FARMING 1

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BELTIES

by Anita Rafael

Lookin’ good! Friendly cows with excellent fashion sense.

Seriously, did you really think they are called Oreo cookie cows? True, their crisp black-white-black coat patterns might make you think of your favorite snack, but they are called belted cows, and the ones you can see from the roadside at the Swiss Village Foundation farm on Harrison Avenue are the eight Dutch Belteds or a lone Belted Galloway.
All the cows look alike to most passersby, but livestock manager Sarah LaFreniere can easily tell which are which. “The one Belted Galloway we have,” she says, “is shorter and stouter than the others which are the Dutch Belteds.” The Dutch Belteds are more angular and a little skinny, she adds. From time to time, their small herd of nine animals also grazes over at the nearby pastures at Hammersmith Farm.
In the bovine family tree, Dutch Belteds have a distinguished pedigree with strong ties to Holland that date back for centuries. The Dutch, some say, may have originally taken the "Gurtenvieh” out of the mountain pastures meadows of Tyrol into the Low Countries to supplement their own butter and cheese making industries.
In the 1700s, Dutch noblemen particularly prized this breed for its milking and fattening traits so much so that they seldom sold any to others. They also fiddled with animal genes enough to produce belted rabbits, goats, poultry and swine, presumably to match their cows. Someone in the Netherlands must have parted with a few head of cattle, however, because by 1840 the showman P.T. Barnum charged circus-goers to see a small herd that he had on display along with his two-headed snakes, midgets and bearded ladies. Less than 100 years later, Dutch Belteds wowed milkers at the California State Fair where one cow, Julia Marlow-1187, made history. She gave the most butterfat at each milking for five consecutive days to win first place over all other breeds.
To ensure genetic consistency, the Dutch Belted Cattle Association of America, an organization that claims it has the oldest continuous registry for belted cattle in the world, keeps a herdbook. Since 1886, every registered Dutch Belted, including the ones at the SVF, is born with its heredity fully documented. According to the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, they are considered critically rare in North America, with fewer than 200 registered animals in the country and about 1,000 worldwide. LaFreniere, who has been with the SVF for more than two years, says that the farm raises belted cattle for two reasons: the most important one being their germplasm (the genetic material that carries the inherited characteristics of the breed) which is stored for future reproduction.
As for the Belted Galloways, sometimes called ‘belties,” there is not much proof about how or when the breed evolved, but cattlemen surmise that it was from a cross of the Dutch Belteds with the solid-colored Galloways that occurred in Scotland during the 16th century. They are sometimes red, brownish or dun colored, as well, and are valued as beef animals for their tender, lean (about as much fat content as chicken) and flavorful meat rather than as dairy cows. Canada had belties in 1939 and in 1950 a herd was brought into the United States.
Like thoroughbred racehorses, every characteristic of registered cattle is judged for specific traits. Here is what one expert, Lord David Stuart wrote in his 1970 book An Illustrated History of Belted Cattle about the Galloway’s coat, for example, "The skin should be mellow and moderately thick, covered with soft, wavy hair with a mossy undercoat… Hard, wiry hair with no undercoat is objectionable, and so is a jet-black coat. This should be black with a brownish tinge." With double-layer hair that protects the cows from the driving rain, biting wind and icy snow of a Scottish highland winter, it is no wonder that farmers used Galloway hides as cozy floor rugs for their homes or, before Gore-Tex®, sewed hides into impermeable outerwear for themselves.
LaFreniere believes that, historically, belted cows were raised in the Newport area as far back as the early 1900s. She says that both the Dutch Belted and the Galloway breeds are easy to work with and even easier to halter-break because of their docile, friendly nature.
Oh, are you left pondering what could be the other reason why the SVF keeps belties? “Well,” LaFreniere says, “we just like the way they look.” Yep we’ll second that.

HISTORIC SITE 3

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BLOWING IN THE WIND

by Anita Rafael

Too breezy for a beach day?
Then it’s the perfect weather for windmill watching. You can find the state’s last three historic smock-style windmills still standing in Jamestown, Middletown and Portsmouth.


Stop and think about this simple logic for a minute: on a small island such as ours, or one like Conanicut to our west, there are no mighty rivers. No rivers means that early settlers, except when there was a springtime freshet in the small streams, could not reliably harness flowing water to run their gristmills. What our coastal islands lack in waterpower, however, they more than make up for in strong and steady sea breezes for windmills. In the late 1800s, more than 20 windmills were still standing throughout the state, most of them in and around Portsmouth.

The Jamestown Windmill
382 North Main Road, not far from the historic Watson Farm
Claim to fame This is the only surviving 18th century windmill in the state.

Records show that in 1728, the people of Jamestown built themselves a windmill for grinding corn, saving themselves the trouble of having to ferry it over to Aquidneck Island and back. That one was replaced in 1787 by this one, which was faithfully run and maintained by a succession of eleven different millers until 1896. Unlike the two other windmills still standing on Aquidneck Island, the Jamestown windmill, which does not seem to have a proper name, is in its original place, atop a rubble-stone foundation. The miller’s house (not open to the public) sits in its shadow, closer to the road.
The structure quickly fell into disrepair once the millers left, but within a decade, it was rescued by a concerned group of preservation-minded island residents. They worked to save it beginning in 1904, giving it to the Jamestown Historical Society eight years later.
Situated to take full advantage of the wind from all directions on a rise that became known as Windmill Hill, the tower’s exposed location also meant it was especially vulnerable to hurricane damage. It has been restored again and again. The mill narrowly made it through “the big one” in 1938, but after the 1954 hurricane, the 25-foot vanes had to be replaced and the tower had to be stabilized with hefty oak timbers. In 1974, all four vanes were broken off in a gale, and again replaced. The last touch-up it received was just five years ago. The once-rotating cap is now fixed to face Narragansett Bay’s gentler southerlies.
In a picture-perfect setting, the windmill seems to stand guard over acres of farmlands that are still being worked, just as it has for nearly 300 years. With the land around it, which reaches from shore to shore at this part of Conanicut, now in trust as preserved open space, it is not likely to ever be developed. That leads to a reassuring thought: If you take your children to visit the windmill this summer, and someday in the future, if they take their grandchildren to visit it, the landscape and the 30-foot high tower will hopefully look the same as they do now.
On Sunday afternoons this summer, when the winds are favorable, volunteers from the Jamestown Historical Society with a mariner’s knack for predicting the shifting sea breezes, will set the canvas sails so you can watch the windmill in action. No meal is sold here, however.


The Windmill at Prescott Farm also known as The Sherman Mill
2009 West Main Road, Portsmouth
Claim to fame This windmill has twin sets of grinding stones.

“It’s typical for windmills to have been moved from time to time, and this one is no exception,” says Robert Foley, preservation coordinator of the Newport Restoration Foundation, owners of the 4-story windmill at Prescott Farm. This wood-frame tower happens to be particularly well-traveled, and is now at its fifth site. Originally built about 1811 in Warren, Rhode Island, it was moved to Fall River, Massachusetts, then again to Quaker Hill in Portsmouth. The mill became known as the Robert Sherman windmill with that relocation because he was the one who took it down and put it back up. It was moved to yet another site on West Main Road, and then in the early 1900s, the Newport Historical Society owned it even though it was in Portsmouth at the time. Almost 70 years later, it changed hands again, and was moved one more time.
Are you wondering how you move a windmill? Foley remembers: “We used a crane to lift off the bonnet, or the top, which is easy to do since it is a separate piece that is meant to rotate into the wind. Then, we cut all the pegs and tenons in the tower, dividing it into two halves which we laid one at a time onto a flat bed trailer truck.” He makes it sound so easy, but nearly two years elapsed before the mill was in working order again.
During the rehabilitation, it was hoped that the mill might someday earn its keep by grinding enough meal to sell and so the restorers installed Department of Health-approved stainless steel bins for the grains. This particular mill, however, has mostly been non-productive, but nonetheless scenically so, for more than twenty years.
“It’s a big, dangerous machine,” Foley says. “Watching the wind and the weather is as critical, if not more so almost more so than on a sailboat. Basically,” he says, “when the wind turns, you have to tack.” That explains why a miller is sometimes called a dry-land sailor.
This summer, mill is running; however no meal will be sold there. On your visit, be sure to ask the site manager for a mini-engineering lesson on how the double grindstones work. State-of-the art for its day, this windmill was designed so that the miller could engage just one set, or both.

CAPTION
A recent grant from the Rhode Island State Heritage and Historic Preservation Commission made it possible for the Newport Restoration Foundation to build new sail panels (the lattice-like wooden frames that hold the cloth sails), in addition to installing two new 45-foot stocks or arms.


The Windmill at Paradise Park, also known as Boyd’s Gristmill
Green End Avenue, Middletown
Claim to fame This windmill has eight vanes.

