Farmers are hard working people and summer is their time to shine.

Summer means ice cream in New England…fresh farm grown vegetables too…but the ice cream is what I remember about summer as a kid. Kimball’s was the big place to go. It was a bit of a drive, but worth it.

Sometimes we’d skip supper altogether and just go get a big fudge sundae or banana split. That was cool.
We’d drive into the big gravel parking lot and get into one of the lines at the many windows and watch the people walk away with towering cones and bowls of delicious gooey treats. I must have changed my mind a dozen times while waiting to get up to the window.

The farm stand in my little town has a small ice cream stand, but a huge variety of ice cream flavors and cooling drinks. The Panda Cooler is one of my favorites. My son tends to get the same thing all the time…cookie dough in a cup. I’ve tried to broaden his horizons, but he won’t budge.

Last year we lived near Beech Hill Farm in Hopkinton and besides buying sundaes you can make yourself, there is a little barnyard area with farm animals.

The goats are fun to watch if the weather isn’t too hot and they are all sleepy, and the little cows with their big eyes are so pretty. In the Fall, Beech Hill Farm has corn mazes to walk through.

Young Goats at Beech Hill Farm

So we eat ice cream all summer and hopefully burn off all that accumulated fat next winter shoveling snow and lugging wood in for the stove. I like to get started on the fat burning by going kayaking too.

The Pigs

Pretty Bunnies

Another favorite local farm of mine is Tenney Farm in Antrim. Whenever it’s time to buy pumpkins and gourds, that is where I head. They also have bags of fresh picked apples in fall for those people who don’t want to pick their own.