July 22, 2012 Bush Meadow Farm & Taylor Brooke Winery

This road trip turned out to be a two for one. Our planned destination was Bush Meadow Farm http://www.bushmeadowfarm.com/home . Bush Meadow is home to a herd of Nubian dairy goats, a flock of chickens, and a tavern style restaurant featuring locally produced meats, dairy, and vegetables. Although we arrived via the scenic route through Woodstock, the farm in Union, CT is just off I84, exit 73.  We sampled farm made goat milk gelato (Gloria liked it), homemade beef jerky (my favorite) and goat cheese—some traditional feta style, and something called goat cheddar. 

I  didn’t enjoy fresh goat cheese in any flavor. To me it had a slightly bitter taste, possibly from the vegetable rennet used to produce it. However, Gloria used the cheddar to reproduce some of the excellent Greek dishes we enjoyed when on Crete, and the goat cheese imparted just the right flavor.  We took a few minutes to wander around the farm visiting with the goats and chickens. This was a nice trip, and judging from the happy faces of the diners, the meals are good.

Acting on a tip from my brother, we made a second stop, this time at a Woodstock winery. Taylor Brooke,  http://www.taylorbrookewinery.com/ is nestled in rural Woodstock. We enjoyed a wine tasting that was perhaps the best value we have encountered in a while.  For a nominal fee we tasted a half-dozen very good locally produced wines. Although we arrived close to closing time on a Sunday, the staff was welcoming, friendly and informative.  A few wines were flavored with what the staff call “essences”, which is something I don’t encounter much. The Green Apple Riesling was pleasant, but my opinion is that it’s a better idea to let the grapes speak for themselves without flavor additives. Woodstock Valley Red (St, Croix grapes) was my personal favorite.

While at Taylor Brooke we found some cheese in their cooler produced by a Meadow Stone Farm in Brooklyn, CT http://www.meadowstonefarm.com/ . The Gruyere style cheese was so good that we plan a personal visit to in the near future to see what else they produce and to see what else we can find along the way.



July 13 &14 2012 Taylor Brother's Farm

Today our search for artisan cheese took us to Plainfield/Meriden New Hampshire.  Gloria, my son Andrew, and I started the journey in south eastern Connecticut. We headed west until we reached interstate route 91.  For those of you who don’t know this part of the world, I91 runs right through New England from Long Island sound all the way to Canada. We picked up I91 in Hartford, Connecticut, about mid state. We drove north across Massachusetts, and followed 91 about half way up the east border of Vermont to exit 8 were we turned east into New Hampshire and nineteen miles north east, found Taylor Brother’s Farm on the Plainfield/Meriden border.

Two things impress me about taking a road trip in New England this time of year.  The first is the vegetation. The rolling hills are lush, green, and flowering. It’s hot today (low 91’s) and hasn’t rained recently, but plants really grow thanks to over 50 inches of rain, 100 inches of snow, and over 200 days of sun the region gets annually.  The corn is high, farmers are cutting their second crop of hay in many areas, and the transportation workers are fighting to keep the grass and brush off the highways. The traffic cops with their radar guns were numerous along the interstate.

The second impression is while the region feels rural, services and attractions abound. On this short trip, our GPS guide was lit up with icons for restaurants and gas stations with attached food stores strung together like strings of prayer beads. During the 177 mile trip we passed the New England Air Museum in Connecticut, the Basketball Hall of Fame, Volleyball Hall of Fame, Yankee Candle, and the flower covered bridge in Shelburne Falls, all in Massachusetts. Further north, the Vermont tourist information center off the highway provided brochures describing hundreds of visit worthy sights hidden behind the beautiful tree covered hills and valleys that surround the highway. I know from experience that New Hampshire, just east of I91 has an equal number of attractions, particularly in the north central White Mountains.

Via email, Cindy Taylor from Taylor Brothers Farm  
http://www.taylorbrothersfarm.com/
offered a tour but we were unable to connect with her.  However, Mat, a family member was manning the farm store when we arrived, helped us with our purchases, and invited us to look around the farm.  It was hot and dry but we enjoyed the visit. Relaxed, healthy looking cows with glossy coats and clear, inquisitive eyes wandered around in large shady structures stocked with ample water and clean hay.  It was our good fortune that Rob Taylor came in from his hay bailing and took the time to show us around.  Rob credited the quality of the cheeses made on the premises in part to getting the milk from the cows into the processing facility so quickly that it was being turned into cheese before it had dropped from the 102 (F) degree body temperature of the cows!  We purchased several pounds of cheeses, locally bottled maple syrup and maple roasted peanuts as gifts.

