Farm & Forest Book Club At Billings Farm & Museum & The Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park
For those who love to devour a good book, or curl up in a favorite nook, readers ages 14 plus are welcome to join the Farm & Forest Book Club beginning in August. Book lovers will find a welcoming atmosphere in which to gather and discuss texts. This book club, launched through a collaboration between Billings Farm & Museum and the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park, will focus on agriculture, land stewardship, and the notion of what makes a place a place.
My Garden (Book) by Jamaica Kincaid, Wednesday, August 3, 5:30-7PM
It’s time to start reading! Discussion about the first book, My Garden (Book), by Vermont author Jamaica Kincaid, will take place on Wednesday, August 3, 5:30PM- 7PM.
Through the realm of gardening, Kincaid writes about her history, family, and her childhood in Antigua. She gathers all she loves about gardening and plants and examines it generously, passionately, and with sharp, idiosyncratic discrimination. Kincaid’s affections are matched in intensity only by her dislikes. She loves spring and summer but cannot bring herself to love winter, for it hides the garden. My Garden (Book) is an intimate, playful, and penetrating book on gardens, the plants that fill them, and the people who tend them.
The book club will meet in the beautiful Billings Farmstead Gardens at Billings Farm & Museum. Light refreshments will be served including Billings Farm Butter, Smoked and Woodstock Reserve cheddar cheeses, crackers, and herbal tea. Participants can tour the five distinct gardens and sample freshly harvested produce.
Reading the Forested Landscape by Tom Wessels, Wednesday, September 7, 5:30PM -7PM
September is the time to turn the pages and reimagine a walk in the woods with “Reading the Forested Landscape” by Tom Wessels. On Wednesday, September 7, 5:30PM -7PM, the second installment of Farm & Forest Book Club discussion will be led by Park Rangers at the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park Forest Center.
Landscape is much more than scenery to be observed or terrain to be traveled. The natural world is etched with the history of storms, fires, and the way people inhabit the land. In this fascinating, many-layered book, Wessels articulates how to read and solve the mysteries of the landscape. He takes readers on an inquisitive exploration into stone walls in the middle of the forest, the unique smooth bark of beech and birch in a woodland of rough bark, and asks why pines dominate one patch of forest and maples another, and what happened to the American chestnut?
Light refreshments will be served including Billings Farm cheeses, crackers, and herbal tea.
Parking for Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park is located at Billings Farm & Museum, 69 Old River Road, Woodstock, VT 05091. After parking, participants walk towards the Billings Farm & Museum and take the concrete path to the right of the Visitor Center. Walk up the path, cross Elm St using the cross walk, and take the right fork in the road to walk up a short, steep hill towards the Forest Center. Limited accessible parking is available directly outside the Forest Center.
Additional Farm & Forest Book Club meetings will take place on November 9 and January 11. For ages 14+. Advance registration suggested. Walk-ins are welcome. Each session is $5/person. billingsfarm.org/farm-forest-book-club/
