Vermont Maple Syrup - Home Spun Yard

(Dummerston, VT) Hi 69 Lo 56 – Nice crisp morning with clouds, but it turned out to be a sunny but cool day. Tomorrow morning may be different, we’re getting frost alerts. We may have picked a great time for visiting in this area, the trees may turn early. :)

I wanted to go to Vermont Country, store about 25 minutes from us. We used to get a few items from the store by mail order when I was a kid. We headed that direction, and along the way we saw a sign for Green Mountain Spinnery in Putney. I stopped in thinking it was a yarn shop, but it turned out to be much more. They receive huge amounts of alpaca, mohair, wool, and organic cotton, all from U.S. sources, and turn it into yarn. Much of their machinery dates to the 1800's, and although they weren't processing any material at the time, they were nice enough to give us a tour and explain the whole process.

The raw material.


It’s washed...


...and rinsed to clean all the dirt from the fur.


The wool goes through several processes, separating...


...pulling...


Then turned into yarn on this huge loom.

It was an interesting tour, and while I was there I bought some yarn in their small store to make a scarf. That was a nice unexpected surprise.

We went on to the Vermont Country Store in Rockingham.



There was all kinds of foods, clothing and merchandise. And of course they had Vermont maple syrup. Little did we know there are several grades of maple syrup, Fancy, Grade A medium amber, Grade A dark amber, and Grade B. They had samples so you could choose the right one to your taste. We were really surprised at the high prices there, so we decided to try to find a less "touristy" place to buy our syrup. We did get a couple of packets of lobster bisque dip. You mix the seasoning powder with cream cheese and mayo. The sample tasted yummy.

We asked for a recommendation for a lunch place from one of the clerks. She recommended Heritage Deli in nearby Chester. It was a little different from your normal deli. I had a turkey sandwich made with cream cheese and maple flavored sauce, and Jim had a "Vermont Burger," with the hamburger meat infused with maple flavoring. (It seems like everything is maple flavored around here. There's even a distillery nearby that makes maple flavored whisky. We stopped in and Jim tried it, and to quote him, "yech!")

We asked the hostess where to buy maple syrup. She told us about Mitch's Maple. It was one of those places where you have to go this way and that, and down a dirt road to get there. We found it easily enough. It was a small operation with one guy, who happened to be doing some construction work in the attic when we got there. We got his attention, and he greeted us and told us to "pick out our syrup, write it down on the list, and put our money in the cash box on the table." He then went back to work in the attic. Well, that was certainly different! We picked out a 32 oz. bottle of syrup, and it was half the price of the same product at the Vermont Country Store. Sweet!

We came back home and enjoyed the cool air. Luckily the sun kept it from being too cool.