Buttermilk Falls (again), Live Dairy Farm and Americana Winery

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Our mornings are pretty routine now. Jeff and I decided when we get back home we are getting rid of everything and we are just going to live a minimal lifestyle. Not really but it sure is easier to clean up a house when you don't have paperwork here and there, this to put away and that to put away.

Anyway, we are having a great time exploring Ithaca and today we are going to conquer Buttermilk Falls, take Timmy to a dairy farm and check out one more winery before we pick Kirby up from camp.

We could totally get used to this type of routine.



Buttermilk Falls

Buttermilk Falls

We were going to figure out this park if it took us all day! We were determined.

We headed back up to the upper falls before we went to pick up Kirby. We were going to cross the creek today to see what was on the other side.

The parking lot was full again. It's nice to see people out and about. We drove down the trail and crossed the inch of water that was flowing across the road. No big deal but it's still weird.

I don't think I've told you this but we have been driving a Ford Focus all week. Again, we are those spoiled people that drive a big car. This car is soooo tiny. It gets good gas mileage on the little 4 cylinder (Jeff swears it is a 3 cylinder - Ha!). The hills have given the Focus a run for its money but it's handled them just fine. I've let Kirby sit up front because he is a little taller than me and needs to legroom. It's been a good car but I kind of chuckle every time I get into the tiny thing.

We found the parking area and walked a short distance to the fall. I believe this is what they call Pulpit Falls. It's a short fall but the water still sounds fierce. Above the fall is a lake. You can walk around the lake. It is a mile and a half walk around the lake.

We still wanted to find the lower falls so we headed back over the creek to look at the park map. We think we finally figured out the map so we decided to drive to the lower falls.

The lower falls were about a 4 mile drive down very winding roads. When you pull in the entrance you see a magnificent water fall. We all look at each other and say, 'oh, this is what they've been talking about.' It was totally worth the two attempts to find it!

Now that we found it we went to go pick up Kirby so that we could eat lunch together at the falls.

Jeff wanted to show Kirby the winding road and now that he's familiar with it he kind of goes a little faster than last time. Mine and Timmy's stomachs dropped and our ears popped. Kirby just giggled the whole way. It was fun.

There was a school bus that showed up while we were gone so there was a big group of kids lining up for the bathrooms and water fountains.

We were able to easily find a picnic table and we ate our lunch while watching the water rush down the big fall.

After lunch we decided to venture up to the outlook point. Well, there are two.

Ok, we start up the stairs blindly walking up and up. This one fella asked us about the trail. Ha!! Poor fella. We told him what we knew but told him not to quote us. He, he.

We get to the first outlook and I have already figured out that I am waaaaay out of shape. Timmy on the other hand is be-bobbing up and down and back around. So we continue up the 50 billion stairs to the second outlook.

The trail is very pretty and you are walking by several different falls on the way up. I would say you forget about the steps due to the beauty of your surroundings but that is a total lie. Holy moly!! Will the stairs ever end??!!

We finally approach flat land. Praise the Lord! Then flat trail takes you to a small fall that has a shallow creek bed. There are a lot of dry rocks you can walk on and you can find a place to sit and relax.

At this point we are almost to the end of the trail so we decided to walk back. It took us about 15 minutes of waking straight up hill to get to this point so I figured it should take us less than that to get back down.

There is one picture we took on the way back down. You can see Kirby standing on one of the upper steps and you can see Tim standing on a lower step. You can see the drastic difference in such a short distance.

We made it down the hill and we headed to the car so that we could get Kirby back to the conference.


Live Dairy Farm

Timmy has been such a trooper with our wine tastings that we decided to take him to a creamery so that we could taste cheese and pet some goats.

The farm is about 20 miles outside of Ithaca kind of where the wineries are located.

We park in front of the red barn style house and walk into the gift shop. There was a couple in front of us and the owner was explaining the different cheeses that she was placing on the tray.

It's our turn and the owner places a try with a laminated placement. The picture on the placemat is in the shape of a wheel and is cut into 10 different pieces of pie and each piece of pie has a different name of cheese on it. All 10 cheeses are made at this location.

She explains that the cheeses on the right side of the wheel are goat cheeses and the cheeses on the left side are cow cheeses.

We start off with the soft goat cheese and move around the wheel to the harder cheeses. We left the blue cheese for the end.

The cheeses were Chevre, Feta, Finger Lakes Gold (most popular), Seneca Blue Moon, Cayuga Blue, Lake Effect Cheddar, Gorge Trail Gouda, Shire, Willow Hedge and Blue Yonder.

Timmy was such a good taster. He tried every cheese (including both blue cheeses) and each of the spreads. His favorite was the honey and the Gouda cheese.

After we tasted the cheeses we headed over to the barn to watch a video on how the cheese was made. Since we were the only ones in the tour we had the owners undivided attention so any question we had she answered. She was very nice and informative.

After the video we headed over to see the kids (goats). When they bought the farm from the previous own in 1995 the herd was over 100 goats but over the years they have decreased the herd to just 16. They are in the process of increasing the herd so almost all the goats are pregnant.

One of the interesting things we found out was that the owner barters the whey to a pig farmer for bacon. That's pretty cool!

After the video we were off the meet the ladies and gent. In the herd they have one male, one older female that is not currently breeding (she's too old), 4 female goats that are about a year old and the remaining 10 are pregnant.

The owner called the goats to he barn with a simple 'can can' command and they come running in. Some have bells on them and others don't.

She placed the pregnant females, the older goat and the male in the big pen but she kept the other ones outside the pen. The younger ones are outside the main pen because the other females will beat the little ones up. The owner explained that there is a pecking order in the herd. The old lady is the last in the pen and the first one to get milked. She also gets first to the food because she just nibbles on the ear of whoever needs to move out of her way and they move.

She said when the younger ones are moved into the big pen they will be at the bottom of the totem pole. They will have to work their way up.

When the babies are born she will take the babies from the momma so that they bond to her. The owner said if she doesn't do that then they goats are more likely to become out of control and will not obey her like she would like them to.

We had a good time watching the goats walk around and we got to pet them.

We headed back to the gift shop and purchased some Gouda that we could eat with crackers tonight.


Americana Winery

The American Winery was just down the road from the Live Dairy Farm.

The place is dressed up in red, white and blue.

There were a couple of couples around the bar that were in the middle of their tasting so we found a spot at the bar and wait our turn. You could pick between a wine tasting or a beer tasting or a combo. we chose the wine tasting which was $5 for six wines.

We tasted a Cayuga White, Sweet Riesling, Crystal Lake (like grape juice), Revolutionary Red, Star Spangled Blue (blueberry wine) and Rubie's Bubbling White.

We decided on the Cayuga White and Rubie's Bubbling White.

Because we had a little time to kill we ordered a Cayuga White slushy and went and sat on the patio.

Timmy found two puppies to play with. One was a chocolate lab named Lily and the other was a black lab named Maverick. They played fetch while Jeff and I sipped on our slushy.

Evening

After we picked up Kirby we went to a local restaurant named Agava. The owners of the apartment gave us a gift certificate to the restaurant for all the troubles with the tv.

After dinner we headed home and watched a little tv before going to bed.

Tomorrow we have a few places we wanted to stop by one last time and a few errands to run.

Cheers!

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