Frolicking Lambs and Shaggy Sheep

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 17-18, from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. As they explore this 18th-century working farm, visitors will also see nine newborn baby lambs born this spring on site, frolicking about the grounds. Other farm animals on site include a dairy cow, Maebell, and a heifer, Marigold. The site’s five-year-old working oxen, Josh and Jake, will also be part of the day’s events.

“This is our kick-off event for the spring season,” said Thom Thacker, site director of Philipsburg Manor. “It’s an excellent introduction to the educational, entertaining programs we offer here all year.” 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.

While strolling through the site at Sheep-to-Shawl, an Historic Hudson Valley museum which includes a working water-powered gristmill and a new world Dutch barn, visitors can watch as Gene Sheninger showcases his Scottish border collies and their instinctive and impressive ability to herd sheep and corral ducks.

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. Picnic food is available.

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.

Storyteller Jonathan Kruk will be on hand to share his tales.

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. Tickets can be purchased online at www.hudsonvalley.org. Philipsburg Manor is at 381 North Broadway (Route 9) in Sleepy Hollow, N.Y., two miles north of the Tappan Zee Bridge. For information, call 914-631-3992 or visit www.hudsonvalley.org.