A cool event: Ice harvesting at Kline Creek Farm

Some cut a hole in it and fish through it, some skate on it, some use it to serve drinks "on the rocks," others salt it in the hopes it will melt away.

Ice has a mixed-bag of a reputation, but back in the days before modern refrigeration units were available, it was seen in its most positive light as a way to preserve food.

So when Old Man Winter produced a prodigious amount of the stuff back in the 19th century, people would collect it and store it, much like vegetable or grain crops.

"It was very common in the 1800s - people would go out and harvest ice in the wintertime," said Chris Gingrich, a heritage interpreter at Kline Creek Farm in Winfield.

Ice was essential, he said, for family food supplies and for getting milk safely from dairy farms to consumers.

Ice blocks would keep food chilled in the kitchen icebox, Gingrich said. They would also be placed in water-filled basins where cans of just-produced cows' milk would be kept until it was time to take the milk to market or to a creamery for pasteurization, bottling and cheese or butter-making.

Roughly 12 tons of ice will be extracted, block by frosty block, from Timber Lake, south of Kline Creek Farm, over the course of four January days beginning next week.

Visitors at the living history, working farm, where life in the 1800s is re-created year-round, will see farm staff and volunteers harvest ice - and they'll have a chance to try it themselves.

Gingrich said blocks that weigh from 70 to 100 pounds each will be cut from the lake, provided the water is frozen, using 1800s-era hand saws.

The ice blocks are pulled up a ramp and hoisted onto a horse-drawn wagon using a pulley, he said.

Then it's carted across the grounds.

"Just behind our farm house is our ice house," he said. "The foundation is dug down into the ground."

The ice is placed in tubs and covered in straw to slow melting. It works well.

"What we harvested in January, we still had ice in September," he said, adding that that's with only half the ice house filled.

"If we had filled our ice house to capacity," he said, the supply would likely last all year, summer heat and humidity notwithstanding.

"You do lose some from melting," he said, but the combination of below-ground storage, shade and a light- and a heat-reflecting white coat of paint on the ice house minimizes melting.

Gingrich said the ice from Timber Lake will be harvested no matter what the weather, unless temperatures dip dangerously low.

"Because you're moving so much and cutting the ice, it does keep you warm," he said. "The colder it is, the better it is for ice harvesting."

<p class="factboxheadblack">Ice harvesting</p> <p class="News"><b>Where:</b> Kline Creek Farm, County Farm Road, one mile south of North Avenue, Winfield</p> <p class="News"><b>When:</b> 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. Jan. 22, 24, 25 and 29</p> <p class="News"><b>Cost: </b>Free</p> <p class="News"><b>Info: </b>(630) 876-5900 or <a href="http://www.dupageforest.com" target="new">www.dupageforest.com</a></p>