Fall Foliage in Vermont at the Couture Bed and Breakfast with family 2025 Pt 2 - 2025/10/03

Welcome to Vermont! We're here with a whole bunch of family for fall foliage! We're visiting our friends the Coutures, who own a maple sugar farm and bed & breakfast. We've rented out the entire house and are ready for a fun day of adventure! 

Jake warned us the night before that he'd be up early making maple sugar candies in the kitchen. We didn't so much hear him, but we definitely smelled the results! To get these pure sugar maple candies, you have to boil maple syrup until it gets to a certain temperature. Too hot and the candies will be dry and crumbly. Too low and you'll end up with wet sticky candies. Get it just right and you'll have a batch of the perfect maple treat. They're my favorite thing in the entire store. 

And there's more delicious aromas coming from the house kitchen. Mrs. Pauline is hard at work making breakfast for everyone. 

It's nice to have everyone gathered around together for breakfast. 

Mrs. Pauline explaining what we've got today. Homemade Oatmeal Maple bread with Maple Sugar instead of white sugar, Homemade Apple Sauce from their trees outside, Homemade Maple Syrup from Jake, Homemade Maple Sugar, and Homemade Apple, Zucchini, and Carrot muffins. 

Theresa - Is the zucchini from your garden too? 

Pauline - Yes!

Theresa - You're amazing Mrs. Pauline!

We've got as much maple syrup french toast as we can eat, using Mrs. Pauline's homemade bread. Homemade zucchini muffins, homemade applesauce from their trees just outside, and bacon (not homemade). Want to sweeten your coffee? Don't reach for the white sugar. Use either the maple sugar or maple syrup. Yum! 

With full bellies, we all headed to our rooms to get ready to leave for the day. Jake is pulling the sugar candies out of the moulds and boxing them up. 

With all the leaf peepers here, and being right on a major road, they are expecting to have a busy day in the shop. 

Theresa looking to the horizon, seeing those beautiful hillsides lighting up with color. 

So good. 

Everyone piled into 3 cars and we caravanned south to where we're spending our day, Waterbury Vermont. 

All along the way, we passed hillsides with lots of colorful leaves. Theresa and Rita were relieved to see that the colors in Vermont hadn't dulled compared to New Hampshire. 

Alli - The hills look like they're painted!

Leaf World (to the tune of Milo Murphey's Law) 

As we rounded the bends in the road, we'd be rewarded with beautiful sites like this. 

As we went, suddenly there was a large lake. 

Theresa - Joe! Turn over here!

Joe - That's someone's driveway!

She checked the map and discovered that just a little further was the Lake Eden Recreation Area. 

We made an impromptu stop and were rewarded with some amazing hillsides behind the lake. 

Gotta stop and take a few pictures of everyone. 

One of Ian's favorite memories of the day was skipping rocks with Uncle Ty. 

Alli loved the swings and the merry-go-round they had. 

It looks pretty now, but the girls are thinking it's going to be even better this afternoon when the sunshine is hitting the trees from the front instead of the back. We made plans to swing back by here on our return trip too. 

Continuing onward! We've got places to be! 

Theresa liked that for halloween, they've put up orange and black signs and "SCARIfied" the road for us. 

We made it through the super busy traffic that was Stowe Vermont, and headed into Waterbury. It's here that we're headed to the Cold Hollow Cider Mill. And it is certainly busy. They had attendants in the parking lot, directing traffic and pointing people to the overflow lots. 

Filled with Vermont. Vermont to the CORE. 

Made it! I remember coming here years and years ago with T. Who knew it would be a staple stop 20 years later. 

We entered the building and were greeted with the wonderful aroma of apple and fried donuts. These aren't our favorite donuts though, because they don't coat them in cinnamon-sugar. We have something else we love from here though. 

The fresh apple cider! They show you the whole process and even give you a sample! 

To get above the crowds, there's a viewing platform, looking down into the production area. 

From here we can see them as they pump ground apples onto cloths, stacked in layers, then slide them into the press. 

Pumping apples onto each layer and loading it into the press. 

So much juice coming out!

And the dry apple pomace doesn't go to waste. It'll go off to some lucky cows and pigs as feed. 

Everyone loves to try the fresh cider. 

There's a line but it moves quickly. 

Apple cider is definitely tastier. 

Did you find Waldo? 

We picked up some cider for this afternoon's picnic lunch. 

Time to head just a mile or so down the road. Why is everyone smiling? 

Because we're headed to the Cabot Creamery Cheese Shop! 

Inside they're sampling some cheeses and other spreads, from not just Cabot, but other vendors.  

From Wozz Kitchen Creations, we have three different Savory Spreads. There's a Green Tomato Jalapeno which initially raised concerns for being too hot, but we were assured it had the flavor but none of the heat. We tried it and thought it was delicious! 

Next was a Balsamic Fig Mostarda. My mom really liked it. It had hints of mustard and balsamic, but to me it tasted very raisiny. 

Last was a Southern Style Rustic Mustard. Lots of mustard seeds, very flavorful. I don't know which is my favorite between this and the jalapeno. 

The kids were able to get samples of the cheeses without any of the savory spreads on top. 

What else is here? There's a Horseradish Cheddar that was very tasty provided you're a fan of horseradish. 

Then there was the Wickedly Habanero. Let me tell you, it was spicy! But also delicious! 

Alli, always one to try new things, took a little nibble, then panicked a little as the heat took hold. Luckily there was a sample of yogurt and granola nearby to cool things off. 

Barred Woods Maple is here sampling some of their maple products. Like their pure maple candies (we saw Jake make something similar this morning). 

Maple Granola and yogurt. 

And maple popcorn seasonings. 

And of course there's plenty of cheese to buy. We've done a big taste test with Cabot Cheese before, sampling lots of different cheddars. Our favorites were Seriously Sharp Cheddar and the Legacy Collection Alpine Cheddar. We grabbed a couple bars of that, plus the Horseradish Cheddar, along with 2 of the savory spreads. 

Though I was tempted to try that Goat Cheese and Black Truffle dip, or Caramelized Onion dip. 

And just in case you're in the market, you can grab a 34 pound wheel of Seriously Sharp Cheddar too. 

Leaving happy! We've got some tasty things for our picnic lunch! 

We drove down the road just another mile or so and found our picnic area. 

We pulled out a bunch of meats, cheeses, crackers, chips and other goodies. 

Everybody served themselves and I'm sure there were others nearby who were jealous of our amazing spread. 

Ooh! Theresa's got those German Johnson tomatoes from Ty's garden. 

Aww, such a shame. They're red and juicy inside instead of hard and white like the ones you get from the grocery store <sarcasm>. 

We all had a lovely lunch with goodies from Vermont on a beautiful hillside on a Friday. What a great time hanging out with everyone and enjoying the wonders of nature around us.