Vermont is a beautiful state, friendly people, had a great time there.

One of several covered bridges we saw while we visited Vermont.  We wondered why these bridges up north were covered,  One of us said "to keep the horses and wagons from falling off the bridge" another said " to keep the snow off the bridge", well, this is the answer. 
The covered bridge was invented in response to the need to protect the wood trusses and joints.  (I googled it)

We went to a working farm called Sugar Bush Farms.  Among other things, they made cheese, Maple syrup and shipped everywhere.  This lady was cutting for the cheese tasting.  She started  off with the mildest to the strongest.  I am not a big fan of cheese, more of a Velveeta girl, but ever one else loved it.

After it has aged and dipped in parafin, these ladies were putting the last wrap on it of a special kind of paper.

The room was full of tasting dips and summer sausages.  All kinds of dips, this was only one table of three.  There was also a maple syrup tasting table too.  My favorite was the Ginger Maple Syrup. The place was rather rustic looking and well used.  These were also good.  The next room was the buying room.  And yes, we did buy some.

Going to another building to see how the maple syrup is made.

It is also a museum type with a video showing you about sapping the trees for their maple.

Then it is off to the woods too see how they do it.  I always thought buckets attached to the trees but not any more.  They run these continuous plastic tubes from tree to tree in a gentle downhill way to a final draining pot which is emptied periodically.

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They had these tires laying out here and a bucket with a bunch of big rocks in it. It was to simulate carrying a bucket of sap through a snow.  My sweet brother, Tyrone said he would try it.

Look what I found, goats and a horse.

These babies wanted some green grass instead of this hay.

Found something else too.

She was so sweet, I wanted to take her home, but Pop said no.

Pat brought her some green grass and I think she liked that much better.

Pat feeding and talking to her and the calf loved it.

Another nice covered bridge.

This is "Quechee Gorge" very very deep in the town of Quechee.

Other side of the bridge picture of gorge.

This is Norweigen spruce.  One of several located on this farm.  This is the farm of the Billings family.  He was so famous and respected that he spent some time in Montana and they named a town after him, Billings, MT

Norweigian Spruce long leaf.  Reminds me of a weeping willow. Billings had frequent visitors in his home.

Billings had a grand daughter and when Rockafeller came for a visit, fell in love with Billings grand daughter.

Billings gave his grandaughter this house to live in, she became mrs. Rockefeller, therefore it is know as one of the Rockefeller Mansions.

We toured the house but could only go on 2 floors, so very nice.

My favorite part of this house was the wrap around porch. Just had to relax for a second in this wicker chair.

In a couple of weeks this view will be spectacular.  Rockefeller look at this view and made a conscience decision to buy this view so he could enjoy it and the landscape not be changed.  He purchased it and donated it to the national park system with stipulations to the gift.  It was to be maintained and never be sold.  Wasn't that nice, we can forever enjoy the view that he so loved.

 

This just happened to be going on before we left.  We decided to check it out.

This is a homemade lath.  Richard was enthused over it to say the least.

The guy had Richard try it out and see how it works

The next thing I knew, he had me up there to check it out too.

This is an old tool of some sort.

This is a better view.  We were watching him when we heard Pop's name called for a door prize.

He had won a very intriquite wooden puzzle,  Beautiful and you can tell he is happy.

This is the place we had started to go to when we went off on the  on the sign chase.  This is partly a living museum.  Some are dressed in period dress and portray a character who lived in the house years ago.  It was very interesting.

The green house adjacent to the Victorian garden.

This the mansion where the Governor once lived with many prominent people visiting.

These are pics of the Victorian Gardens.

A lady in character making Christmas tree ornaments out of some of the flowers in the garden

I won't post anything on some of these pics of the houses.  I will only let you see the pics of the houses inside and the antiques.

The Governor of New Hampshire, forget the year, hanging above the mantel.

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All of these houses are in this museum.

We came upon one of the houses which had a weaver.  She showed Pat and myself how to weaver cloth.  We enjoyed trying our hand at this art.

 

This guy was talking about cooking over the open hearth.  He was very interesting.  At the time period this community was settled, he told us that the piece of cloth he held in his hand was worth abbout 3/4 of an acre of land.  That was how hard it was to get in that time.

This is a hard block of sugar which during that time, it was worth about 4 acres of property.  It was very rare for them to have sugar and only the wealthy had it most of the time.

Another one of the oldest house in NH

This young man was the cooper in town.  A cooper is a barrel maker.  He had a few barrels made, when asked if they were for sale, he told us these were sold and headed for Hawaii and some museums somewhere.

The blacksmith in town.