From Meriden we took a short trip north to Lebanon, a charming town with a lot to offer. Our sightseeing was limited to a short walk around the center and lunch and cold beer at the Salt Hill Pub which is definitely worth a return visit. 

From Lebanon we angled back southeast on I89, skirted the south side of Concord, merged with 293 south through Manchester.  Before connecting with Gloria’s sister, Pam, and her husband Richard in Bedford we stopped at a NH State Liquor store and picked up a couple of bottles of locally produced wine to accompany the cheeses we had purchased earlier at Taylor Brothers Farm.  At the tasting later that evening, Mill Hollow, a Gouda-like cheese, was the favorite, followed not too far behind by Cloverland Colby and Evelyn’s Jack Cheese.  

Sated with wine, cheese, and a great dinner prepared by our brother-in-law Richard, we spent the night at their home.  The next day we visited my nephew Shawn’s new home in New Boston. We missed niece Dawn who had traveled from Manchester to Meriden with her daughter, Mia, for a softball tournament. She planned to look for Taylor Brothers Farm after the game.

We drove back to Connecticut via I293 in New Hampshire, and took I495 and 290 to Worchester Massachusetts and 395 back to eastern Connecticut. There are interesting attractions along here, but we got a late start and drove straight through. Throughout the two-day trip, the roads were excellent, the traffic light to moderate, and services and sights abundant. Later in the season when the agricultural fairs and community festivals begin, this region will be even more enjoyable along the way.

July 1, 2012 Day Trips in New England

What smells like dirty feet and tastes like a bit of heaven? The answer is cheese, the subject of our most recent day trip. While crossing the country by car last year we sampled regional cheeses made in factories operated by large cooperatives in Oregon, (see the June 17, 2011 listing concerning the Tillamook cheese factory), and in Wisconsin.  These products were very good and different from the excellent Vermont and New York factory cheeses we eat at home. But in factory foods everywhere, consistency is prized over character. We didn’t know what we were missing until we discovered something called artisan cheese. 

Recently we followed a little sign off RT. 16 in Colchester Connecticut and ended up at Cato Corner Farm. The sign in the first picture is beside the unassuming driveway to the sales room. The building behind me with the weathered gray siding is the sales room which connects to the ripening cave and some processing areas in the rear. The cheese maker encourages tasting before buying because every batch is different depending on what the cows were eating and seasonal factors. We sampled Farmstead cheese, one of a dozen different varieties in the tasting room, and were hooked on cheeses made the old fashion way from raw milk.  The flavors ranged from the nutty, mild Farmstead to a blue cheese sharp enough to cut your tongue. 

The folks in the sales room and on the website (http://www.catocornerfarm.com/ ) revealed that the milk comes from free ranging cows raised with minimum exposure to antibiotics and no animal based feeds. The cheese is made by hand and aged in a cave on the premises. We also learned that although this may be a small family farm, their cheeses are national award winners found on tables around the country and in fine restaurants in nearby New York City.

 A little research on the Internet identified dozens of artisan cheese makers: a few in Connecticut, maybe one in Rhode Island, several in New Hampshire, and dozens in Vermont and upstate New York. Since we have put off a long road trip through the south until the fall when it is cooler, we decided to share some of our New England day trips.  With the region rife with farms, orchards, vineyards, and fish markets, I doubt that we’ll run out of food related attractions along the way.

David

August 24, Hartford CT The Trash Museum

Here I am in front of an attraction that claims to be one of a kind, the CRRA Trash Museum in Hartford, CT.  We heard about the place on a local TV station that mentioned the only other such garbage museum was closing next week.

Pam and June, educators, greeted us, provided an orientation and brochure and turned us loose. We saw clothing made from trash, a cross sesection of an ash landfill, and composting exhibits.

The first exhibit, the Temple of Tash was actually pretty comfortable. Any resemblance to my office (or workshop) is a coincidence. We viewed an excellent video on stopping waste before it starts, and living a low trash life style.