It has been one hundred and four years since Benjamin Boyd decided that eight vanes were better than four on the old smock mill that his grandfather had bought in 1815. He was hoping that double the sail area would boost the power output of this giant grinding machine, especially in light winds. Did he realize he was making twice the work and worry for himself as well? Apparently so. Even though Boyd himself said it was “an experiment like Noah’s Ark,” five years later he gave up trying to furl and unfurl all that canvas across the giant arms and instead, he installed a gasoline engine to rotate the millstones.
Built in 1810 by John Peterson at the corner of West Main Road and Mill Lane in Portsmouth, the mill became known as Boyd’s Mill when William Boyd leased it not long after. It was a typical hard-working four-vane mill until his grandson Benjamin added four more arms in 1901. According to Stanley Grossman of the Middletown Historical Society, young Boyd’s engineering, although based on sound English designs, may have caused the vanes to spin themselves to pieces, necessitating the gasoline engine after all.
By the end of the 20th century, the mill had been unused for more than fifty years, and in summertime, was partially hidden by tall trees that had grown up around it. Weathered and silent, thousands of people zoomed by it on the busy road, and few ever glanced its way. In 1990, Boyd’s heirs donated the structure to the Middletown Historical Society, but before it could be restored, it had to be moved.
Eleven years later, after being dismantled and trucked to the new Paradise Park location and then rebuilt by a team that included Newport architect Richard Long and millwright specialist Andrew Shrake of Dennis, Massachusetts, Boyd’s Mill was dedicated at a great celebration. It is now on the National Register of Historic Places.
On Sundays, visitors can see for themselves what kind of life the three-generations of Boyd’s led. Volunteers from the Society share all they know about the Boyd family, and in fair winds, they demonstrate the step-by-step process of grinding corn.

CAPTION
In the end, Benjamin Boyd was the last miller to earn his living there. His reminiscences appeared in the Fall River Herald News. In 1942, he wrote about knowing how fickle island weather can be and the importance of having steady nerves while running the mill in a sudden gale.
When the miller was running his mill … in one of these storms, he could not tell whether in five minutes a heavier squall would wreck him, or whether he might be in the midst of a calm.

CAPTION
Shipwright or millwright? The mill’s builder, John Peterson, cut the oak timbers for his mill across the bay, bringing them to Aquidneck Island on his schooner. When the vessel was wrecked, he salvaged oak knees and timbers from it to finish constructing his mill. The total height of the mill 38 feet. It is 18 feet wide at the bottom and 15 feet in diameter at the top.






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NATURE 2

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FIDDLING AROUND AT THE SHORE

by Anita Rafael

Not far from Newport, Rhode Island, in the electronic research labs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, serious scientists are spending their summer building robotic fiddler crabs. The purpose of this undoubtedly expensive and ultra-high tech project is to make a teleoperated ten-legged Uca puglax, which they say will help us (the non-geniuses of the world) better comprehend what these fascinating little creatures are all about. Nice try, guys, but we’d prefer to be hanging out at the beach this July rather than indoors at your lab. Luckily, you don’t have to be a scientist to be a fiddler crab spotter. Look for them munching algae and organic debris in tidal puddles along the shoreline. They are everywhere where there is brackish water and marsh like conditions – all around Narragansett Bay, Fiddlers, however, are not a true aquatic species because they breathe air, not water, through their gills. Also known as mud fiddlers, they dig foot-deep burrows, and, when the tide rises, they plug up their hiding places with a balls of mud and breathe the air they have trapped inside. Sometimes their burrows are interconnected deep below the sand. As the tide recedes, the crabs come out to forage and feed again. They are active most of the day, which makes them fun to watch, and because they are so abundant, they are easy to find. Fiddlers are brownish, with the front of the shell and eyestalks ranging from blue to turquoise. The large claw of the male is usually yellowish-orange to yellowish-white, sometimes in a speckled or marbleized pattern. There are about 100 species and sub-species of Uca, first-cousin to the common ghost crab, and they have many interesting names around the globe. In Barbados, they are known as fever crabs; in Japan, siho maneki, which loosely translates "beckoning for the return of the tide.” Jamaicans call them deaf ear crabs because of a belief that crushing a live crab and pouring the juice into your ear could cure deafness and earache. (Not our best medical advice ­­– go see a doctor.) Now, about that fiddle, or as taxonomists call it, the cheliped. What looks like a gross deformity in the male of this 2-inch crustacean, its giant claw that is sometimes 20 times the size of its walking legs, is actually its best defense against predators, not to mention nosy lab researchers. The “fiddle” is the major claw, and as the creature eats using its less cumbersome minor claw, the back and forth motion makes it look like it is using a violinist’s bow. (You can get a better idea of this effect when you are looking at them straight on at crab eye level.) The more symmetrical females lack the big claw and have two small claws, which makes it easier and more efficient for them to feed. Like us, fiddlers are either left- or right-handed, and it is this large claw that is the most important part of the crab dating game. It’s a guy thing ­­– the males line up side-by-side outside their entrances, and, to impress the females, they wave their big appendages at them. On occasion, there are too many males in a colony vying for one mate and they violently arm-wrestle over who gets the girl. When a she-crab likes what she sees, and presumably size matters because females have been observed to be pretty picky about who they go to burrow with, she gets a deep-stare, eye-contact thing going with him. Then, she follows him into his tunnel for about two weeks of private time before she emerges with her incubated eggs. Both genders hide during the semi-annual molting of their shell, and understandably, with absolutely nothing to wear, you would stay inside, too. Everything fiddler crabs do – foraging, eating, molting, tunneling, hiding, mating, and fighting – is part of the big picture of the ecosystem of Narragansett Bay. They clean up the detritus from plants, and their burrows aerate the terrain around marsh grasses, and thus support the growth of vegetation. Of course, fiddlers are part of the food chain – tasty morsels for many large predators, including blue crabs, waterbirds such as egrets and herons, and small mammals such as raccoons. The crab’s worst threat is people, no surprise here, who carelessly pollute the water. While there is no commercial fishing of fiddler crabs, aquarium stores sell teeny tiny ones as house pets. However, crustaceans in general are fairly low on the list of wild things you’d like to cuddle with and, besides, they have a minimal life expectancy in captivity. Instead, get outdoors and spend a little time at the shore spying on the busy little fellows, and while you’re enjoying the sunshine and the fresh air and your new arthropod friends, have a little sympathy for those mechanism-minded inventors back in the M.I.T. lab working to assemble their scale model robo-crab. Seriously, have you ever heard of anyone who needs any sci-fi help to fiddle away a day at the beach?

GARDENS 1

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We’re Talkin’ Dirty

by Anita Rafael

Here’s the dirt on giving your vegetable garden an all-organic makeover right now.

It is easier than you think to remake your backyard vegetable garden into an organic Eden. All it takes is a little extra tilling in the spring and a big promise not to buy any more chemical pesticides or synthetic fertilizers ever again.

What is the first step to starting your garden makeover? “Get a soil test done,” advises Nicole Vitello, who tills a rocky, seven-acre tract called Manic Organic Farm at the foot of Quaker Hill in Portsmouth. “It only costs a few dollars, and then you know exactly what’s in your soil,” she says. Armed with the results each season, you can doctor the pH of the soil and adjust the nutrients which are out of balance. You will also know whether you should completely strip away the soil you have or cover it with a thick, new layer. Your plot, Vitello points out, could have a high amount of copper or lead in it if there was once a building on the site.

Few people on Aquidneck Island know dirt better than Nicole Vitello. Her certified-organic produce, sold at area farmers’ markets and through a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture is an arrangement where people buy advance shares in her harvest and take home a big bin of fresh vegetables once a week), ends up on the dining tables of more than 150 local families.
That’s a lot of mouths to feed and since 1999, Vitello has been growing her heirloom and hybrid vegetables, tender greens and herbs with absolutely no help from Dow, Bayer or anyone else in the agricultural chemical industry. She is so passionate about keeping her fields naturally fertile so they sustain her livelihood as an organic grower that she practically thinks of the microorganisms living in the soil as her pets. True, she can’t see them with the naked eye, much less cuddle with them on the couch, but it’s fairly obvious that she has cultivated a symbiotic relationship with zillions of them.
Her healthy, contented microorganisms feed her crops; her chemical-free crops feed her and her customers. “It’s all one system,” she says, making the point that eating dinner and growing food are not separate events.

You can always improve the soil in your garden by simply adding a nutrient-rich, all-natural compost which means you need to become friendly with the folks at Highland Farm on Middle Road in Portsmouth. The Escobars compost manure from their dairy cows which they sell for a few dollars a bag. Amending soil is easy – some of the other organic things you might add, for example, are peat, bone meal or rock phosphates, all derived from natural sources and all inexpensive compared to costly agro-science synthetics.
“To really mix the soil and compost correctly, rent a rototiller,” says Vitello. “It’s the only way to thoroughly reach the ‘active’ layer which is the top 10 or 12 inches. That’s where everything grows.” When you and your family are enjoying the first luscious vegetables that you grew organically, you, too, will realize that among other things, a ten-pound bag of cow manure is, well – worth its weight in sweet-tasting Sungold cherry tomatoes.

