DAY TRIPPING The Retreat Farm Brattleboro, Vermont

Are you looking for an outdoor experience with a few different options of what to do? The Retreat Farm in Brattleboro is a great place to spend time outdoors, get some fresh air, and explore. &emsp;&emsp;You'll find a sense of history on the grounds of the farm. It was built on ancestral Abenaki lands in 1837 to provide food and therapy for patients of the Brattleboro Retreat, a mental health and addiction treatment center. &emsp;&emsp;With more than 650 acres of land, the Retreat Farm offers 10 miles of trails and paths that are free for anyone to use any time of the year from dawn until dusk. &emsp;&emsp;"It's a great winter hiking and snowshoeing trail network," says Lindsay Fahey, managing director of impact and community. &emsp;&emsp;The Brattleboro Retreat created most of these trails in the 1800s; the trails were revitalized in 2006 and 2007. In recent years new trail signs have been added to make the trails easier to follow. A detailed trail map is available in a kiosk on-site at the farm, or one can be downloaded from the farm's website. &emsp;&emsp;Families visiting with children may enjoy the Children's Story Book Walk, a nice, easy walk through the woods with the pages of a book displayed to read as you walk along the path. The book displayed for March is "Snow Birds," by Kirsten Hall and Jenni Desmond. &emsp;&emsp;"It changes every month," Fahey says. Their book selection is "a curated selection of diverse voices that are all tied to the land and the animals." &emsp;&emsp;The storybook walk also passes by a children's forest playground made up of natural play structures. This is a great area to allow children to explore and pretend. &emsp;&emsp;You can also take a stroll along the Woodlands Interpretive Trail, which is a one-mile walk featuring 18 different natural aspects pointed out along the way. This trail also has an accompanying MP3 recording available online that visitors can listen to while walking on this trail. &emsp;&emsp;Trails aren't all the farm has to offer, though. The farm is home to chickens, pigs, sheep, goats and an ox. Not all animals are available to visit in the winter months because they are inside, but visitors are welcome to check out any of the animals outside and out to pasture. &emsp;&emsp;"People like to visit Carlos and Pip. Carlos is our one-ton ox, and Pip is his companion goat." Fahey says. &emsp;&emsp;Fahey also mentioned that many people enjoy using the Retreat Meadows right across from the farm in the winter. &emsp;&emsp;"They are either ice skating, ice fishing or just exploring the frozen river," she says. &emsp;&emsp;In the warmer months, the farm hosts many concerts, festivals, ballet performances and their popular weekly Food Truck Roundup series, featuring over a dozen local food trucks, craft brews and live music. &emsp;&emsp;After you're done checking out the Retreat Farm, you can pop in next door to Grafton Village Cheese. &emsp;&emsp;The Grafton Cooperative Cheese Company was founded in 1892 by dairy farmers who wanted to band together to make their surplus raw milk into cheese. In 1912, a fire destroyed the original factory, but several decades later, the nonprofit Windham Foundation, whose mission is to promote Vermont's rural communities, restored the company in the mid-1960s. Today's cheeses are still made by hand using premium raw/unpasteurized milk from small, local family farms. &emsp;&emsp;The Brattleboro Specialty Cheese and Wine Shop is a large retail store that not only features these award-winning Grafton Village Cheeses, but they have over 80 types of artisan cheeses, wine, specialty foods and gifts. Many of their items are made in Vermont. BOX: The Retreat Farm is located at 45 Farmhouse Square in Brattleboro and is open daily from dawn until dusk. To donate to help with the upkeep of the farm and trails, or for more information, visit retreatfarm.org or call 802-490-2270. Grafton Village Cheese is located at 400 Linden St. in Brattleboro. They are open daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. For more information, visit www.graftonvillagecheese.com or call 800-472-3866.