Behind the clever displays and good advice on ways to avoid the world pictured in WALL-E the serious work of sorting, bundling and moving along recycled materials from the capital city takes place in the back of the museum.  An observation room lets visitors see some of the action, and a series of monitors provide real time views of the process.  We were amazed to see how much hand work was required. 

The museum contained many hands-on exhibits that the young and  young at heart would find interesting.  Blogger is being difficult again today so I can't load the rest of the pictures. Interested readers might check out the CRRA web sitte.

Just off route 91 south of Hartford this place was easy to find and worth a look.

August 4 Foxwoods, Mashantucket, CT

Most great trips are more about the people than the place.  The last week has been a good reminder of that.  My youngest brother, Donald, and his wife, Theresa, made the trip north from Virginia to spend a week with the family. It didn’t matter if it was a day lounging around the pool hunched over a chess board or moving furniture for our mother or even taking in one of the casino’s in the area, it was just fun to be back together again.  Their buckets of common sense and Theresa’s infectious laugh made every day of the visit a treat. 

One of our excursions this week was a return visit to Foxwoods Casino in rural eastern Connecticut.  It is quite a sight to come upon the massive structures rising out of the hardwood forests. The  MGM Grand is the first building to appear from east bound Route 2, followed by large hotels and Foxwoods.  The complex also is home to a fine Native American museum and numerous smaller hotels and gaming facilities.

Six of us traveled to Foxwoods with our destination the Festival Buffet.  I am not a gambler or fan of casinos in general, but the buffet is a nice destination.  Reaching it requires a walk through the central aisles palatial lobby. Highly overpriced gift shops, lavishly decorated boutiques, and the amazing architecture of the place are free for the viewing.  The bad economy and being the middle of the week resulted in much smaller crowds than I expected, but there are still plenty of opportunities for people watching.  The area retirement homes must have experienced mass defections as their patients have flooded the main concourse.  I doubt that the average welder has more bottles of oxygen than I saw whizzing around attached to motorized wheelchairs and scooters.

The buffet has something for everyone and a lot if you want it.  The small crowd made us comfortable lingering over a long meal that everyone seemed to enjoy.  Another guest offered to take a picture of our group, so thanks to her for the one posted here.  We are all much prettier than we appear.

The second picture is a reflection of the good time.  Family members will recognize the whole gang (Carol, Mom, Donald , Theresa, and Gloria.  Theresa is in stitches from a risqué comment Gloria made about the endowments of the huge statue in the background.  Fortunately the statue rotates so I don’t need to place a warning for adult content on the site.  Actually, I can’t see what they were laughing about, but does it matter when you are having fun?

A few of the party ventured into the gambling portions of the facility and were successful in disposing of some cash.  Slots are helpful at tasks like that – kind of revenue shredders.

The next day Don, a skilled auto mechanic, helped our brother Jim with some lingering problems with his Jeep pictured here.  Don did a brake job and inspected and fixed a faulty bank of dashboard switches faster than he lost our second chess game.  

We took a trip past what was our maternal grandfather’s farm in Woodstock. The old farmhouse is still standing (and occupied by a new family) but the barn is gone and the fields are a housing development.  The new owners probably have no idea that my grandmother’s midnight blue Lincoln Continental is buried below their front lawn, but that's another story.

So, to my blog readers, if you are lucky enough to have relatives you like to hang out with, make some time to do so.  Include friends. If your days of hard work and struggle have cut you off from old friends, make some new ones and hang out somewhere along the way. 

David 

July 27, 2011 Project Oceanology, Groton, Connecticut

July continues to bring us together with friends.

A couple of weeks ago we said goodbye to Katsura and Kayoko Hirao who are moving back to their native Japan.  The couple was in the US while Katsura (far right) finished his Ph.D. degree in Social Work at UCONN.  Katsura was my research assistant the year I was Interim Dean and the four of us attended professional meetings in New Orleans and San Antonio.  Our mutual friend, Aki Sato (not pictured) drove the couple to Colchester on the eve of their departure.  We wish them the best of luck.

