural, name by Bobby Sharp with teams appropriate for a garden, as we see.

All this gives new meaning to the tradition of blown glass that is more then they utility object, and like art works can become part of a family inheritance.

 

We’ve worked with Bobby for over 14 months to perfect our first product with him, The Gaffer’s Tantalus decanter and glassware set.  Take a look:

 

<
>

 

Are you tantalized?  Click here to learn more about the Gaffer’s Tantalus

The Gift of the Third Year

.

The glass delusion is a rare condition.

The afflicted believe

With their whole heart

That they are made of glass

So fragile

That with the slightest touch

Everything will shatter

Love is a rare condition

The affected know

With their whole heart

That without proper care

The fragile

Will succumb to force

Shattered like glass

The gift of the third year is glass.

 

 

Each year I write a poem to commemorate our wedding anniversary using the traditional anniversary gift as the inspiration.

 

 

 

A PolkaSpot-shaped Hole in Our Hearts.

We knew this all along: The farm is not the place for PolkaSpot.

PolkaSpot and her mother were dropped off at Beekman 1802 Farm the first winter we were here. Her mother was ill when she arrived, and passed away shortly after. The orphaned baby eventually grew into the long-necked, big-eyed, thick-lashed beauty that we all know today. Like any supermodel, there’s always been something a little alien about her.

On the very first day of filming for our reality show, PolkaSpot – realizing that it was her star-making vehicle – came up with a scene-stealing act that was so good that she got billing in the opening credits. History was made, and she single-handedly made Beekman 1802 Farm “fabulous”. Since then she’s garnered more Facebook fans than Josh and Brent (combined!!) written four comic books, had her own t-shirts, her own doll, and even got her head-shot into PEOPLE magazine. Anyone who ever visited the farm and requested a picture can attest that she is THE modern diva.

She was a big big big part of our farm and lives. And many of your lives too.

Which makes it extremely difficult to announce that after a very short illness, PolkaSpot has decided to leave us. She departed us with no pain. “I do love you all,” she said, “but life is too short for me to stay here.”

We don’t know exactly where she went, but we like to think that she is headed to Paris where her surroundings will naturally be more sophisticated.

We miss her already. Terribly. Divas take a lot of your heart with them when they leave.

But we know that she will write us occasionally of lovers and dreamers and of things that glitter and sparkle, just so that we never forget that the world is full of pretty things. Even though she will always be the prettiest of them all.

Bon voyage, Polkie-Poke. Bon voyage.

 

<
>

Please consider donating to the Northeast Llama Rescue, who lent their considerable expertise and compassion to make PolkaSpot’s final trip planning more comfortable. We would also like to thank the following people who went above and beyond in helping to care for her during these last difficult three weeks:

Farmer John

Megan Holken

Brie Hues

Wes Laraway and the Northeast Llama Rescue

The Veterinary Staff at Cobleskill Veterinary Clinic

John Conboy

Dr. Joan

Rachel T

Jason Evans & Cindy Shelley

Rabbit Goody and her team at Thistle Hill Weavers

The staff at Cobleskill Agway

 

PolkaSpot’s journeys can be followed here