Shelburne Farms is a 1,400 acre working farm, national historic site and nonprofit environmental education center located on the beautiful shores of Lake Champlain in Vermont. Shelburne Farms was created in the 1880s by William Seward Webb and Lila Vanderbilt Webb as a model agricultural estate. The barns and courtyards were built during the Gilded Age in 1886 by the Webbs of New York City. The grounds were designed by the famous landscape architect Frederick Law Omlstead, who also designed Central Park in NYC. To the west are the Green Mountains and to the east are the Adirondack Mountains -- a most beautiful setting especially as the sun goes down over the lake.
Its mission is to cultivate a conservation ethic. Schoolchildren, adults, educators and families come to the farm to learn. Visitors enjoy the walking trails, children's farmyard, inn, restaurant, and special events.
In 1972, Shelburne Farms was founded as an educational nonprofit organization. The grass-based dairy supports a herd of 125 purebred, registered Brown Swiss cows. The milk is made into an award-winning farmhouse cheddar cheese.
The cheesemaker at Shelburne Farms told me that the term "farmhouse cheese" means that the milk must come from the cows on the farm. Shelburne Farms cheese is only made during the summer months when the cows are munching on green grass. The cheese is made with raw milk; it's not pasteurized, the way most cheese is made today. Most of the cheese is sold at the farm store, through mail-order and local markets. I was told in the summer of 2008 that Costco is interested in carrying the Shelburne Farms brand of cheese.
Besides producing a high-quality cheddar cheese, the farm is involved with a number of school programs including FEED. There is an outreach program for students and teachers along with an educators workshop where teachers develop the curriculum.
Examples of Education Workshops:
From the Farm-to-You Workshop: Students grind wheat berries into flour, make bread, care for the farm animals, make butter, and harvest vegetables from the farm garden to make a soup to share.
Farm Life and History: Explore the importance of agriculture in our lives by making discoveries about the past. By doing farm chores, comparing farm tools from the past to the present, investigating journals and photographs from the late 1800s and early 1900s, students gain a sense of what life was like on the farm.
Join the Flock for Children connects children's literature, art and life cycles of animals while spending a day on the farm during lambing season. Students explore a year in the life of a sheep from its birth and care to the harvesting of its wool fibers. Students spend time with newborn lambs and their mothers and work with wool from carding to spinning to felting.
Other workshops include Spring in the Forest, Active in Winter, Pond Life Cycles, Milk and More, Sugaring Time, Wetland Ecosystems, Stories in Stone, Winter Trekking and Farmer for a Day.
For general information go to www.shelburnefarms.org.
For information on FEED, contact:
Kim Norris, Shelburne Farms
1611 Harbor Road
Shelburne, VT 05482
(802) 985-8686, ext 25
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