Cabot, Vermont Flower Farm, & Martin Bridge

Cheese making is a big industry in Vermont.  In 1919, farmers came together and started a coop, that produced cheese and milk products from all the area's dairy farmers. We visited Cabot's factory, which was located off of Hwy 2 east of our neighborhood.

Cabot was taken over in 1992, by Agri-Mark.

You can take a tour of the factory for $2.00 an adult.

While waiting for the tour, you can try a sample of all their different flavors of Cheddar cheese.

They also have samples of dips and cheese spreads. After the tour, you can go back to sampling and roam around the gift store. We learned from the tour that all the cheese products are antibiotic and hormone free. As the milk is brought in on the truck from the dairy farmers, the milk is tested. If anything shows up in the milk during testing, the whole batch of milk is refused. Farmers are encourage to us antibiotic on their cow if they get sick, but not to milk them until the milk is clear of antibiotics.

We left Cabot, with 2 smoky bacon Cheddar blocks, 1 sharp Cheddar block, 1 cottage cheese and 1 Greek yogurt, totaling to $35.00. You can actually get some of Cabot cheese and milk products at a lower price at Wal-Mart, but you will not have all of the choices we did at the store / factory.

On our way to Cabot's I had seen the sign of  a blogger, I had been following for sometime. I don't remember why I started following him, except he was from Vermont, and we were going to be going through the area.He also is a gardener, and his blog has a lot of information on flowers and hosta. I told Joe I had see the sign of his business, going to Cabot. Joe said we should stop by and say Hi on the way back!

His business is Vermont Flower Farm. I remember in one of his blogs he said his farm was outside of Montpelier. He also had a picture of his sign on his business on the blog, like this picture.

I met his wife Gail first, and she told me where to find her husband. I had read on his blog how they had a terrible spring this year with flooding. When I finally found him, he pointed out that down there where some of his garden is was a lake this spring. George also fell off a ladder this spring and broke is tibia.

This is George Africa. His blog is at www.thevermontgardener.blogspot.com  When I told George how I knew him, he said it happens all the time. I was not the first to stop and say hi! George said it had not been a good year, beside the flooding and breaking his leg, but business has been very bad due to the economy. If you want to read a blog about flowers and hosta's, he has a fun blog to follow.

We continue back down Hwy. 2. I saw a covered bridge, and had Joe turn around for a picture.

There are a lot of covered bridges in Vermont and New Hampshire.

Martin Bridge Park in Marshfield, VT.

The bridge is over the Winooski River that caused George and many other people in this area so much trouble.

Joe checking out the bridge. It has had a lot of restoration work done on it over the past few years as it was ready to fall apart due to lack of care.

To be continued: