Special Event on the Farm
Fall Chores Help the Colonial farm family prepare for winter with 18th century fall chores. Clear brush from the fields. Stack wood for the coming winter. Help repair old fencing. Or participate in other colonial farm tasks, critical for the coming winter season. The Colonial farm family welcomes all extra hands. Great event for families and small groups. Comfortable clothing and work gloves recommended. For the current year's event schedule, please see our calendar of events. Events may be cancelled due to weather conditions.

Information about Fall Chores

Fences
Pitch
Planting
Other Chores

Fences

What types of fencing do we have on the Farm?
We have two types of fences; Split rail (also called panel or “worm” fences) and wattle or “withie” fences.

How do you build a split rail or “worm” fence?
Rails are split from larger logs using a mallet and wedge. The wedge is pounded into the end of the log. As the log splits, more wedges are pounded into the split until the log is split in half. Depending on the size of the log, the process is then repeated until as many rails as possible have been split from the log. Rails should be between four and eight inches thick and eleven feet long.
Rails are laid down in a pattern best suited to enclosing the area they are to enclose. Stones are placed beneath the bottom rails at the corners of each angle to prevent the rails from rotting too quickly. Rails are then lain one on top of the other until the desired height is reached. The angle at which they are laid should be about 120 degrees. Wider angles would be less stable and narrower angles would require more rails.
Once the fence has reached the desired height, it is then “staked”. Shorter rails are placed upright in the corners of the angles, one on each side of the fence, to help give support. These stakes are set into the ground using a hoe and/or a mallet to prevent them from sliding. Finally, one or two more rails called “riders” are place on top of the stakes.
How tall should a split rail or “worm” fence be?
18th Century Virginia law required all split rail or “worm” fences to be at least five feet high and the rails to be close enough together that livestock could not climb through. If your crops were damaged by a neighbors livestock, the law only required them to pay for the damage if you had a lawful fence.
Most farmers built fences between eight and eleven rails high.

Why build fences?
Farmers in the 18th Century built fences to keep livestock and other animals out of their fields, not to contain animals in a certain area. Most all farmers would allow their hogs, cattle and other livestock to roam freely on their farms to find food. The fences they built were to keep them out of their crops.

What types of wood are our fences made from?
Our split rail fences are from locust, chestnut, oak and cedar wood.

How are wattle fences made?
Wattle fences are made by driving stakes into the ground and weaving vines and small branches (called “withies”) between them.

Pitch

What is pitch?
Pitch is an oily, sticky substance used to seal and waterproof wood and other substances.

Where does pitch come from?
Most likely, the farm family would buy pitch from a merchant in Alexandria.

Pitch comes from the sap of pine and fir trees. It is obtained splitting the logs of those trees into small “billets” and placing them in kilns or furnaces made especially for the purpose of extracting the tar. The kiln or furnace is heated and the tar “oozes” from the billets and runs off into a collection area. The smoke from the process gives the tar its dark color. The tar is then slowly boiled to consume more of its moisture and become pitch.

What do we use pitch for?
On the farm, we use pitch to seal and waterproof the clapboards on the house and on the bird coops.

Planting

Fall is the time for planting the wheat and rye fields. The seed is sown and begins coming up in the fall, dies back in the winter and begins to grow again in the spring.

How is wheat and rye planted?
There are two ways of planting wheat and rye: Broadcasting and “Clump Sowing”

Broadcasting consists of tossing handfuls of the seed into the field, spreading the seed as evenly as possible over a large area.

Clump Sowing consists of dropping smaller handfuls of seed in small “clumps”, rather close together.

Both of these techniques were used commonly in the 18th Century. Usually a field would be broadcast planted and then “clump” planted. Broadcast planting allows seed to be spread over a larger area, but leaves much more space in the field for weeds to come up between the wheat or rye plants. “Clump” planting keeps the desired plants in a relatively close area and allows for easier harvesting.

Tool Maintenance and Other Household Chores

These other tasks include cleaning and oiling many of the farms tools for storage during the winter months, making sure that the gap between the ground and the first log of the house is filled with rocks to keep wind and mice out, gathering brush and kindling wood for fires, and other assorted tasks.