A field trip to Vermont

Woodstock's joys are no longer just for grown-ups

July 28, 2004|Julie Hatfield, Globe Correspondent

WOODSTOCK, Vt. -- OK, the thought of a quiet romantic weekend without the children at a rustic inn in this beautiful state is certainly appealing. But the offerings for little ones in this area have increased recently, and you'll kick yourself if you don't bring the kids along. This town and its surroundings present too many opportunities for fun not to make it a family trip.

The children will be thrilled, for example, to visit JhoJho, the resident water buffalo stud at Star Hill Dairy, which opened a little more than a year ago. Mom and dad, while also enjoying the visit to JhoJho and all the little water buffalo babies, may appreciate even more the fact that this is the only place in the country that makes the delicious buffalo mozzarella. David Muller, the owner of Star Hill, was so enamored of the cheese that he brought an Italian artisan to Woodstock to teach him how to make it.

He also brought equipment from Italy, and now, in addition to the mozzarella, he makes buffalo yogurt such exotic flavors as chai and white chocolate (with 17 percent fat content). The treat is so dense it tastes like ice cream. Muller is so solicitous of his buffaloes -- not used to the winters of Vermont -- that he gave them water beds. (It seems that they're more comfortable that way and produce more milk.)

Star Hill isn't the only unusual farm here. The Billings Farm & Museum, a pristine working dairy farm that dates to 1871, has been preserved by the Woodstock Foundation, Inc., and is far more than a mere petting zoo for children from toddlers on up. Almost every day from May 1 to Halloween, the farm provides activities from sheep shearing to butter churning to milking the Jersey cows. Each July, the farm celebrates Cow Appreciation Day.

The theater in the visitor center continually shows the Academy Award-nominated short film "A Place in the Land," which depicts the story of how Mary French Rockefeller and her husband, Laurance, helped the farm that her grandfather owned preserve its heritage.

Mary Rockefeller, granddaughter of Frederick Billings, the farm's founder and developer of a massive reforestation program in Vermont, brought her husband to Woodstock to show him the town that she loved. Townspeople still credit the Rockefellers for the resulting turn toward preservation and conservation.

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