Vermont Journal Day 2: Shelburne Farms

July 7, 2010-(Tea Room, Shelburne Farms Inn-Shelburne, VT)

Traveling today was a constant struggle both against time and one element we weren’t really considering, the weather. As it was I’m sure in Virginia, Delaware, New York, and yes, even Vermont all saw record highs today as the temperature, even in the mountains soared well into the high 90s.

It took driving on country roads for a little over an hour for us to finally reach the New York/Vermont state line.

As we were doing most of the heavy brunt of our traveling today, the nearly 9 hour drive from Elkton to Shelburne was dotted with frequent service area stops for restroom breaks and of course, water, to keep us hydrated.

As we made our way north on I-85 towards Montreal, our route took us on several country roads near the New York, Vermont border that eventually took us into the western side of Vermont. When we finally reached our destination, it was around 6:00 p.m. We had left Elkton at 9:00 a.m.

One thing I immediately noticed about Shelburne Farms, it’s HUGE. That was immediately clear when,

The main farm at Shelburne Farms, built in 1886, it served at the time as a 'model farm' equipped with the latest in agricultural and commercial amenities.

entering the main entrance, the guard there told us that the inn that we were trying to reach was still 2 miles down the road. But 2 miles well worth it, the road eventually took us to the edge of Lake Champlain where we got a lakeside view of an amazing sunset before finally reaching the inn.

Shelburne Farms itself is kind of like a bed and breakfast, dairy farm, poultry farm, and conservation awareness effort all in one. Established by William Seward Webb and his wife Lila Vanderbilt Webb in 1886 as an agricultural estate, the farm itself originally served as a place of recreation, an establishment for the rich and wealthy to get away from the hustle and bustle of everyday city life. Today, the inn, the farm, and everything around it follow strict farming conservation guidelines and does its best in order to promote those guidelines to fellow farmers.

As a result, what you have today is thousands upon thousands of acres of pristine, beautiful farmland on the edge of Lake Champlain, a huge natural lake that separates Vermont from New York. Just a few miles away is also Burlington, home of famous snowboard maker Burton, and 45 more minutes away from that is headquarters of everyone’s favorite ice cream, Ben and Jerry’s.

Even the seagulls were enjoying the beautiful sunset over Lake Champlain.

Of course, part of being environmentally conservationist also means that food served at the inn is the freshest possible and that farming is environmentally sound, but it also means that the inn, being itself a very old historic landmark, does without some of the technological necessities of life. So I hope reader that you’ll understand if I say that the lack of central air conditioning in the inn itself is quite literally making me pour my sweat and tears into this entry and also cutting it a bit shorter than usual.

The next couple days of our expedition will be spent on the farm here taking a look at the dairy farm and visiting nearby Burlington and Shelburne Township. I’ve heard rumors that in order to cook the eggs for breakfast, residents of the inn must actually go pick the eggs themselves…well, I guess we’ll see how that goes tomorrow morning.