Carl Sandburg's House and Goat Farm

We spent the morning at Connemara, Carl Sandburg's House and Goat Farm.

The drive in is lovely.

 The house could use some whitewash.  We asked our ranger if she was affected by the sequester.  She has lost her weekends and will have to take 20 unpaid days this year.  Perhaps the upkeep money is reduced, too.

Carl enjoyed sitting on the porch and playing his guitar.   This is the view.

The kitchen looks like anyone's from the 50s and 60s.

There is a mixmaster on the table near the Crisco.

The cone shape on the tray is the packaging for the goat milk.

The stove has the same deep well we had when I was a child.

This is Sandburg's office.

His filing system included cardboard boxes from the grocery store.

When Sandburg died, his wife, Lillian, arranged for the Park Service to buy the house for about half its value.

She packed up her clothes and a few bits of furnishings and left everything else.

There are even partially smoked cigars in the ashtrays.

The front parlor has magazines and there are books in all the rooms.

In this room there is a life mask of Sandburg and a mask of Lincoln.

This room still has the iron and ironing board set up and a vacuum cleaner on the floor.

One of the rooms has a bedspread I think matched the one on my brother's bed.

Lillian thought that goats could feed the world.  She bred for milk production, with one goat producing almost 5000 pounds of milk in 10 months. 

If I am calculating correctly, that's averaging around 2 gallons a day.  A lot for a goat, I would think.

This is Lillian's office.

After touring the house (on a tour conducted by a ranger), you can visit the goats.