Next, pledge not to quick draw your pesticide pistol at the first sight of crawly things on the potatoes. Beetles have a place the ecosystem, too, in spite of the fact that some of them may be eating your future French fries. Instead, take time to really observe the bugs in your garden. Are there only two or three insects or a frightening infestation? Are they a food source for other welcome creatures? Birds, toads and salamanders in your yard may be doing a slow, but adequate extermination job for you.
“Try using plants to discourage bugs,” says Vitello. “I set out marigolds everywhere to deter bean beetles, squash bugs, tomato worms, and whitefly.” Chives repel aphids and spider mites, two very common garden pests. There are dozens more ordinary plants that drive bugs away. Odds are a few insects will not wipe out your whole garden, and you might opt to let them snack on rather than pitching poisons all over the food you plan to serve to your kids later.
Vitello has a simple tip for homeowners when it comes to outsmarting pests and diseases in their vegetable gardens. She says not to plant all the eggplant in one spot, and all the parsley in another. “Lay out multiple rows or patches of the same plant far apart,” she explains, “so that if the weird brown bugs or a nasty mildew get into one section of the crop, they might leave the rest of it alone.”
In the Manic Organic fields, Vitello also uses row covers to control insect damage to seedlings because according to the regulations for organic farming, she cannot apply toxic compounds. “First of all,” she says, “a healthy plant is less likely to be a target for insects and young plants grow strong beneath protection like special material or micro-mesh which lets in air, light and water but keeps the pests out.”

Finally, try to come to terms with the fact that the big, fat weeds taking over your garden are not a sign of failure! Colossal chickweeds choking out the rows of rutabagas are proof that your soil is, in fact, first-rate and fertile. Instead of zapping weeds with powerful herbicides, use mulch to suppress their growth. Mulch, mulch, mulch has always been the mantra of all gardeners, especially the lazy ones who refuse to spend backbreaking hours hoeing weeds. Not only does 2 to 4 inches of mulch preserve warmth and moisture in the garden, it’s common sense that organic materials – such as sawdust, straw, grass clippings, leaves, or shredded bark – will add even more nutrients to the soil as they decompose. “You should never leave the ground bare,” warns Vitello, who believes that dry, naked dirt is “in agony.”

This coming July, when you roll out a wheelbarrow full of juicy, organically-grown watermelons, at least you will know the secret to what made your garden so productive – it wasn’t some formula that Monsanto’s biotech engineers concocted in a laboratory, it was you, your happy microorganisms, and Mother Nature. What a team!

HISTORIC SITE 1

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THE DEAN OF DERRY AND THE DAMES

by Anita Rafael

Whitehall House – the tale of a hardworking farm, a famous philosopher and a fine house.


Joseph Whipple sold it in 1729. The Reverend George Berkeley enlarged it, named it and wrote brilliant philosophy in it. Yale got it as a gift and innkeeper Abigail Stoneman was among those who ran a tavern in it. During the American Revolution, enemy British troops occupied it. Five generations of the Brown family were the tenant farmers there. The National Society of Colonial Dames in the State of Rhode Island made a museum out of it and you, too, can visit Whitehall House and its pretty walled grounds and herb garden.


Although those crib notes take two seconds to recite, it takes some guesswork to determine how Whitehall, Middletown’s most venerable historic dwelling, came to look the way it does. It is yet another one of those “old house puzzles” that make early American architecture such a beguiling subject.
Some historians have surmised that the reason why the scholarly reverend bought a farm on Aquidneck Island in the first place is the direct consequence of an inept sea captain who failed make port at Bermuda after about 180 days at sea. Whether Berkeley (b.1684-d.1753) arrived here by accident or design in January of 1729, he was on a mission to start a college in Bermuda. The then 44-year old Berkeley, who as Dean of Londonderry was the highest ranking English churchman to have ever visited New England up to that time, and his young wife Anne, began a sort of celebrity sojourn that lasted a little less than three years.
Berkeley, an Irish-born educator, published philosopher, mathematician, poet, and soon to be country farmer and general contractor, paid Joseph Whipple the considerable sum of £2,500 for 96 acres consisting of tillable land, a dwelling and outbuildings. He named his rural estate, situated about an hour’s walk from nearby Newport with its 4,500 or so residents, Whitehall for the royal palace in London and undertook its first extreme makeover.
Some say that the house there today was built entirely from the ground up in 1729, but it is not certain whether Berkeley tore down some or all of the original farmhouse, or simply added grand rooms onto what was a humble structure. One vintage photograph of the now 9-room, 2-story house taken from the rear before its first restoration, shows both old and new elements.
Berkley, whose entourage included, among others, the British architect Richard Dalton, is credited with giving the symmetrical 5-bay façade its high-style features. Wide, pilastered and pedimented, the Palladian-inspired double door is right out of the 1721 style book of classical designs by Indigo Jones. It makes a great impression, fit for an English squire’s house, however, a grand entrance it is not. Just the right hand side of the pair opens, leading into a cramped, stairless hallway; the left side is a false door which, on the inside, is just a plain parlor wall.
When it became evident that Berkeley’s plan for the college fell through, he left Newport in 1731, but his name and legacy remain forever linked to this quiet retreat. He gave the house and a thousand books to Yale College. (Harvard got 800 books and no house.). Upon his return to England, Berkeley became all the more eminent when he was elevated to Bishop of Cloyne, Ireland.
Not particularly interested in overseeing a coastal farm from a hundred miles away, Yale’s administrators leased Whitehall to tavernkeepers and farmers. According to advertisements in the Newport Mercury in the decades prior to the American Revolution one proprietor dubbed it Vaux Hall for a time and ran it as a “tea-house.”
Beginning in 1824, successive generations of the Brown family adapted Whitehall to their needs while they worked the land and sold milk, butter and eggs from their cows and chickens. In the 1890s, Abraham A. Brown built a modern and commodious home, one with indoor plumbing, practically next door to the old house. In the spirit of Yankee thrift though, Farmer Brown put the vacated Whitehall to practical use as a hay barn.
The rain-soaked structure was all but rotten, roof, floors and all, when three philanthropically-minded Newport women took it upon themselves in 1897 to save it for its virtue as a genuine colonial artifact, as well as for its connection to the by then legendary Berkeley. One of the women, Mrs. Livingston Mason, wrote an essay to motivate potential supporters, employing a bit of Victorianesque melodrama to describe Whitehall’s sorry state:
“… a great vine slowly coils in and out of its broken windows, like
some huge monster crushing its ribs and absorbing its last breath.”
Charles McKim, of the famed architectural firm McKim, Mead and White, probably should be given the most credit for why Whitehall still exists. He published this evocative photograph of it in 1874. The image, taken from the angle of the back northwest corner, is Number 26 of 29 photographs in a book titled, New York Sketch-Book of Architecture. Had he not shown and described his own heartfelt admiration for the character and construction of this house, others might not have been awakened to its significance.Seeing beyond the merely picturesque aspects of its sagging 17th century salt box roof and weather-beaten clapboards, he wrote, “…[old buildings] are always reasonable, simple in outline and frequently show great beauty of detail.”
The campaign to buy the site and a scrap of land was successful and Whitehall underwent a cellar-to-rafter restoration in 1898. Two years later, the women deeded it over to the National Society of the Colonial Dames in the State of Rhode Island, with the provision that it should be maintained as a memorial to Berkeley. In 1936, Norman Isham (praised for his pioneering preservation work at Newport’s Old Colony House and the Wanton-Lyman Hazard House) did more interior restoration. Blasted by the Great Hurricane of 1938, Whitehall once again needed repair, but for the most part, its stalwart hand-hewn timbers stood up to the blow. The look of the house was reinterpreted a third time between 1966 and ’68, and shortly after the work was completed, Whitehall was proudly listed on the National Register of Historic Properties.
The Newport Garden Club maintains an 18th century herb garden on the east side of Whitehall. Helen H. Hart originally conceived the design in 1953, and there is a marker commemorating her initiation of the project. The plantings are representative of the three categories of herbs that a practical-minded colonial housewife might have needed most. There are the usual herbs for cooking, plus plants for medicine and personal use (such as sage for brushing teeth and lavender for bathing) and housekeeping herbs (for example, thyme for keeping bugs off stored linens.)
What was once a secluded vale surrounding the house is now a klatch of clone-like condominiums and spanky ranch houses, but visitors need only to step inside Whitehall to time-travel back nearly three centuries. To the left of the paneled entry hall is the bright southwest parlor with its tile-adorned fireplace, and towards the back, is the old kitchen with its broad brick hearth where members of the Colonial Dames occasionally taste-test Indian pudding recipes stirred over the open fire. There is a small north bedchamber beside an oddly situated stair hall in the rear of the house, and a southeast parlor, which is furnished to show how the Reverend’s study might have looked. The second floor, with sitting rooms and two bedrooms, is a private apartment used by members of the International Berkeley Society who summer at Whitehall as guest scholars. A rustic loft space under the eaves has an assortment of early household implements on display.
The Reverend Berkley may have made Whitehall House famous, but all the kudos these days go to the Colonial Dames of the State of Rhode Island. For one-hundred and five years so far, they have been unwavering in their promise to keep it in a sound state of repair while welcoming the public for guided tours and to their popular open house days. Only the right half of Whitehall’s stately double entrance is a real door, but it is a door well worth knocking on for a privileged peek inside and for the pleasure of some old-fashioned hospitality.

