Highland Cattle and changing leaves

Well, it seemed everyone in NYC and NJ had the same idea I did...going to Vermont and New Hampshire this past weekend. It was a gorgeous weekend but I did not care for the average of 30mph through most of NJ and NY. I go the bit of a long way but much prettier and usually not as busy. I refuse to go through NYC and Hartford and those other horrible to drive in places. (loved living in NYC many years ago...but not for me now)

Anyway, other than the not so lovely traffic, it was a lovely weekend. My rental car has a sunroof so I took full advantage of it and the great weather. Saturday my mother and I went to their town's harvest fair...it was quite busy for a little town. I had lobster for lunch! Later we went to an apple orchard and they were packed! There was a wedding going on (what a beautiful setting...perfect cloudless day, leaves turning and the mountains in the background - not a great pic but you get the idea)...turned out it was my father's co-workers wedding...small towns... my Mom and I got a couple bags of apples and she bought us icecream...I am a sucker for good icecream, I had apple pie ice cream...it was SOOOO good! Then we went home and she made us paella with oysters, scallops and shrimp...yummy!

Sunday my Mom and Dad and I went to a Highland Cattle festival. I love the "fuzzy cows" and these ones were super friendly. Here is a picture of the valley and Mt. Kearsarge where my parents live from the farm.

Here a couple pics of the fuzzy cows...me with a baby and one of Blu Moo who was very pretty and let me pet her too!

My Mom and I cooked a good dinner together Sunday night. We picked up squash and eggplant at the festival Saturday so I roasted those like I usually do, she picked up highland cattle sausage so we had that along side and then she made apple pie for dessert and we had with a dollop of local sweet cream icecream. Was very yummy!

Then I headed home...I wandered around Vermont in the morning though. I stopped by King Arthur Flour which is about an hour from my folks...picked up a 50lb bag of bread flour (I did this last year with the all purpose flour and it works great...I divide it up into large ziplocks, add a couple bay leaves to keep buggies out and it is so much cheaper, as fresh or fresher than the grocery store and available!) Then I took the pretty route 9 out (the route hit hard by Irene...you could still see a lot of damage but they did a great job fixing the roads up so quickly!). I picked up a couple handmade in VT cutting boards (I got one last year too just for baking...so now I have an exclusive cheese board and veggie board) and supporting the stores in that hard hit area is a good thing. Below is a picture of the river in New Hampshire near where my parents live (taken from the covered bridge)

and a pic along the road in Vermont.