Vermont

Just over a week ago R and I took a trip to Vermont.  Now that B is 18, we were able to leave the kids at home by themselves.  I think they were as excited to have the privilege to stay home by themselves as we were to leave.

We left late Sunday afternoon and hurried up to Sharon, VT so that we could get to the Joseph Smith Birth Place Memorial before it closed.  What a beautiful place and such an amazing spirit felt there.  I mentioned to R that even though this isn't a place, like Palmyra or Nauvoo, where remarkable events from church history occurred I still felt the spirit witness of Joseph Smith, the prophet as we listened to the stories of his family and early life.

The story of the monument was interesting as well.  You can read more about it here.  The upper piece is 38 1/2 feet tall representing the years of Joseph Smith's life.  It is a solid piece of granite.  Is very rare/if not unheard of to find a single piece of granite that size.  It was placed in it's location in 1905 on the 100th anniversary of Joseph Smith's birth.  The story and pictures of the time and effort it took to haul such a huge heavy load with wagons and animals over muddy roads (it was November and December) and up a very steep hill and then actually place the pieces, was fascinating to see and hear.  I wish our kids would have been with us.

This is the front side of the monument.  James 1:5 is etched around the top of the 4 sides.  You can see some of it in this picture and the end of it in the next picture.

This is the back side of the monument.

All that is left of the home where Joseph was born are the stepping stone from the door (large rectangular stone with plague at left of picture) and remnants of the foundation. The rocks that you see in the next two pictures indicate where the house stood.  The rock in the center with the plaque, marks where the fire place hearth stone was and that hearthstone is now in front of the fireplace in the visitors center there on the property.

 All of the flowers on the grounds of the memorial were beautiful.  We were there as the sun was beginning to set at the end of a very warm summer day.  As we walked through the paths of flowers up to the memorial the smell reminded me of Grandma and Grandpa's (Tacke) house in the summer.  I realized why when I looked down at all of the flowers and saw tons of petunias in all different colors. I bent down to smell them better and realized that they were what I was smelling.  Grandma and Grandpas breezeway and yard smelled the same way on summer evenings because of all of the petunias planted in their terraced garden out front.  It was a treat to get to smell that so strongly and remember them.

Monday morning we drove to the Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream Factory for the tour and some ice-cream.  

My favorite part of the visit was our trip the graveyard where headstones stood in memory of dearly "de-pinted" flavors.  It was fun to read the poems.  These were two of my favorites.  You may need to click on the pictures in order to read the ingredients of the ice cream.

Next we drove to Burlington, VT and walked around the outdoor shops downtown.  One of the side streets had a full block mural.  The panorama picture below makes it look like it is on a corner but it is really just the side of a long building.  It is a 400 year history of the famous faces of Vermont and Burlington.  You can read/see more about the Church Street mural here.  I took a few pictures of people we would recognize but I missed a few too like Robert Frost and John Deere.  You can see the John Deere tractor in the panorama below though.  The title of the mural is Everyone Loves a Parade which I think is so clever and fun.  In the mural, it is as if everyone is out in front of their shops, peeking out windows, or gathered on the sidewalk to watch a parade.  The "parade" is all of the people who walk by the mural every day on their way from the parking garage to the Church Street Market.

 

Can you find Maria VonTrapp?

 Ben and Jerry are in this picture.

 Norman Rockwell is in this picture.

Tuesday we visited Shelburne Farms.  Read more about it here.  It is a non-profit working dairy farm that also provides education in Sustainable Farming.  The picture below is of the farm yard buildings.    This was taken from very far away.  The buildings are huge.  The buildings on the right contain a bakery and education center.  Part of the middle is where all of the cheese is made.  The left is the interactive farm pens and the chicken coop.  The dairy cows and milking operations are in another area of the farm.

 While we were walking to the Farm yard, we saw them setting up new fencing to move the sheep to new pasture for the day.

At the barnyard saw some goats,

a bunny,

and more sheep.

 We saw the chicken parade when they opened the coop in the morning.

 They probably have 30 chickens and many different varieties.  This little one looks like it has socks on because there are feathers all over it's legs and feet.  (Hard to see in the grass.)

  We went into the coop and watched kids gather eggs.  There was also a chance for people to milk one of the Brown Swiss Cows.

 We took a wagon tour of the property and got to learn a bunch of the history.  This picture is of the farm yard buildings from a different angle.

 The 1400 acre property sits on Lake Champlain with beautiful views and cliffs.

 In 1886 Dr. William Seward Webb and Lila Vanderbilt Webb (Granddaughter of Commodore Vanderbilt who made the railroad fortune) began purchasing property to create a model agricultural estate.  At one time they owned 3800 acres.  This was their home (now an inn) on the property.

 This is looking from the back of the estate out onto the lake.  The terraced garden was Lila's garden.

 There is a fish pond at the bottom of the garden (see in the bottom left of this picture) and a vista of the lake.

 This is looking back at the estate.  The garden is in two terraces that run left and right of the walkway from the house to the fish pond..

 Looking down one of the terraces from the middle walkway.

 More of the flowers.  They were beautiful.

 I should have taken more pictures of the landscape of the property.  When Seward and Lila bought the property it was overgrazed farm land and there were no trees to be found anywhere.  Like her brother, George Washington Vanderbilt II, did at Biltmore, they hired Fredrick Law Olmstead, who designed Central Park, to come in and design their property as well.  All the forests, trees, roads and building locations were planned by Olmstead.  Driving around the property felt/looked much like driving around at the Biltmore.  It was amazing to look around at the forests and "islands" of trees that look so natural, like they've been growing in those places for forever, and know that they were designed and planted by hand. (Lila's brother, Cornelius Vanderbilt II, built The Breakers, a vacation home in Newport, RI that we have toured.  Another brother, Frederick, built a country place in Hyde Park, just an hour from here, that we have also toured.  The home in Hyde Park is beautiful but very small in comparison to The Shelburne Farm house, which is very small compared to the Biltmore.)

I should have taken a picture of our delicious lunch.  We bought cheese, bread, and fresh tomatoes at the visitor center and made sandwiches for lunch.  They were delicious.  We also brought home some of the smoked cheddar...so yummy.

We spent the rest of the day wandering around more stores in Burlington and eating more Ben and Jerry's ice-cream.   Wednesday morning we got up and hurried home to return to our normal activities.  We found the house still standing and the kids all well.  Success.