PRESERVE AMERICA PROJECT

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Project: Researching and Writing 24 Preserve America Nominations, Dec. 2003 to Feb. 2004

In November 2003, I was contracted by the National Park Service in partnership with the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council of Rhode Island to be the author for nominations for Preserve America designations for 11 communities in Rhode Island and 13 communities in Massachusetts – a total of 24 applications in all. Preserve America is a 2003 White House initiative to encourage and support community efforts for the preservation and enjoyment of America's priceless cultural and natural heritage. This ongoing program celebrates communities that protect and use their historic assets for economic development and community revitalization, and encourage people to experience and appreciate local historic resources through education and heritage tourism programs.

Benefits to the communities include White House recognition; a certificate of designation; a Preserve America Community road sign; authorization to use the Preserve America logo on signs, flags, banners, and promotional materials; listing in a web-based Preserve America Community directory; inclusion in national and regional press releases;official notification of designation to State tourism offices and visitor bureaus; and enhanced community visibility and pride.

First Lady Laura Bush said, “"Preserve America promotes cultural and natural preservation and encourages greater appreciation of our national treasures - from monuments and buildings to landscapes and main streets. PresidentBush and I want every American, especially our children, to discover and learn about our Nation's heritage, a heritage our parents and grandparents bestowed upon us and that we continue to build upon."

The work I did prior to actually writing the application essays was painstaking. (The blank form is online at www.preserveamerica.gov.) I did hours of research to collect interesting facts about each community’s history and developed a working knowledge of its continued efforts in historic preservation, its management of its historic assets, its preservation education and its heritage tourism. The legwork required to obtain the information for the even simple check-box parts of the application was nothing short of a marathon effort. For weeks, I visited historic sites, conducted detailed interviews with each community’s public officials and met with historic preservation partners both in the public and private sectors. I also accumulated the documents and images that would support each individual nomination. In addition, the applications were backed by letters of recommendation from dozens of elected representatives, public officials, community leaders and respected private citizens – using a template as a suggested format, these too, had to be solicited, complied and verified.

The final phase of the application process consisted of creating and then writing the text for each nomination as a coherent, convincing “story.” My objective was to leave little or no room for rejection by the review committee at the Washington, DC office of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, the independent Federal agency that advises the President and Congress on national historic preservation policy.

My work was 100% successful. On June 25, 2004, every one of the 24 applications
that I wrote was approved and, as a result, each of the communities is now proudly displaying the signage honoring it as a Preserve America community.

Winning nominations for the following towns and cities written by Anita Rafael -

MASSACHUSETTS

Blackstone
Douglas
Grafton
Hopedale * scroll down to see completed application
Leicester
Mendon
Millbury
Millville
Northbridge
Sutton
Upton
Uxbridge
Worcester

RHODE ISLAND

Burrillville
Central Falls
Cumberland
East
Providence
Gloucester
Lincoln
North
Smithfield
Pawtucket
Providence
Smithfield
Woonsocket

Project Writer: Anita Rafael: Research, text and compilation of supporting materials.
Preserve America Nominations
Dec. 2003-Feb. 2004

Sample of a completed Preserve America nomination. The facts and story line of each nomination varies greatly as every community has its own unique way of preserving and using its historic and cultural assets.

Preserve America Nomination for the Town of Hopedale, Massachusetts

Introduction The Town of Hopedale is located in the south-central part of the State of Massachusetts. It is one of the 24 communities along the Blackstone River Valley which were designated by Congress in 1986 as having national significance as "The Birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution." Hopedale is a 5-square mile community of 6,000 residents whose industrial past is everywhere evident, but whose lifestyle today is largely suburban in nature. Hopedale was, in fact, conceived by Reverend Adin Ballou as a Christian-based "dale of hope" in 1841, making it unique among the towns in the region. The town's official founding in 1886 was because of the success of the Draper family in manufacturing mechanical looms for the textile industry, an enterprise spanning an entire century. Like several other small towns in the region that have easy access to Interstate 495 and Route 128, Hopedale is expected to grow rapidly within the decade. Hopedale's commitment to historic preservation is evident in its new listing on the National Register of Historic Places of an historic district that encompasses virtually the entire village - some 8000 acres in all.

Recent Project The Town of Hopedale has successfully undertaken a massive historic preservation effort in listing the village center on the National Register of Historic Places, a district recognized in 2002 as having some 600 significant homes, buildings, structures and items which are both publicly and privately owned. The sites have a period of significance ranging from 1825 to the late 20th century. In addition, the Town of Hopedale has begun a project, with public-private partnership support to develop a plan for restoration and purposeful use of an historic site known as the (Little) Red Shop.

In late 2002, the Town of Hopedale, with support from the Heritage Corridor and the volunteer participation of interested citizens, along with private, non-profit organizations known as the Friends of Historic Hopedale and Friends of Adin Ballou, plus town officials, and others, participated in the development of a preliminary planning report for the Red Shop. The Red Shop, locally considered an “icon,” was built in the mid-1840s. It is the first shop built by the community, and is the town’s oldest industrial remnant of an enterprise that shaped the town for nearly two centuries. It is a small wood-frame building that has been moved four times, as recently as the 1950s to a prominent location on town property. The 20’ x 90’ shop as it is now may, in fact, be only a portion of a structure that was originally larger, perhaps 2-stories with a cupola. It has had various uses - workshop for making machinery, sales room, storage shed, repository of artifacts, and until recently, as a museum. Only occasionally open, it is in disrepair and lacks heat and restrooms. The outcome of the project was a preliminary plan, published in March of 2003 that recognizes the unique potential of the Red Shop as a museum or educational facility and heritage attraction. The report also outlines a recommended plan of action to meet the goal of preserving the historical character of the building, enhancing its historical meaning and usefulness, as well as using the site to tell the story of Hopedale’s industrial past and the community’s role in the industrial development of the Blackstone River Valley region.

Fund-raising efforts and awareness-raising efforts regarding the Red Shop project are currently in progress. In 2002, for example, the Hopedale Junior/Senior High School used a mini-grant from the Blackstone Valley Chamber of Commerce for a multi-disciplinary project which provided the students with a hands-on community-based learning experience about local history and the culture of a textile mill village. Students made and sold artistic representations of their study to benefit the Red Shop restoration project. In a current effort to bring to light the significance of the site, the Friends of Adin Ballou have included the Red Shop in a 16-page self-guided walking/ biking guidebook titled “Early Hopedale Community.” The book was funded in part by the Heritage Corridor.

Ongoing Project The Town of Hopedale in partnership with the Heritage Corridor, the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council and the Blackstone Valley Chamber of Commerce participates in a Heritage Tourism Initiative which promotes historic and cultural sites by making use of its library, town hall, historic attractions and businesses as distribution points for brochures, maps, self-guided tours and literature of interest to residents and tourists. As part of a regional heritage and cultural cross-promotion network, the sites in Hopedale are part of a 150-site chain of distribution points throughout the Blackstone Valley. Additional information about Hopedale’s historic sites is available year-round at the Heritage Corridor Visitors Center in nearby Uxbridge and Mendon.

Additional Project The Town of Hopedale in partnership with the Heritage Corridor participates in a Heritage Tourism Initiative with Identity Signage, indicating it is part of the historically significant region known as the Blackstone River Valley. In the Town of Hopedale several interpretive signs provide visitors with information about historic sites and historic monuments in Hopedale.

Appended: Photography of Hopedale, MA.

Resolution The Town of Hopedale has adopted a resolution indicating its commitment
to the preservation of its historic assets.

Appended: Copy of resolution of Hopedale, MA.

Category 1 / Discovering

1.1 An ongoing publicly available inventory of historic properties.
The Town of Hopedale has a publicly available inventory of historic properties listed by the Massachusetts Historic Commission (MHC). The document is available at the local library, town hall, at the Heritage Corridor office, and at the MHC office in Boston, MA. An additional inventory was compiled and is updated by the Heritage Corridor office and is available to the public. Properties are selected for inclusion on the basis of their individual significance or their value as indicators of the town’s physical, social or economic development. More than 20 homes and buildings, plus a pre-settlement era archaeological site along the Mill River, have been identified as significant in the Town of Hopedale.

1.2 A community supported museum, interpretive facility, archive or local history
records collection. In the Town of Hopedale, the public library has taken an active role in archiving books and printed material related to the history of the town. The town has appointed local residents as curators who have begun collecting items as a first step towards establishing a new museum.

1.3 Active citizen volunteer involvement.
Citizen volunteers in the Town of Hopedale participate in several events related to fund-raising for the Red Shop restoration project and on behalf of a private, non-profit organization known as Friends of Historic Hopedale. Events at which volunteers are active include the annual Day In The Parks celebration, a town-wide “fair” coordinated by members of the Hopedale Cultural Council. The activities include historical walking tours, trolley tours, and horse-drawn-wagon tours of Hopedale’s historic sites. Volunteers also coordinate a holiday house tour of private historic homes in Hopedale to benefit local historic preservation efforts.

