We made the trip to Shelburne Farms, on the banks of Lake Champlain, for the 2010 Vermont Cheesemakers Festival. Covering over 400 acres of land, this farm consists of a whole lot of green – lawns, woods, gardens, hills, grazing pastures – and not a lot of man-made structures outside of the inn, a working dairy and some barns. After a three and one-half hour drive, the last couple of miles on dirt road, this felt like the back of beyond; we hardly registered that Burlington, the state’s capital city, is not far away on the opposite shore of Lake Champlain.
Shelburne Farms, created in 1886 as an agricultural estate and summer home, became in 1972 a working conservation and environmental education estate, a not-for-profit enterprise. The Farm’s mission directs that they “cultivate a conservation ethic…practice rural land uses that are environmentally, economically and culturally sustainable…sustain healthy agricultural practices that maintain fertile soil into the future.”
