Category: Vermont

Vermont seems to be one beautiful green pasture and hilly landscape after another. This was certainly true when we visited the Billings Farm and Museum near the lovely town of Woodstock. This is a fully operating historic farm that features over 70 Jersey cows, a herd of sheep, draft horses, pigs and chickens. The farm grows most of the animal food needed. This is a place you can spend a half a day or more visiting the animals, taking a tour of the vegetable gardens, seeing the exhibits in the farm museum and touring the 1890 house where the farm manager and his family lived.

The Belgian draft horses were a delight to see. They work around the farm pulling wagons, farm equipment and sleighs carrying visitors in the winter. How fun it would be to take a sleigh ride around the farm!

Inside the dairy barn you can see where the cows are milked and visit the tiny calves. Using milk from the cows the farm makes cheddar cheese which is sold in the onsite farm and gift store (at a pretty price).

The museum exhibits were in four original barns and were interesting as well. We were able to see equipment and learn about the typical activities on a Vermont farm from 100 years ago. It was a fun day stepping back in time and seeing an old fashioned farm. Plus the ice cream they sell there was delicious!

It is hard to come to Vermont and not visit a maple syrup farm. I love real maple syrup, one of the best things to come from a tree in my opinion – well at least the sap does. We visited the Sugarbush Farm which began in 1945 and reports producing syrup from 8000 maple trees. The farm is still in the same family and is located in a lovely foothill woodsy setting. They have a house that is a cheese and syrup tasting room as well as a gift shop. Although they don’t produce their own cheese, they buy cheese from another farm, dip it in a coating wax and finish the packaging. We headed for the samples first and were helped by a young man in a rather dismal and unkept looking room where the cheese packaging is also done. No packaging was being completed when we visited, but there were remains of red wax on the walls and floor. This was probably the least appealing maple syrup and cheese shop I have visited in our travels.

The tasting room and gift shop might have been a bit of a disappointment, but the walk in the woods to see the maple trees and learn how the sap is gathered was interesting and informative. They even kindly provide mosquito repellant at the edge of the woods – the first time I have seen a business do this. Mark hates mosquitos, or even the thought of them and did not venture far.

Walking the trail through the maple forest there were signs periodically explaining the process of tapping the trees and how the lines are put in. Trees used to be tapped with buckets, but now plastic lines are a more efficient process. In the photo below, a hole is drilled into the tree, a blue plastic spout is hammered in and saplines connect several trees together. The sap runs through the lines into a large black pipe to a tank at the bottom of the hill. The spouts are removed at the end of each sugaring season so the hole heals over and next year a new hole is drilled. After seeing the sap lines here I was able to spot them at other places including Massachusetts where we drove past a number of maple groves.

A maple tree has to be about 40 years old before it is tapped. The Farm reported this is usually judged by the diameter of the tree, an average of 12 inches. The tree can live to be at least a hundred years old with favorable conditions – that is a lot of years to produce sap! Conditions needed for good maple sap flow are cold nights of about 20-30 degrees and “warmer” days of 40-50 degrees. Sugarbush Farm collects the syrup in March and April.

Betty, the second generation owner of this farm had a dream to have a chapel in the woods so her son built her one and she renewed her wedding vows celebrating 50 years in 2012. This tiny church is sometimes reserved for weddings and is a cute addition to the farm.

We also visited the maple syrup house to see exhibits, displays and the processing equipment that turns the sap into syrup. We learned that it takes 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of pure maple syrup – or as the photo below shows, four and a half buckets to make one quart.

A paper we could take with us extolled the “health benefits” of maple syrup reporting since it is rich in zinc and manganese it helps the immune system and improves heart health. The syrup also reportedly contains inflammation reducing antioxidants to fight diseases such as arthritis, heart and inflammatory bowel disease. I would think the high sugar content would cancel out some of these benefits but this paper never pondered that. This reminded me of our trip to a sugar museum in Louisiana sugarcane country where we watched a film put out by the sugar industry. At the end of the film we learned about the many healthful benefits of consuming sugar.

I will close with a photo of some large and colorful hanging baskets of petunias on a museum porch in Montpelier, the capital of Vermont. These were just a few as the long porch was lined with them. I can think of one of our readers who loves seeing these beauties while traveling!

Near the Green Mountains of Vermont, we found ourselves camping at Abel Mountain Campground. Before arriving I had high hopes for this spot which featured photos of a lovely green country setting. I was looking forward to the river flowing through the campground. It was advertised as a great place for swimming, rafting and tubing. I had visions of myself floating down the stream in an intertube. While checking in at the office, I asked about the river and whether intertubes could be rented or borrowed. I was told that unfortunately the river was not deep enough for swimming as the area had been suffering from drought for some weeks. I was quite surprised by this information. A drought in New England? It had been raining regularly throughout our travels. Although I was disappointed, I had been secretly hoping for a dry spell.

The campsites backing up to the river were quite lovely and I was a little envious of them as we were camping on the other side of the property on a slight hill. But our campsite turned out to be rather advantageous, as we had no one camping next to us and enjoyed a nice open green space on the hill to ourselves. The weather though did not stay as dry as I hoped as we did get a few days of showers. We were into August and I was still hoping for one week without rain somewhere during 2018. That would not happen until we landed at a campsite in Massachusetts a few weeks later.

This secluded campground in a country setting turned out to be one of the best of our travels. Besides the great deal of space and lovely vistas there were trails to wander in the woods. It also came with another perk, our first camp pig roast and potluck. The campground owners provided two pigs and pavilion and we campers brought the side dishes. The pigs were roasted on site by the “Happy Pig Roasters,” a BBQ company that trailered in their own grill and supplies. The meat was deliciously cooked by the happy roaster pictured below.

After our meal we were entertained by a great country band who came all the way from the Boston area. The big city of Boston seemed so far away here nestled in the peaceful Green Mountains.

Mark and I had already visited Vermont on another non RV trip some years ago, so we decided to skip some of the touristy places we had visited before. One of the things I most enjoyed during our previous trip was the covered bridges. Vermont has over 100 of them and I believe we saw about 25 of those when we first explored here. Although Vermont does not have the most covered bridges in the U.S., it has the most covered bridges per square mile or the most covered bridge density. The state of Pennsylvania has the most with 213. On this trip I wanted to check out some of the bridges we had missed before. We visited the village of Northfield where there are five covered bridges, three of them on the same road.

Although covered bridges are picturesque, they are actually built to protect the structures supporting the bridges. Without this protection, the wood would rot due to inclement weather of the harsh Vermont winters.

Here in Northfield is the only place in Vermont where you can stand in one covered bridge and view another. I was standing in Northfield Falls Bridge when I took this picture of Lower Cox Bridge just down the road.

We visited the village of Quechee which has a covered bridge as well as the famous Simon Pearce glassmaking facility and restaurant located in a restored brick mill. From the deck outside the restaurant is this beautiful view of the Quechee Covered Bridge, the Ottaquechee River Gorge and waterfall.

I hope you enjoyed some of our exploring in Vermont! Stay tuned for more to come!