1.4 Opportunities for children to learn about local heritage in the schools.
In the Town of Hopedale, the public school system makes use of opportunities for children to learn about local heritage through its partnership with the Heritage Corridor. National Park Service Rangers present programming in local schools, and educators specializing in teaching local history are partnering with the Heritage Corridor to update and revise curriculum-based programs which meet the Massachusetts Board of Education criteria. Additionally, using the information contained a new, widely-distributed 60-page handbook titled “An Educator’s Guide To The Blackstone Valley - A Comprehensive Guide to the Cultural, Natural and Historic Resources Throughout the Blackstone River Valley” teachers in Hopedale can access in-school programs from all the museums and organizations listed. The publication is a project of the Blackstone Valley Educator’s Network in partnership with the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council and the Heritage Corridor.

In addition, a volunteer member of the current historical commission provides in-school programs about the history of Hopedale.

Appended: A postcard (promotional mailing) for a handbook which all educators in Hopedale, MA receive listing educational opportunities for in-school programs and field trips.


Category 2 / Protecting

2.1 A local government body such as a board or commission, charged with leading historic preservation activities.
The Town of Hopedale has a 7-member historical commission. It is a volunteer board, created by town ordinance, which leads historic preservation activities in the town. The board is made up of interested citizens and subject (history, architecture, folklore) experts. The board meets regularly and is charged, among its duties,with advising residents and other town agencies on preservation issues. Current initiatives include grant writing for the Red Shop project.

2.2 Adopted a community-wide historic preservation plan.
The Town of Hopedale has a current comprehensive plan was adopted in the early 1990s as mandated by Massachusetts state law. The document contains a section relating to use and preservation of historic and cultural resources. The plan was developed after extensive consultation with many constituencies, including residents interested in and committed to the preservation of the town’s historic and archeological resources. Additionally, the town acknowledges the guidelines of the regional management plan developed and adopted by the Heritage Corridor which includes historic and cultural sites in Hopedale. The town is currently updating its mater plan, as well.


Category 3 / Promoting

3.1 A local heritage tourism program or activity, or active participation in a regional program, with such promotional material as a walking/ driving trail or tour itinerary, map of historic resources, etc.
The Town of Hopedale promotes awareness of its historic assets and promotes heritage tourism though its Self-Guided Walking Tour. This self-guided walking tour highlighting how Hopedale's beginnings as a utopian community in the mid-19th century shaped its destiny is one of a series consisting of 27 similar publications distributed throughout the John H. Chafee Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor. The primary mission of the interpretive narrative is to tell previously untold stories about the community's past, present and future by highlighting the local people, places and events. With more than 20,000 copies in distribution to date, the brochure also successfully fulfills a secondary mission to reach heretofore untapped audiences giving them an opportunity to explore and enjoy the communities which form the Heritage Corridor. This brochure is particularly appealing to area residents, drawing them to discover more about the neighborhood in which they live and historic places in their hometown. Visitors find that the self-guided format gives them the option to explore and travel at their own pace, selecting sites that relate to their own tastes, interests and budget. Most importantly, the brochure combines a simplified map with an easy-to-follow tour itinerary for a short enjoyable stroll, especially suitable and safe for families with children of all ages, to seven sites in Hopedale that underscore the great textile empire and lifestyle created by the Draper family. A unique feature of this publication is the section titled "Along The Way" which appears on the back panel. The list of things to see and do nearby inspires even casual explorers to seek more information about the historic and cultural heritage of Hopedale while enticing them to visit other interesting historic sites and fun attractions. Updated as needed, this self-guided walking tour brochure continues in print and in circulation. Widely available year-round for free to residents and visitors to Hopedale, it is on display at the River Bend Farm Visitor Center in Uxbridge, at museums, libraries, hotels, and at other attractions throughout the town and the Heritage Corridor region. It is also available by mail through the Heritage Corridor Office located in Woonsocket, RI.

The initial project consisted of a partnership between community writers, local graphic artists,the Rhode Island Historical Society's Education Department and Graphics Library and the National Park Service Rangers of the John H. Chafee Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor and their project administrators. Several community organizations, such as the Hopedale Historical Society, the Hopedale Public Library, the Blackstone Chamber of Commerce, the Massachusetts State Historic Commission, and individual community residents supported the production of this walking tour of Hopedale by providing information, interviews, volunteer assistance, research materials, and graphic images in addition to volunteering advice and commentary on its content and accuracy. Funding is provided by the Heritage Corridor under its Interpretive Program.

Appended: brochure sample plus miscellaneous other publications/ material currently
in circulation to promote use of and appreciation of historic assets Hopedale, MA.

Appended: Letters of Recommendation to support nomination for Hopedale, MA.

Appended: CD of captioned images of Hopedale, MA.

NB: One of 24 Preserve America applications prepared by AR that were submitted and approved in 2004.

NATURE 1

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THE COYOTE RULES

by Anita Rafael

Why coyotes are here to stay

You may have noticed that a few llamas have been living on Harrison Avenue in Newport, Rhode Island, for some time now. Their full time, 24-hour a day job is protecting the livestock at Hammersmith Farm and the Swiss Village Foundation from coyotes. At the first sight of a coyote, the llamas screech high-pitched alarms, chase and kick the animal, and sometimes herd sheep, goats, calves and even geese, ducks and turkeys into a close huddle in their pens. These fellows were purchased for about $700 each. While it is legal for licensed hunters shoot coyotes in Rhode Island year-round within the limits of the Department of Environmental Management’s guidelines and except where city or town ordinances prohibit gunfire, the llama line-of-defense is just right when it comes to handling our coyote problem.
Problem? Does Aquidneck Island have a coyote problem? Not really, according to wildlife biologist Charles Brown of the Rhode Island D.E.M. There are coyotes in every community in the state (except on Block Island he says), and controversies arise, from almost every naturalist’s point of view, because of the things that people do, not necessarily because of what the coyotes are doing.
Many of the factors that have made Canis latrans a “successful species,” as Brown puts it, are the same exact things that make our cultivated pastures, sprawling suburbs and landscaped streets so attractive and livable. For example, people like open spaces – for agriculture, scenic views and broad lawns. Coyotes like open spaces, too. In fact, the best places to go to observe coyotes are along the bushy borders of fields, vacant lots and golf courses. That is where they typically search for their preferred prey, a diet that includes field mice, rabbits, fawns, and even snakes and grasshoppers.

Prior to 1900, coyotes ranged only in the western and south-western U.S. The first confirmed presence of coyotes in Rhode Island was a non-rabid animal that was shot in Warren in 1969, although there were certainly some here before that date since both Massachusetts and Connecticut reported them as far back as 1957 and 1958.

The way you live and how coyotes live have much in common. Gardeners, for example, like compost piles, which they lavishly enrich with kitchen scraps. Coyotes adore compost piles ripe with such tasty snacks as yesterday’s salad, spoiled fruit and your stale donuts. Then, there are the suburbanites who spend a fortune on birdfeeders, filling them with all kinds of seeds, corn, fruit and nuts to attract a variety of species. You are right if you are thinking that to coyotes, birdfeeders are like the Golden Arches. They will show up regularly for whatever is on the menu. All the birds and mammals nibbling at your compost heap and clinging to your feeders are mouth-watering morsels to them, as well. Finally consider this: People build roads, and so, logically, the more asphalt we roll out, the more road-kill there will be. Coyotes know that paved surfaces offer fine dining and they are often seen trotting down the breakdown lane, hoping to scavenge fresh flesh along the double yellow line.
Coyotes, which average about 30-35 pounds for females and more for males, are bold predators, but they are otherwise extremely shy and elusive. Although they typically hunt at night, mainly to avoid people, says Brown, coyotes with a litter to feed will be out and about in daytime, too. A coyote seen crouching, then pouncing in a snow-dusted field in the dead of winter is not a deranged animal; it is one stalking its next meal.
A small male, with its long, dense fur, pointed nose and ears and black-tipped tail, one that you perhaps see languishing about, is likely to be a young adult without its own territory or mate, according to Brown. “Coyotes are highly territorial and pair for their lifespan,” he says, “but it takes a while for them to find a mate and establish hunting grounds.” Over a season or two, a transient may survive, but it will not breed. That is Mother Nature’s method – without traps, poison or ammo – of controlling their population. The natural death rate among young coyotes is brutal, Brown says, and there is a formula to it. Where food is scarce, their range may be up to 25 square miles, and therefore people see fewer coyotes. Fewer survive to adulthood. Where food is plentiful, their territories shrink accordingly and there are likely to be more encounters with people in populated areas like ours.
Lean, but not necessarily mean, these wild cousins to the family pooch are not exactly being driven out of their wilderness habitats by ruthless developers who are bulldozing fields and forests for new housing projects and mega-shopping malls; on the contrary, coyotes are naturally adapting to all the places where they can score an easy meal and dig a cozy den away from larger predators. In other words, to a coyote, your manicured “ranchette” is prime real estate, as comfy to them as a Wyoming prairie. Their ability to rely on animals, bugs or plants as a food source, and to thrive in any environment, from the frozen tundra to a festering trash heap, is in many ways enviable.
Here is an ecosystem tip: learn the general rules of encounters with wild animals, but find a way to give the coyotes in our midst their space, too. “No one knows exactly how many coyotes there are on Aquidneck Island, and it would be hard to even guess,” admits Brown, but since like you, they have abundant food sources, he points out that, like you, they are here to stay. In order to make our private properties coyote-proof, many more South American llamas may be here to stay, as well. Bueno, hablamos español?


