Today's authors are Aaliyah Simons and Clare Shurtleff.

(Aaliyah) Our first stop was Cabot Creamery where natural cheese is made using local milk.  During the tour they made us put on slippers over our shoes which was weird because none of the workers had any on.  They have local farms where they get cheese and milk from. You know the farm means something to the company or the family if one person can tell all the cows apart, which did happen because they care about all the animals. People who work for Cabot milk their cows at 3:00am, there is always something to do and there is a never a dull moment. In order for a successful job you have to be into the job and be proud of the product you make, which they were. Our next spot was high in the mountains where Goodrich's Maple Farm was. All the maple was pure and first discovered by Indians which was a big deal back then, and now they make the most amount of maple syrup. Most companies get other people to tap their trees but Glen taps their trees himself and had his own sugar house.  Maple syrup is best produced when the day is warm and the night is cold. Goodrich’s Maple Farm taps their trees in the spring and it's easier for the clean up in the end, to this day they already boiled maple six times. As soon as you walk into the store there are ribbons hanging from the selling, they have over 600 first place ribbons. A little history of how the maple syrup is the way it taste because the use reverse osmosis,  they let their trees to be an age of 40 years, 65 feet tall and weigh 3000 pounds. They tap over 40000 trees and tap a whole 2 inches deep, 2000 of there trees are on their land right by the sugar house. The guy that was giving us a tour made his own invention on how to collect the sap from the trees. They produce 150 gallons per hour. Everyone that works there loves what they do and they dedicate themselves to that job. Later that evening we went to a fancy restaurant that was also in downtown Burlington, called Hen of the woods.



(Clare)

Today we went to Cabot Creamery I learned how they make cheese. They get their milk from New York, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. All the farms that give milk to Cabot own a part of the company. There are 109 employees working in the plant. One million pounds of milk is delivered to Cabot daily.  Eighty-four thousand pounds of cheese is produced daily. Two hundred thousand pounds cultured product are produced daily.  Four to five truckloads of whey, remaining after milk has been curdled is shipped daily to Middlebury. I tried three different types of Cabot cheese; Adirondack, Everything Bagel and Artisan Reserve. I did not like any of the three cheeses I tried. I am not a huge cheese fan, so I found Cabot Cheese to be very strong and I did not care for it.

After Cabot we went to a Goodrich's Maple Farm where we got a tour of the factory. He told us how they collect sap to make maple products. First they tap the maple tree  to collect the sap. After that they put it in a truck. After that they put is in big containers to store the sap. Then they move it to the boiler machine to boil the sap down to maple syrup.

In the afternoon we had downtime. Then we went to dinner at Hen of the Wood. It was dark and the ceiling was cool. They had good service. For the starter I had oysters - they had good sauces that was served with them. For the entree I had a salad with radishes and blue cheese and some nuts. For dessert I ordered the root beer float. I thought it was good.  Other students had hanger steak, pork shoulder and pork loin. Everyone enjoyed their meals. On my way back from the bathroom there was a window and you could see a pig hanging. You could tell that things were fresh.