The following week we missed a tour of an oyster farm in Rhode Island when we ran into the back of a thunderstorm producing torrential rain and crackling bolts of lightning.  I doubt that the tour actually happened, but our side trip for coffee and toast to let the storm pass made us arrive in Rhode Island too late.  Maybe we will try again in August.   

To continue the weather bulletins, we were in Enfield with Buffalo Bob and Anne when Tuesday’s severe thunderstorms swept through.  I waited out the storm in a coffee shop and saw a descending funnel cloud drifting in the direction of Windham.  Yuk.

Today we made an Oceanology cruise out of Avery Point, a location I mentioned in an earlier post.  Gloria and I and our friends Neal and Dori joined several small families and a group of kids from a summer program at the Mystic Aquarium on a two hour educational cruise in Long Island Sound studying the Thames River estuary.  The sea was calm, except for the wake of the large ferry boats that regularly pass through the Sound; the sun was bright and day warm. 

The cruise is great fun in that it is very hands on, from sorting and examining slimy residents of the Sound to hoisting the anchor.  Neal, Dori, Gloria and I were given the task to collect several measurements.  Engineering professor Neal positioned the sensing equipment.  Artist and chef Dori compared the readings to a standard table.  Systems Analyst Gloria charted the data.  Yours truly, a scientist by training but administrator by aptitude, read the field instructions and kept the other three on task.  We may have been overqualified, but that didn’t diminish the fun.

The highlight of the cruise may have been a net full of spider crabs, lobsters, sea stars, squid, flounder, fluke, and rock crab. The good news is that the ecosystem at the eastern end of Long Island Sound appears healthy, with loads of life ranging from the very small to the very large and healthy levels of O2 and CO2.  This hasn’t always been the case, and it was welcome news.

Speaking of large creatures, the occupants of the net who did not survive were hand fed to a cluster of a dozen or so striped bass that gathered around the boat when we returned to the dock.  These fish, prized around here as game fish, appeared to be three or four feet in length!

These trips, and another style cruise to the Ledge Light Lighthouse, happen daily in the summer. We called ahead for reservations and were glad that we did.  Project Oceanology is operated by an association of schools, colleges and universities and has a web site at www.oceanology.org.

The adventure ended with an excellent lunch at the Seahorse in Groton Long Point, and a visit to an artist next door.  More on the artist on a later blog. 

July 12, 2011 Howe Caverns, Howes Cave, NY

A hundred and fifty miles west of Hartford CT lay Howe Caverns, a local attraction since the 1840’s when these limestone formations were discovered. Many of us remember this as something we visited as children, although it was the first time for Gloria and I.

Anne and Buffalo Bob accompanied us on this longer, but workable day trip.  Bob provided a little payback for the stuffed buffalo by presenting us with this cuddly stuffed bear.  It might be a useful aid in working on Gloria’s phobia with regards to black bears.

Our trip to Howe Caverns was a good one.  We used the interstate highway system to get there, rather than the wonderful secondary roads through western Massachusetts and central New York State,  but the trip was still pleasant.  Our route passed close to Cooperstown and the Baseball Hall of Fame, and the Soccer Hall of Fame, some destinations we are saving for other trips.

Howe Caverns are well managed.  The visitor center was comfortable and clean.  The snack bar provided good, modestly priced fare.  The gift shop was varied and likewise inexpensive.  In addition to the caves the site has motel accommodations, and some new outdoor attractions, zip lines and rope courses which we all elected to pass by.

The cave experience compared favorably to other caves we have visited.  Howe Caverns lacks the huge chambers of Luray Caverns (101 Cave Hill Road Luray, VA) and the complex formations of Chrystal Cave in Kutztown Pennsylvania, or the floating walkways of Chrystal Caves in Hamilton Parish, Bermuda. However, the long winding trail along the River Styx that flows at the base of Howe Caverns provides a unique an interesting experience.  We especially liked two features, a boat ride along a subterranean lake, and a completely creepy walk through a narrow, serpentine corridor. This long winding path had many twists and sharp turns giving the impression that at any moment we would run out of tunnel.  The lofty ceilings and smooth, tight, passages were enough to produce a little claustrophobia in Buffalo Bob and me.

The only question our able guide, Abigail, was unable to answer was why the caves were built so far from I-88! (The things tourists ask!)

If you like caves, or just want to get out of the heat for the day, this attraction is worth the trip.