DON’T SHOOT

What should you do when you repeatedly see a coyote on your property -- or a pack of them, which is likely a pair with 4 to 6 pups and tag-along adolescents? Admire them, but never lose sight of the fact that they have sharp teeth and a killer’s survival instincts. Here are a few coyote rules.

• Do not leave trash or pet food outdoors and stop composting temporarily. Young coyotes may actually become fond of you for providing them with a free lunch every day and fearlessly hang around even more.
• Trim and clean out all shrubs and brush that provide cover for coyotes or for the animals on which they prey.
• For peace of mind, fence your toddler’s play area at least 6 feet high with the bottom edge buried a few inches below ground.
• Get rid of sources of fresh water that are close to your house, for example, birdbaths.
  Reconsider how many birdfeeders you really need and place them far away from your house.
• In a paw-to-paw-to-hand match up with a coyote, you and your pet are likely to be the losers. Personally supervise your outdoor pets and in the event of a bite (out of Fluffy or yourself) get medical attention immediately.
• Inform wildlife officials if the coyotes become habitual beggars or if you feel threatened by their behavior.
  
  
  

GARDENS 2

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INSIDE OUT

by Anita Rafael

How to create an outdoor living room. Our experts share their best advice.

Walls, flooring furniture, fabrics, heating, lighting, appliances and accessories – just about everything that went into planning your living room and kitchen are things you need to take into consideration when restyling your old patio into a new outdoor living area. When it comes to whether or not you really need to build a complete second kitchen outside, that’s up to you. Landscape architect Katherine Field of Katherine Field and Associates, Inc. of Newport says that she considers a dining terrace to be as much of a gathering place as the kitchen indoors. “We are putting in outdoor kitchens complete with Viking ranges and more,” she says.

While some outdoor places lend themselves naturally to the illusion of enclosure – a spot against the back of the house or a patio off the breezeway – property owners often have to think about “framing” their outdoor rooms with plantings that delineate the space.
Tim Brown of T. J. Brown Landscaping, a firm that his family has run since 1901, not only thinks about what his clients need to plant now to erect a “wall” of greenery for an outdoor room, he also thinks about how others will need to care for these trees and shrubs for years to come. The idea of living fences has been used for centuries as enclosures, and he likes creating pleached hedges, in which twig by twig, branches are trained to interweave.
“You see privet used for privacy everywhere in Newport, but I also like beech,” Brown says, “especially where the client needs 30 feet of height or more to block out a bad view.” There are beech hedges around town that Brown knows to be already more than 100 years old. One species he recommends is the salt-tolerant Dawyck purple beech, first discovered in Scotland in the 19th century. Planted in a row, they grow upright into a high, narrow screen.
The way Michael Cavanagh of Michael Cavanagh Landscape Design in Newport sees it, all plantings in a landscape ought to be “ecologically sound” even the select plants you choose to place in and around an outdoor room. For that reason, he prefers to use native plants.
Cavanagh’s motto is “The more plants the better.” However, he also knows that especially in Newport’s colonial neighborhoods, some yards are small. He looks for cultivars that spread slowly and stay compact so that the outdoor living areas he designs will not be overgrown in a season or two. Inkberry holly, one evergreen he particularly likes, is a good choice for borders because it can tolerate cold to minus 15° F. and it can be held to a 5-foot height.

While broad decks and deep porches will always be an indispensable feature of the typical seaside residence, especially where homeowners want to increase their elevation to take advantage of the view, more people are opting for terraces and steps of natural stone.
“People are choosing to use natural products rather than manmade blocks, say of concrete,” says Katherine Field, “because stone is low maintenance and reliably durable.” In her view, natural stone can be used to create a range of dramatic looks in a landscape that concrete simply cannot.
Where once it was left up to the masons to decide which piece of bluestone went where on a stepping-stone path Field’s clients are relying on her artistic talent to make sure that the overall design is precise and cohesive, and that the colors blend well with the other surfaces and materials on the property. Field says. “The paving patterns I am designing for outdoor rooms have more work in them. I am using more patterns within patterns, for example to create a focal point or define a border.”With an architect’s eye for balance she combines plantings, furnishings, paving, fencing and lighting into a single composition, the sum of which is always greater than the parts.

Put this tip high on your need-to-know list before you go furniture shopping: Those old-fashioned picnic tables with their knee-knocking attached benches are out. Wide, medium-height cocktail tables are in.
“People want casual dining tables, but the trend now is lower tables,” says Tom Purvis, manager of the patio store at McKay’s Front Porch in Wickford. “You can several arrange chairs nicely at a 42” or 48” round table, for example, and they’re not so low that people can’t eat comfortably.”
All things teak are always a homeowners best choice for outdoor furniture. Although cedar-built furniture is lighter, and vinyl-resin wicker is more popular than real wicker, he says, there is nothing like the look of silvery-gray weathered teak.
The best news for people who love cushions and pillows on their garden benches is that top designers, like Ralph Lauren Home, are expanding their lines to include outdoor fabrics, too. Customers can choose from a broader range of colors and patterns than were available in the past from companies such as Sunbrella®, the favorite for its UV-ray and rot resistant properties.
As for accessories there is a new trend in the umbrella department, as well. “The big 9-foot garden umbrellas used to come in either dark green or natural white,” says Purvis, “Now, customers are buying bright colors – sunny yellow and sky blue.” Another style tip: Before you buy a traditional center pole umbrella, look at the new offset models, which cantilever over your seating area.

If there is one person who knows how to heat up a chilly evening so that you can sit outside until midnight stargazing with your friends, it is Charlie Medeiros at Ash Aways Island Hearth and Patio in Middletown. He says that people who bought small, freestanding terra-cotta chimineas, became hooked on the pleasure of sitting by the fireside outdoors and they are back again shopping for something bigger.
“This season we have homeowners asking for a single unit where they can cook and build a nice fire later on,” Medeiros says. Once his customers have decided that they do not really need a Volvo-sized grilling station just to char a few shrimp on the “barbie,” he shows them a Nexo outdoor fireplace.
Imported from Mors, Denmark, Nexos are part chimney, part grill and part campfire, all in one. “The stone makes it look custom-built, but it actually comes in three or four sections that a mason mortars together on site,” he explains. It can burn either wood or charcoal. The Cape Cod model is only 31” deep and shaped to snuggle into a tight corner. Unlike a like a ground-level fire pit, the tall 83” stack sends the smoke up high and away from your seating area.

Get the all details right in your personal paradise, put together the right furniture, plants and accessories and who knows – the best room at your house may not even be in the house.

FOOD 2

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A DELICACY WORTH DEBATING

by Anita Rafael

Johnny cakes, jonny cakes, Johnnycakes, jonnycakes, journey cakes, jonikens, Shawnee cakes, hoecakes, hoe cakes, ashcakes, battercakes, corn cakes, Indian slapjacks

No one can agree on what to call them, no one can agree on how to spell or write the name, no one can agree on how to cook them, no one can agree whether to eat them with maple syrup or just butter, and no one can agree on where the recipe came from – which is why for the last three hundred and fifty years or so, Rhode Islanders have been perennially, and proudly, having johnnycake debates. They will probably continue to do so for … well, for eternity. If you counted, you would probably find that there are probably more folks arguing about johnnycake lore and legend than there are people actually eating any. It is time to pick up your forks and let your taste buds cast a ballot for their favorite recipe.

Before you heat the griddle for a batch of johnnycakes, take the mandatory field trip to Gray’s Grist Mill in Adamsville, a small village on the westernmost boundary of Newport County, Rhode Island. It is likely that there has been a mill at this site on the west branch of the Westport River since 1700. Adamsville is quiet, bucolic, and everyone, above all the mallards swimming near the millpond dam, seems to like it that way.
The most industrious person in the village is without a doubt the affable miller. Thornton Owen Simmons hefts 50-pound sacks of corn kernels to pour the “grist” into a wooden hopper. Next, he shakes the "damsel," a vertical rod used to coax the kernels downward through the "shoe.” Grinding at a tranquil pace, it takes about an hour to turn three bushels of hard, dry kernels into a soft, silky meal. Simmons uses only Rhode Island-grown whitecap flint corn in accordance with the edict issued by the Society for the Propagation of the Jonnycake (their version has no h) Tradition in Rhode Island. The lamentably disbanded association decreed that a true johnnycake is made with this obsolete strain of eight-row Indian maize only. Gray’s Grist Mill is supplied with flint corn grown by a farmer in Exeter, Rhode Island, who ships it “shelled,” meaning husked and removed from the cob.
Working to the rotating rhythm of the 15-inch thick, 1½-ton granite millstones, Simmons says, “You can hear the sound of the water rushing through the sluiceway when I open the gate. This was built as a water-powered mill, but now we have a silent electric motor turning the stones.” The miller distributes Gray’s cornmeal by mail order directly to customers in towns and cities throughout the country, including Fairbanks, Alaska. He even has celebrity patrons. The late Julia Child was a fan of Gray’s and one of the miller’s treasured possessions is a letter that America’s chef-extraordinaire wrote praising their “Rhode Island polenta.”
Once you have a sack of historically accurate cornmeal, which in colonial-era cookbooks is called Indian meal, you are half way to johnnycake heaven.

