Saturday, September 21, 2013

Same Day Activities

After our tour of the State House, the next stop was Barre, Vermont where they are famous for their granite...Rock of Ages.



We took a short tour of the factory where huge slabs of granite would move suspended on belts from the ceiling.  Some would move around on conveyor belts.







This fellow was working on a headstone.







Next we hopped on a bus for a drive out to the quarry.  The granite dome is 10 miles deep. That is a lot of granite.  The minerals in the granite shavings create that color of water on the right.



The huge slabs of granite are cut with a saw by using a cable like the portion to your right, that has diamond chips in the gray rings.  Some slabs weigh 23 tons.



Then we went to a cemetery in town where some of the headstones were put in place.




Just a few samples.  They are really huge!!!

Then it was over to Morse Farm Maple Sugarworks where we enjoyed a maple "creamee."  We didn't need Ben & Jerry's.  It was sooo goood.  

The place has been run by 8 generations, and are the oldest maple family in Vermont.

They make four grades of syrup...light to dark.  We went to the woodshed to watch a video about how the process works.

Maple facts:
*  it takes 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup.
*  one tap hole can produce up to 15 gallons of sap a season which     means it takes up to 3 maple trees to produce a gallon of syrup       a season.
*  to get a good sap run, it needs to freeze at night and thaw by day
*  sap runs best when the winds are from the west...sap runs least       when from the east.

  
A visit to Vermont is not complete without a stop at this place to pick up a few items like cheese (where you get to sample all kinds) and the dip.  I sampled the habanero..whoo who!!! I like it hot and that was hot.


That evening, we enjoyed a game of hand and foot.  The guys get to brag because they won by 85 points!!!

Until next time...


6 comments:

  1. It's been a few years, but those tours looked familiar. As for maple syrup, Bill & I made and sold syrup in Ohio... lots of work!

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  2. Those head stones are amazing! Just beautiful.
    I love to go through factory tours, they are always so interesting.
    Have you been to the Blue Bell creamery in Brenham? Free samples at the end of the tour!
    Teri
    Markteri.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh yes, that Blue Bell tour was on an earlier blog. MY FAVORITE ICE CREAM.

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  3. Those head stones are amazing! Just beautiful.
    I love to go through factory tours, they are always so interesting.
    Have you been to the Blue Bell creamery in Brenham? Free samples at the end of the tour!
    Teri
    Markteri.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  4. What great headstones. Exploring cemeteries, especially old ones, is so interesting. But you have to go to new ones to see stones like some of those.

    ReplyDelete