Science Fun

Teddy and Archie went to the Montshire Science Museum for kids this afternoon. They had a great time--Archie really loved the hands on exhibits and all the stuffed animals. He was quite the happy little camper!

Tired of putting them in the pipe, Buddy resorted to rolling them down the stairs.

Outside there was an entire educational water park that the kids could play in. Here, there are different pipes you can put over the spouts to change the direction of flow. Arch kinda just ran around under the water and banged the spouts with his pipes.

Playing with the dam in the long stream they created by the fountains. He loved this for whatever reason...

Loving the water spouts

Tuesday in VT

With Piggy, taking a break after a workout ride in the stroller with Teddy.

Buddy playing with his school bus on the granite walkway of the Capitol building in Montpelier.

The Day after the Storm

Today, Archie and Teddy headed to Shelburne Farms, about and hour away. It was a 3800 acre Gentleman's Farm built in 1886. The wife of the couple was a Vanderbilt who inherited 10 million (250 million in today's dollars) from her father, so she and her husband decided to create the premier sustainable farm in the country. They primarily raised cows, breed horses and grew hay.  This is only one of their 4 barns (this is the 2nd biggest one) and they have a huge mansion on the property on Lake Champlain that is now an Inn. The boys only toured this facility today, but hopefully we will all get to do the rest of the property in the future.  Quite an amazing place that is still a working farm, producing top quality cheeses and milk from their herd of Swiss Brown Cows.

The 4 story main building that housed all the farm equipment and could hold 1,500 tons of hay. It was state of the art--gas lighting, indoor plumbing, heated and had two steam driven, freight elevators.

One of the front towers.

The backside of the barn--to get an idea of the massive size of it, those are cars in the parking lot behind it and that is a full size John Deere farm tractor pulling the wagons on the left. Also, the entire roof is made of sheets of copper.

One of the inside children's educational rooms--its empty because they are watching the cow get milked in the background through the doorway. A great room full of fun things for the kids--quite a place!

One of the outside temporary breeding pens.

Making Vroom Vroom noises...

Getting chased by a chicken in the yard.

Buddy trying to coax Ol Bessie to come closer for a pat.

"Country" mansion in background.

The view of Lake Champlain at Lone Tree Hill. The farm mansion is on the peninsula on the right hand side, the barn is behind me--about 1.5 miles away. The family probably didn't head out every morning to milk the cows....

Walking through the streets of Burlington in the late afternoon with Mom in tow--a great little city.

A little story time before the meal--it was delicious and reminded us of being back in Europe with all the sidewalk cafe seating.  A great end to a great day!

Hurricane Irene

Since we were holed up all day because of the rain from the hurricane, here is a video from the farm yesterday in the Calf Nursery.  This little guy is a twin--the farm only gets twins about every 2-3 years.  The rain today was pretty crazy--it poured since 2 am and didn't really let up until about 7 tonight.  All the rivers are flooded and some have crept into the town streets, not horrible damage, but definitely a good amount.

Day Off

 Teresa had the day off today, Teddy arrived late last night and unfortunately, Nana and Pop Pop had to leave early today to beat the hurricane.  So, we took a drive around the countryside and took in all the amazing scenery and things to do. This is one of the fantastic farmhouses along the drive today--built in 1840!

 The 3 covered bridges we saw today--pretty cool!

 We went to a great farm today--has been continual working since 1884. Amazing grounds and buildings and they produce milk from their herd of Jersey cows--the ones we saw are from the original bloodline.

The amazing hydrangeas.

In the milking barn

Archie saying goodbye to his buddies one last time.

We stumbled unto the town of Woodstock after the farm--what a find!  It is an absolutely charming and beautiful town and we had a great time exploring it.

The local butcher/deli--Teddy was excited to finally get back to the land of great sandwiches!

Not a bad spot to enjoy our delicious sandwiches!

Some of the beautiful houses in town--honestly, every house was amazing in some way and it just made for the cutest little New England town!

Our next stop was to a local Maple Syrup Farm--this is the old way that they tapped the tress. one by one into buckets--it takes about 45 gallons of sap to produce 1 gallon of syrup!

The new way of tapping the trees is to run lines from tree to tree and then drain them all into a big basin so you just collect from one spot--saves lots of time.