Cook's Tip Traditionally milled corn contains none of the preservatives found in store bought grains, so keep it refrigerated to preserve freshness.

Here comes the real challenge: Deciding which johnnycake recipe you like and making up your mind how to serve them. At Bishop’s 4th Diner in Newport, johnnycakes are a staple on the menu. Owners Steve and Nancy Bishop estimate that the kitchen goes through a 50-pound sack of Kenyon’s Johnnycake Mix in about three weeks. Kenyon’s mix is made in an historic 19th century mill in Usquepaugh, Rhode Island and, for the record, contains corn from local and out-of-state farms.
“I add one egg per gallon of batter, and use the ingredients Kenyon’s suggests … a pinch of salt, a little sugar, hot water,” says Bishop. “The trick is use butter on the griddle or pan, and make sure it’s hot. Hot so the edges brown just a little bit.” Bishop’s commercial-grade grill is a sizzling 400o and, like the diner itself, the thin johnnycakes are classic. A serving of three 6-inch round johnnycakes is topped with a pat of butter. Nancy Bishop says, “I think whether or not to eat them with maple syrup is more of a generation thing. I always bring a pitcher of syrup to the table … just in case … and it’s always the old-timers who glare at me and tell me to take it away.”
Like everyone in the state, miller Simmons has his unique take on the recipe. He fries the cakes in a bit of corn oil, and is not fussy about which kind of pan or griddle he uses as long as it is hot. “We have a great piece of documentary film here that shows John Hart, the old miller who worked here most of his life. He is seen cooking up a batch of johnnycakes on a cook stove using a little aluminum non-stick pan and an ordinary plastic spatula.” Obviously, for Hart the secret to great taste was his flaky-textured, chemical-free cornmeal not the cookware.
Johnnycake purists might want to skip this part: Simmons, who is as Yankee as they come with family ties to American soil since 1621, not only eats his johnnycakes with maple syrup, he also sells Rhode Island Grade A maple syrup at the mill store to go with his “neither thick or thin” version of the batter.
So, whose cornmeal tastes best? Whose johnnycakes are authentic? In 1939, the Rhode Island Federation of Women’s Clubs came up with a brilliant plan to solve the recipe controversy once and for all. According to Early American Society author Carol McCabe, the ladies held a johnnycake contest. More than one thousand entries were submitted. Result? Gee, take a wild guess.

You can visit the interpretive exhibits at the mill and buy cornmeal and specialty pancake mixes Tuesdays through Sundays from noon to 4 p.m., June through December. Most weekend afternoons, you can see the mill in operation. Less than a century ago, you might have bartered farm produce or factory-made goods with the miller for your cornmeal. Not anymore -- bring $4.99 for a one pound sack. Gray's Grist Mill, 638 Adamsville Road, Adamsville, on the Massachusetts-Rhode Island state line.

While many miller may scoff, some members of the old school insist that the best johnnycakes are made with cornmeal that has been stone-milled – because they say there is a certain flavor that comes from the infinitesimal amounts of pulverized granite incorporated into the meal during the grinding process. Then, there are those who maintain that the cornfield has to be located a minimal distance from the ocean -- because there is a nuance of sea salt in every kernel that they say comes from the soil and the atmosphere.

In the 1999 paperback book Wind Grist Mills and Jonnycakes, Bill, one of the voices in the narrative explains why you shouldn’t worry about wearing down your teeth from eating stone ground cornmeal, “Any little chips that might pop off the [mill] stones are sifted out before they get to the bag and the granite dust that does get in is inconsequential. I’ve probably eaten a hundred times more sand and dirt from spinach and lettuce than from jonnycakes and corn muffins.” Mrs. Peabody, another one of the voices in the narrative tells how often she ate johnnycakes, “We had them at least once a day, and many times, twice a day. They were a substitute for bread really. They were served in place of potatoes, too. Johnnycakes with creamed tuna or chipped beef are especially good.”-- -- by Robert Sisson Chase, raised on a farm in Middletown, RI

RECIPES (first 4 from Gray’s)

THIN johnnycakes
Take quantity of corn meal required. Add a little salt. Wet with milk, thin it down with cold milk. Fry on a hot griddle.

THICK johnnycakes
Take quantity of corn meal required. Add a little salt. Scald with boiling water to make a stiff batter. Add a small amount of milk. Fry on a hot griddle.

Neither Thick Nor Thin -- The Miller’s Recipe
1 cup stone ground white cornmeal
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons sugar
1 cup boiling water
4 tablespoons to ½ cup milk

Mix the three dry
ingredients in a bowl. Add boiling water. To thin batter, stir in milk one
tablespoon at a time. Drop by the tablespoonful into a well-greased and hot (375o) griddle. Cook on each side until golden brown.

Newport County Style Johnnycakes
1 cup johnnycake meal ½ teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon sugar 1 cup milk 1 cup water
Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl. Add the milk and water, and mix thoroughly. Grease a large skillet with butter, margarine, or bacon fat, and place over moderate heat. Pour a few tablespoons of batter into the skillet to form a cake 2 to 3 inches wide. Fry until the edges of the johnnycakes are brown, then flip. Keep the batter thin, adding more milk as necessary. Serve with lots of butter and maple syrup.

From The First American Cookbook, 1796, by Amelia Simmons
Indian Slapjack
One quart of milk, one pint of Indian meal, 4 eggs, 4 fpoons of flour, little falt, beat together, baked in griddles, or fry in a dry pan, or which has been rub’d with fuet, lard or butter.

HISTORIC SITE 2

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WALL TO WALL WILBORS

by Anita Rafael

What does one farmhouse times four centuries divided by seven generations of Wilbors equal? What else, but a fascinating architectural equation.


By the wayside of what was once an ancient trail in Little Compton, Rhode Island there is a three hundred year old house that was, without a whisker of Yankee doubt, built to last. Last it has -- lived in, added onto, divided in half, updated with brick hearths, fine wallpaper and fancy woodwork, and finally, sold off by the one family that owned it for seven generations, every window, door, wall, floor and ceiling is the architectural record of the lifestyle of America’s hardworking farmers. It is considered to be the best-preserved early building in town, and after five decades of ongoing restoration to make it into a museum, the Little Compton Historical Society is in the process of listing the Wilbor House at 548 West Main Road on the National Register of Historic Places.
Samuel Wilbor (also spelled Wilbore, Wilbour, Wilber and Wilbur just to confound historians) built his timber frame home around 1690. He had purchased land that had been bought from the Sakonnet tribe about 17 years earlier by the town’s proprietors. Legally, he and his few fellow settlers were homesteaders in the hinterlands of Plymouth colony because Little Compton would not be officially incorporated as Rhode Island territory for another 56 years.
Samuel’s plain and simple dwelling, typical of most 17th century vernacular structures along the New England seaboard, consisted of two rooms each with a fireplace: The rooms, more or less square, were one above the other, with a steep staircase and a low attic. He and his few other neighbors throughout the “Sagonate land,” as it was known in Samuel’s day, angled their residences so that the front doors faced southward, taking advantage of the warming sunshine.
By 1712, Samuel’s wife Mary had given birth to eleven Wilbors in this house. Defying all odds, every one of her second-generation American-born babies lived to adulthood. The Historical Society believes that a rustic backroom along the north side, called the long kitchen, was added in the early years for obvious reasons – growing Wilbors. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, the women who lived there bore ten or more children. The space-saving press bed, a fold-up rope bed that the couple slept in on display in the lower great room, is a reminder that in such a tiny house, no room was reserved for a single person or purpose. Moreover, since it was a 122-acre working farm, there may have been a hired field hand or two and, perhaps, a country girl helping with infants and women’s work – all joining the family for meals and all sleeping under the same roof.
By the mid-1800s, the house was still owned and occupied by Wilbors – two sixth generation brothers named Oliver and William. Their sister, Deborah, lived there, too. Both brothers married, but rather than tossing a coin to determine who took his bride and left and who stayed put on the nearly 200-year old family farm, they each occupied half of it. To accommodate their spouses, as well as their sister, the brothers each built a separate kitchen addition. These were the last rooms added to the house, but not the last interior alterations.
It seems peculiar that after many generations in which there were bountiful babies, both couples and the sister were childless. Oliver was the last blood relative of Samuel Wilbor’s to live in the house. When Oliver’s widow Abby Manchester Wilbor died, ownership passed to nieces and nephews living elsewhere. The heirs sold the property out of the family for the first and last time in the 1920s, leaving the Wilbors who had been born there, lived and worked there and who eventually died there to rest in peace in the family graveyard beyond the old barn.
The place was a dairy farm for the next 30 years, but Manuel DeAlmo, the owner and dairyman, never lived on site. He divided the residence into multiple apartments, used by as many as six families, at times, until about 1950. When the Little Compton Historical Society acquired the by then-forlorn Wilbor House five years later, the restorers revealed that there was still no indoor plumbing. DeAlmo’s tenants had, like the Wilbors for nearly three hundred years before them, been using outhouses. (Six of them, in fact, but fear not – if you have to go when you go there, there are now modern facilities.)
Unlike Route 77, which is a fairly direct route, passing by the Wilbor House on down to Sakonnet Point, the restoration of an old house is a winding path, wrought with hidden twists and tortuous turns. During the continuing work on the building, the Historical Society has come to expect puzzles about where original doors and windows might have been and the members look forward to discussing the many clues discovered in every partition and panel. Half a century later, they are still quite delighted to uncover more secrets about the structure and forgotten tales about the family. While it is obvious that big changes occurred in this house, thanks to the old-fashioned frugality and the make-do way of life of Wilbor after Wilbor, there seems to have been little progress after all.
For the visitors who listen to the docents’ thoughtful interpretations of this house-museum and who study the hundreds of artifacts on display in the seven rooms open to the public, the surprise is that time has, in fact, stood still at least once every century at this scenic, quiet farm.

