I hope someone will see this and as a result go to Coggeshall Farm's Harvest Fair Sunday the 21st. The 2008 fair is the farm's 35th, and what fun the kids were having this afternoon (the 20th). There are hayrides, crafts, and period games, including a tug of war, greased pole climbing, and Jacob's ladder, which you have to go see. 
With the splendid weather we are having, the farm's location, Poppasquash Point, right next to Bristol's Colt State Park, is in its glory. Coggeshall Farm has 40 acres that have been cultivated for centuries, first by Native Americans, and since the late 17th century, by Europeans. The farmhouse dates to about 1790 and is surrounded by unspoiled woods and fields, with barns, a springhouse,
blacksmith shop, orchard, and farm a
nimals. Coggeshall Farm is one of
the working farms in Rhode Island where visitors get a sense of what life was like two or more centuries ago. It puts in perspective our hurried, superficial "lifestyles" when we see how hard and time consuming it would be to live without electricity and the mass-produced goods that we take for granted. 
If you can't make the Harvest Fair, the Farm has some other events coming up. You could see the film, Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?, on Saturday the 26th instead of the presidential debate, and there is a pumpkin sale on October 18th along with making cider. The farm is open, usually 10am to 4pm (it closes later from March through September), and volunteers demonstrate how to use colonial farm equipment, looms, spinning wheels, and the other domestic tools necessary in colonial period homes.
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