Grassmere Historic Farm and Croft House

07/31/2026

It's our favorite time of the summer! The Naked Ladies are popping up in the garden and around the farm! 😳🤭
Also known as Surprise Lilies or Resurrection Lilies, these lovely ladies are not true Lilies, but members of the Amaryllis family. They have a lovely scent and attract all the pollinators, including the hummingbirds we've been seeing at the farm. We love our Naked Ladies!

07/19/2026

It's National Zookeeper Week!! And Nashville AAZK is kicking off the week by highlighting our fabulous Contact Keepers! These are the wonderful folks who care for all of the critters in the barn, from the goats and donkeys, to Stormy the mini horse, and all the cattle, including our delightful Highlands! Be sure to THANK a zookeeper this week when you see them out and about. They're our unsung heroes!
THANKS FOR ALL YOU DO!!

🦘Z O O K E E P E R 🐄 W E E K 🦙

We are celebrating our zookeepers for National Zookeeper Week!

Mooooove over, it's our Contact Areas team! These fine folks care for our kangaroo, goat yard, and our historic barn animals! They are also very involved in our Pollinator team, which works to educate and preserve our pollinators!

Thanks for all Roo do Contact Team!

07/17/2026

This week, Minton Monument Cleaning & Preservation was out to repair the headstones in our family cemetery (est. 1827) that were damaged by a tree earlier this spring. The tree was damaged by the unprecedented ice storm that hit Nashville in January, and before we could take it down completely, we experienced a wind storm that brought down a remaining large branch.

4 stones were damaged, along with a section of the dry stack stone wall. We were extremely fortunate the damage wasn't worse, and the stones could be repaired! We cannot thank Terry Minton enough for his care and his expertise in putting the pieces back together. We have put together a series of before and after photos of each of the stones and the work done to repair them.

1. Headstone of Margaret Croft
2. Headstone of Samuel Lyon
3. Headstone of Lavinia Hilliard Shute
4. Box tomb of John Rains Dunn

Thank you again Terry for your amazing work!

07/15/2026

Thanks to our friends and partners at the Metro Nashville Historical Commission, Dr. Adam Fracchia, and all the students and volunteers for a great project! We can't wait for the final report on all the findings.
Did you stop by and see the field school while it was happening? What did you see or learn? We'd love to hear all about it!

07/10/2026

Our field school wrapped up on Wednesday. It's been a hot, humid, grueling two and a half weeks of hard work, but the results have been everything we had hoped they would be.
This week, Dr. Fracchia and the students finished mapping and plotting the four dig sites. Within those sites, they found 3 foundational walls, what is thought to be a root cellar, and also what is believed to be the base of the fireplace and hearth. More artifacts found lead to the theory of the site being the kitchen, but also point to what was common for the time; once the area was done with its original intended use, it became a dump site for unwanted or unusable items, like broken dishes and trash. It's a perfect time capsule of the early to mid 1800s.

Dr. Fracchia and the students will begin cataloging and identifying all of the artifacts found. They will also create a map of the site, including the dimensions and locations of the walls. We look forward to that report in the future, and will share their findings once they become available.

We cannot possibly thank Dr. Fracchia and all of the volunteers who spent countless hours working on this project, enough. It's all been filled in, and looks like nothing every happened!

07/04/2026

Week 2 of our field school was brutal! But the students and volunteers that powered through the heat of the week made great strides! We found foundational walls of 3 sides of the structure, a root cellar space, many more artifacts including knives, and introduced more zoo summer campers and guests to Archaeology. We had a great presentation by Dr. Tiffany Fracchia, Forensic Anthropologist, on the differences between human and animal bones. And a ground penetrating radar demo by Dr. Natalie Robbins from Vanderbilt Institute for Spatial Research. It was a good week!
We plan to continue thru Wednesday July 8, when we'll wrap up the digging and reset the site. Mapping, lab work and artifact cataloging will be the next steps in the project.
We hope you can stop by and check out this important work before it ends!

07/01/2026

Week 2 of our archaeology field school started out strong, despite the heat 🥵We continue to find artifacts indicating this structure most likely was used as a kitchen, including multiple animal bones and teeth, coal, areas of the soil containing ash, broken dishware and glass, and an amazing find today....a primitive fork! We have also located what we believe are external walls of the structure in two of our test units.

Due to the heat, we've not been working as much as originally planned, so we will continue the field school into next week, through Wednesday July 8. There's still plenty of time to stop by and ask the archaeologists all your questions about the work being done. We hope to see you!

06/28/2026

Week 1 of our archaeology field school wrapped up on Friday with some great work done, and interesting finds. We've exposed a lot of rockwork, believed to be parts of the foundation, and possibly more. We've also found some interesting artifacts, including a pig molar, nails, prehistoric flint, and a gold covered button! Our zoo campers got to get a good look at the work being done, and a great introduction to archaeology.
Work will continue all next week starting Monday. Who knows what else we'll discover! Come by and see for yourself!
(Photos by Zev, Maxwell, Anne and Adam)