Day 56: No regrets

So much for the weight loss Stan and I accomplished in the months leading up to the trip...I think we gained it all back today! Our excursions were to Cabot Creamery, home of Cabot cheese, and the Morse Maple Sugar Farm. Cabot Creamery is a co-op of more than 1,200 dairy farmers in Vermont and, in recent expansions of the business, other states in New England. Begun by 45 farmers in 1919, when it provided milk and other products for larger metropolitan areas, it now produces 24 million pounds of cheese each year--and that's just at the Cabot facility we toured today! This particular site makes all of the cheddars, the cheeses with add-ins (such as herbs and garlic) and the sour cream, yogurt and cottage cheese products. Today was not a manufacturing day at the factory, but we found the tour to be very interesting nonetheless.

Here are some of our favorite cheese facts: Most of the farmers in the co-op have herds that average 45 dairy cows. It takes 10 gallons of milk to produce one pound of cheese. Cabot cheddar is lactose-free, as all of its whey (the substance containing lactose) is removed. Cheddar cheese is naturally white; the yellow color we're used to seeing is an add-in (but doesn't alter the flavor). The story behind yellow cheese is really interesting...in early America, when English cheese was imported and often as readily available as locally-produced cheese, farmers in the colonies added carrot juice as a coloring agent so that customers could distinguish it from the imported and hopefully choose to support the local business. So the color is all about loyalty! As the population moved west, so did the habit of yellow cheese. It's now the preferred (or perhaps expected) color of cheese for Westerners, while Easterners prefer their cheese white. The Cabot representative said it's nearly impossible to find Cabot's yellow cheddar in New England and equally hard to find white cheddar in California. Either way, we'll enjoy an occasional treat of Cabot cheese in a whole new way!

And the maple farm...we learned all about maple taps, how the sap is boiled down to syrup, and how the time in the sap season determines the color and grade of the syrup. This particular farm taps upwards of 900 trees each season. Forty gallons of sap are required to produce every gallon of syrup, and sap production is greatly affected by weather. In fact, a westerly wind followed by a cold snap and light dusting of snow often produces a fast sap run, while a southerly wind will slow it. The sap, produced in the roots, flows upward in the spring to feed the branches and leaves. And great efforts are made within the industry to not overtax trees and to conserve and replenish the maple tree population.

Following our learning curve in maple syrup, we sampled all four grades. Fancy is quite light, both in color and flavor, and comes from trees early in the tapping season, usually late February. Grade A Medium and Grade A Dark are both amber, with the obvious distinctions in color, and the flavor corresponds. And finally Grade B, the darkest and most intense, is the season's last, tapped from the trees in early April. It's often used for cooking, and many prefer it overall. Our favorite was the Grade A dark. I don't think the little jug we bought will last long...there might be a few drops left for Mom, John and Gail to try when they visit us in the coming weeks! And as if our pancakes weren't going to be heavenly enough with the maple syrup, we went blueberry-picking at the farm, gathering a pint that we'll enjoy tomorrow morning. We had so much fun, and we're proud that we didn't eat more right off the bushes than we collected (although it's a close call). Amazingly, we were able to force down a maple ice-cream, called a Creemee, after all the berries. Thus, the blown diet! But we enjoyed every single bite today...from the cheese samples in the morning to the last bite of cone this afternoon. We hope to walk off most of it tomorrow, when we visit two national park sites that are a few miles south of us.

As we drove away from the creamery, we watched a milk truck backing up to deliver its load to the facility...one of the 21 such deliveries every day.

Stan loved the wood theater, made of stacked maple, in which we viewed a movie about the Morse farm.

blueberries galore

The berries that made it into the pint basket

Morse Maple Farm, blueberry bushes upper left

On our way home, we drove by Vermont's capital in Montpelier. We were struck by the quaintness of the town, even immediately around the capital building, especially when compared to other state capitals. It felt similar to Durango or "old" Aspen...beautifully aged buildings that house interesting shops, hikers, barefoot musicians, and lots of flowers.