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Harvest Festival at Stony Kill Farm
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation's Stony Kill Farm Environmental Education Center will hold its 29th Annual Harvest Festival on Saturday, October 13, from 12 to 5pm, rain or shine. This year's festival offers free admission, and music by "Betty and The Baby Boomers," who will perform a mix of traditional and contemporary folk songs, many rooted here in the Hudson Valley. Food and refreshments, both vegetarian and non-vegetarian, will be available for sale, including homemade soups and baked goods from the Verplanck Garden Club.
DEC staff will be at the festival with activities and information. Dee Strnisa from Five Rivers Environmental Education Center will bring her collection of live reptiles. The Bureau of Recycling and the Division of Air Resources will conduct a button making activity for all ages. The Hudson River Estuary program staff will lead a Hudson River puzzle activity for children, a forester will conduct a tree pruning demonstration, and a forest ranger will show how to prepare a safe campfire and use firefighting equipment. An environmental conservation officer will also be on hand to answer questions.
Hayrides will carry visitors back and forth between the farmstead, which includes an 18th Century Tenant Farmhouse, and the historic Manor House, built in 1842 by one of the oldest Dutch families in the region. AmeriCorps interns from the Student Conservation Association and special guests from the community will lead a variety of activities for children, including a scavenger hunt, face and pumpkin painting, candle-dipping, wilderness skills and agricultural crafts.
There will also be special appearances by Smokey Bear. Other environmental and nature related activities and displays will be presented by the Beacon Sloop Club, Ti Yogi Bowmen, Ralph T. Waterman Bird Club, Putnam Highlands Audubon Society, Cornell Cooperative Extension, and Mid- Hudson Gem & Mineral Society. "Common Ground," the Community Supported Agriculture group based at Stony Kill Farm, will provide information about their program. The "Stony Kill Spinners" will present spinning wheel and wool carding demonstrations, and teach children how to spin wool using a drop spindle. Stony Kill's barn will be open for guided tours, up close and personal with cattle, chickens, turkeys, sheep, and pigs.
Stony Kill Farm is owned and operated by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), and is located on State Route 9D, two miles north of the Beacon- Newburgh bridge. The Fall Harvest Festival is co-sponsored by Stony Kill Foundation. For more information, call Stony Kill Farm EEC at 845- 831-8780, or www.dec.ny.gov.
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