If you're already wondering where you plan to take the family this summer for vacation, why not skip Disney World and opt instead for a 'Farm House' get-away! Better yet, make it a Working Farm get-away...replete with cozy lodging, lots of fresh air and open spaces...and fresh off the farm fare for all your meals... including a picnic or two!
Blackberry Farm in TN sets the bar, as does Mary Jane's Farm in Idaho, but there are many more nationwide...and even abroad. Check out Homestead for more lovely locales...including Maine, of course!
And for an even more novel idea, go Out On a Limb on Green Pioneer!
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On our way down to Portland this week, we managed to get left from the house in time for a side detour...which is a miracle in and of itself!
This 'Shaker Village' doesn't officially open until Memorial Day, but when he heard that we were from St. Albans...and that our neighbors raise Scottish Highlander cattle...and that their bull, Atta Boy, is REALLY big...he suddenly said, "BIG! I'll show you BIG!" and took us down to introduce us to his BIG Scottish Higlander bull, too! I'm finding that St. Albans is developing a reputation as Scottish Highlander breeders. Small world. They have some lovely historical residences and buildings dating back to the 1700's and the village is absolutely lovely! I tried to take more photos, but the batteries died on me! boo! They're also opening for Maine Free Farm Day from noon to 4 p.m. if you'd like to visit them and tour the sites for free. It's a beautiful drive and an enjoyable find! As Spring and gardening are approaching...even though we still have alot of snow on the ground around us at the moment...we are getting our seeds started anyway. The promise of Spring is in the air! Which sounds better: Apple Picking or Picking Apples...?? or Apple Pickin' or Pickin' Apples..?? Or how about some alliteration...Absolutely Awesome Apples...?? I think I like 'apples' at the end...regardless of what you do with the 'picking' part. Just call it nit-pickin' extraneous worthless details that don't really matter! First, we must find a perfectly picturesque orchard in a beautiful setting perhaps overlooking a tranquil lake with boughs of the juiciest, tastiest apples around... And the cutest, quaintest little orchard shop scented with the smell of fresh sweet apples to browse in while the friendliest, most knowledgeable of proprietors weighs our bushels of apples.... And...OK, I know this is a stretch...but how 'bout this shop also just happens to attach to a wonderful Victorian farmhouse with a wrap-around porch...sporting some happily painted red wicker chairs....well, hey, what can I say? So much the better! And guess what! I happen to know of an orchard that fits this description to a tee! We just happen to have this very orchard only two miles down the road from us! But I'd travel much farther to get to it if I had to, for sure! It's just too perfect to miss out on!
Here I am the Romantic Mom and my poor children have only these plastic bags that the orchard was so nice to provide for us to put our apples in! Scandalous - I know! Oh! And wouldn't those Apple Tote Bags just look too perfect in this blue wagon...???!! I'm seein' prodigious photo-ops aplenty here! And those unbelievably cute Apple Tote bags certainly wouldn't be allowing all this spilling and tumbling to the ground action to be goin' on. No siree! Third, you simply must come out to St. Albans (off Dexter Rd.) and visit this lovely, lovely Avalon Acres Orchard and Farm...that offers much, much more than just apples, too. There are many other locally grown and homespun products to choose from....and a beautiful Autumn countryside to imbibe while you're there! It was fabulous Fall weather, foliage, and farm fun all bundled into a comfy cozy afternoon basking before the bonfire and scarfing down all the scrumptious homemade victuals! Mary Jane couldn't have done it up any better, I'm tellin' ya here and now! We heard a "beeeeh, beeeeh" coming from up the road. Iris, the young goat, decided to follow Harlow and the horses up so she could come to the party, too! Way more action down here than in that pen at home! And way more attention than a little goat could hope for! Then for the real, super-thrill of the afternoon...that not even Iris was gonna miss...
Hi Post cows! You sure make good milk!! And then we're back for some bubble blowin'! And bubble chasing! And this is why we love the Post Farm Picnic!! "Chickens at Dusk"....sounds rather like poetry, doesn't it? The sun was setting and the clouds were changing into all hues known to pink and lavender... So here we are back in the land of blueberries--and aren't they lovely scrumptious little things? Let me assure you--they most certainly are! And we should know...we've been munchin' on 'em non-stop for the past week! Now take a look at the rakes we're holding...not your typical rake, huh. These are small hand-held jobs in varying widths...adaptable to the width of your bucket. I'm so glad that people out there think of such things! We determined to fill up a 5 gallon bucket and that's why raking was our choice du jour! I wish that I'd thought to take a close-up of the rakes but, alas, I didn't. The closest I got was that one dropped over there on the ground to the right, so I'll just describe them as shaped something like a metal dustpan with the bottom made of small round metal slats or rods with points on the ends (as opposed to being solidly flat--like a dust pan). The handle also went down over the top of the 'pan' part rather than pointing up--like a dust pan. Other than that, it WAS like a dustpan! Here we are with all of our nice berries...this is just the overflow bucket. See all those leaves and grass? We really want those out of there...and this place had the technology. I was SO impressed! This great contraption 'winnows' out the leaves, sticks, and grass for the most part... Winnowing and waiting...waiting and winnowing...then all of a sudden it left us with this...Beautiful, huh! To top it all off, Karyn plopped down in the grass with the kiddos and read one of our Maine favorites, Blueberries for Sal. That Sunday was also 'Maine Day' which meant that all the state parks were free admission, so for our picnic lunch we decided to go to the state park in Searsport. We heard that it had a nice picnic area next to the beach. We heard right...it was gorgeous! And also had some paths through the woods along the shore and a playground, too! Lovely place...lovely day...I must say! Woohoo! Two sunny days in a row! We left poor daddy behind to work on watches while the rest of us loaded up and headed south to Stockton Springs and Staples Homestead for some blueberry pickin'. We drove along coastal hwy. 1 passing up all sorts of fun flea markets, yard sales, and antiques places as well as a great rug hooking store in Searsport that I've been longing to visit for over a year now--Oh! If only there were more hours in a day! We discovered yet another wonderful Maine U-pick farm for our first authentic blueberry experience. We decided to rake as opposed to hand-picking since we weren't all that particular to the size of the berries...plus it just goes a whole lot faster! There's actually much, much more to our blueberry story here, but I've been fighting with THE slowest moving computer this side of the equator today! So I'll post this much tonight and stay tuned for more tomorrow...and hopefully my computer will be on better behavior, too! We just feel so tremendously blessed to be plopped in the current location we're plopped in right now. We are surrounded by such beautiful families and farms around here in this rural region of Maine. One such place is Avalon Acres Orchard and Farm found just a couple of miles around the bend behind us--with a hilltop view overlooking our serenely lovely Indian Lake here in St. Albans. This couple moved up here to Maine a couple or so years ago and have renovated, refurbished, re-instituted....re-whatever it is you do to a languishing orchard and traditional lovely New England farmhouse, to restore it back to its former glory. And I should say it's really much MORE than it's former glory because they're moving way beyond merely apples (although apples are PLENTY of work in and of themselves). They offer an assortment of fresh organic foods including vegetables from their garden, blueberries, strawberries....and, according to what they were mentioning last fall, they will eventually have peaches and maple syrup, too. And here's Avalon Acres at apple picking time. Yes, Avalon Acres is a member of The Maine Highlands Farmers organization which is a wonderful resource for local farmers and lists several more farms and orchards in this area just waiting to be visited and supported. You can find all the details you need there! |
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