Each year at Howell Farm the program season opens with the annual Ice Harvesting event.

Visitors help farmers cut, chop and shave ice, fill an ice house, and make ice cream from 10:00am to 4:00pm. Conditions permitting, visitors can also join the harvest crew on the frozen pond and take a turn using an "ice saw," as shown in the photo below.

Visitors help with sawing eight inch ice and moving the ice blocks to the ramp to the icehouse. (Photo by Jeff Kelly)

What if, against the prediciton of "The Old Farmer's Almanac," there is no ice on the pond? The work still goes on, as it probably would have a century ago when farmers faced with warmer winters filled their ice houses with commercial ice.

Children's craft program:
Ice Candles
Place: The Visitor Center, on a walk-in basis (Groups of eight or more must pre-register)
Time: 11:00am to 3:00pm
Approximate time to complete project: 20 minutes
Materials fee: $3.00

A recent article in The Furrow, the quarterly newsletter of the Friends of Howell Farm, discussed the ice harvest and how the ice is preserved for use throughout the year on the Farm. To read this article and see some more photos of the ice harvest, click here.

On January 31, 2004 workhorse Barney was brought to the ice, by then about 10 inches thick, to help in the process of scoring the ice to guide sawing it into blocks. [photo by Jeff Kelly]

During the afternoon in 2005, workhorses Bill and Buster took visitors on bobsled rides around the farm. (photo by Jeff Kelly)

During the winter regular farm chores must continue and the animals be cared for. Ice on the pond isn't the only ice the farmers have to be concerned with. In this photo Howell farmer Halsey Genung clears ice from the drinking trough for the work horses. (photo by Jeff Kelly)

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