The Little Compton Historical Society, PO Box 577 Little Compton, RI. The Wilbur House Museum, 548 West Main Road, is open Thursday through Monday, June through September, or by appointment Visitors may tour the entire house, plus several of the outbuildings, the corncrib, a historic outhouse, and the 2-acre grounds. These are some of the things you will learn about the house and family.

The Little Compton Garden Club has been tending the herb garden at the Wilbor House for more than 40 years. Club members cultivate a variety of common herbs that were grown in Colonial times, some of which were used for cooking and others for home remedies. A garden at the north end of the house is dedicated to Dorothy Paine Brayton, the nearby neighbor who donated the funding for the Historical Society to purchase the Wilbor House.

The hand-hewn timbers are the most eye-catching feature of the oldest rooms of the Wilbor House – note the exposed corner posts and the large overhead beam, called the summer. The unplastered ceiling would have been typical of the late 1600s, as well as the stone – not brick – fireplace and chimney. The lower great room was used by Samuel and Mary Wilbor and their 11 children for just about every activity: cooking, eating, sewing, entertaining, washing, giving birth and sleeping. The seven daughters probably played together and slept close to the hearth on cold nights in the upper great room, as it was called, on the second floor, while every evening, the older boys may have climbed up to the attic above where there was no fireplace for warmth.

Samuel’s son William Wilbor added a living room, or parlor, about 1740 on the southwest side of the first floor of the house. It has many gentrified details, such as cased beams, larger windows, painted moldings and floors and a brick hearth. All of the furnishings in the house-museum, some owned by the Society and some on extended loan from area families, have a Little Compton connection. The split banister back chairs by an unknown maker have finials and crests in a style seen here and nowhere else.

The crewel embroidery (preserved on new backing) on the bed hangings in the west bedroom was the status symbol of the 18th century chamber. Such well-appointed bedrooms were often used for entertaining guests, say, for tea or supper. The refined colors on the woodwork and floor replicate the original paint, found under many layers of other colors during restoration at the Wilbor House.

In the 1860s, Oliver Wilbor built a new Victorian kitchen on the north side of the house, and his brother William who lived in the other half of the house, built a matching one on the easterly end. (William’s kitchen later became the Historical Society’s reception room and office.) Being fellows well-accustomed to country ways, neither brother ever saw the need to install modern plumbing, however they did pamper their wives with the conveniences of iron cook stoves, iron sinks with
hand pumps, oil lamps, and ice boxes.

FOOD 1

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SUMMER EQUALS PIE EQUALS SUMMER

by Anita Rafael

You could say that pie made of fruit fresh from local orchards and farms is summer, and no one would argue with you, either, if you said that pie is an American birthright: The pursuit of happiness and pie.


It can’t be a backyard picnic in June without a strawberry pie. It can’t be 4th of July without a sour-cherry pie or a blueberry pie. It can’t be a supper by the lake in August without a blackberry pie. As American as apple pie – there it is.
How the classic fruit-filled pie came to be somehow completely ours, even though ancient Egyptian recipes for pie-like pastries are the earliest known, is a matter of serious conversation among the founders and members of The American Pie Council. (Yes, there really is such an organization and its oh-so-worthy mission seems to be more pie for everyone.) The group says it is “committed to preserving America's pie heritage and promoting American's love affair with pies.” The annual National Pie Championships, where of amateur, professional and commercial pie bakers compete for the best pie prize, is their Kentucky Derby, and their quarterly newsletter, Pie Times, is well… good enough to eat.

When is National Pie Day? Mark your date books now for National Pie Day– it is January 23rd, registered by The American Pie Council. Their top tips for celebrating pie day are to first, make pies and eat them, and second, give other people pie.

No one appreciated the notion that a homemade pie is might indeed be more than a mere dessert than the legendary humorist and author Mark Twain. During an extended stay in Europe in 1878, he wrote A Tramp Abroad, a book about his adventures. In it, he mulled over what he missed about home, too, and he even compiled a menu of all the foods he wanted hot, ready and waiting on the table for him the moment he set foot back on U.S. soil. On the mouthwatering list is not one, but five of the pies he missed most. Twain evidently had a serious craving for homemade pie – “Apple pie … Peach pie. American mince pie. Pumpkin pie. Squash pie.”

A Vermont housewife, itemizing her baking for the year 1877, counted that she had made 421 pies for her family. In fact, old-timers in northern New England calculated that a pie a day per person was just about the right amount of pie to keep a hard-working family happy.

For some cooks, each pie is a solemn tribute to mothers everywhere, and to them, a homemade pie is an expression of pure love. “I remember my mother’s pies,” says Paul Bergeron of Sakonnet River Pie. “and when she served them, she would take out the first piece and look underneath to be sure the bottom crust was not soggy. It was always perfect.” His mother’s pies, made with a simple, flaky pastry, inspired his recipes when he began his Little Compton pie-making business three years ago. It all started when, one weekend in July, he set seven fresh pies out on the low stone wall where Swamp Road meets the road to Sakonnet Point.
“He put the pies under wire-mesh pie-domes, and left a cash box next to a small black and white sign with the price.* In an hour, the pies were gone and the cash box, all on the honor system, was full,” says Chuck Hamlin, the marketing director of Sakonnet River Pie. The following day, Bergeron set more warm, fresh blueberry pies out on the wall, and in the blink of an eye, those were picked up by more drive-by customers. The next weekend, someone who had apparently become instantaneously addicted to Bergeron’s pie, left a slip of paper inside the cash box asking for “one berry pie (the best in the world!) for tomorrow.” Hamlin, who has preserved the hand-written note says, “It was our first order and first consumer testimonial.” To make it all legitimate, Sakonnet River Pie was launched.

Last year, Bergeron and Hamlin rehabilitated a small outbuilding on the property into a state-inspected commercial kitchen for Sakonnet River Pie. More like a petit temple to pie-baking, the compact, and highly efficient “cook-house” designed by Rumford architect Stephen Greenleaf, evokes Little Compton’s coastal farm character.
Bergeron says he grew up on pie, rather than on rich, decadent cakes, so he understood that there had to be a difference between the common pie, and what he wanted a Sakonnet River Pie to be. Here is where he advises pie-lovers to take notes. Raising the bar to its highest point of perfection, Bergeron shuns those throw-away aluminum foil pans. All his pies are baked and sold to customers in thick, oven-proof pie plates. The traditional glass plate makes the pies “real” and customers cheerfully redeem their empties for a credit towards their next purchase or for cash.
Secondly, the fruit he uses is native and unconditionally fresh. Every pie-person knows that the flavor is in the freshness, and Bergeron is one of the regulars at Middletown’s Sweet Berry Farm, at Richard Hart’s in Tiverton and at Old Stone Orchard in Little Compton.
Finally, Bergeron has made an art form of the lattice design for the upper crust. “See?” he says, “It’s not just strips going across one way and then the other way, it’s actually woven, over and under.” If Sakonnet River Pies could have his signature, that would be it, and it is a voluptuous one at that. **
Like most enthusiastic chefs, Bergeron, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, willingly shares his best blue-ribbon secret. After washing the fruit gently, he tosses it lightly with the sugar and spices his recipe calls for, and lets it macerate for 10 minutes. Next, he drains the liquid, heats it to a boil, and then allows it to cool. When he fills the pie crust, he adds the fruit, then pours just the right amount of the cooled fruit syrup over the fruit, and finally, dots it all with butter before adding the top crust.
“Never cook the fruit first,” Bergeron says. To which the hungry and homesick Mark Twain might have added, “…and bring a pie with you wherever you go.”

Pie crust, like most simple pastry, is made of flour, fat, and water. However, pie crust wasn’t always meant to be edible. Sometimes it was just used as a “lid” for the cooking pan. Medieval cooking texts typically explain how to lay the fruit (or meat for a savory pie) in a "coffin,” a long narrow baking dish, and cover it with a thick crust, vented a little with some holes to let the steam escape. Baked in or near open flames and ash, the crust became blackened, dry and hard, so it was lifted off the “pye” and thrown away.