This weekend is the annual parade that has become a 4-day extravaganza in Brattleboro, Vermont, just 10 minutes from our New Hampshire Bed and Breakfast, in West Chesterfield. The Strolling of the Heifers started 11 years ago as a parade focused on local farms and farming and has grown every year. It starts with the Slow Living Summit on Wednesday through Friday and continues with the Gallery Walk on Friday, with a street festival, a fashion show highlighting the collection at Twice Upon a Time, one of our fabulous second hand stores, and free music and street entertainment. The winners of the New England Bread Baking Competition will be announced that evening as well.

Saturday brings us the parade, with over 100 heifers, as well as a few mules, goats, and alpacas. The parade is on Main Street and culminates at the Brattleboro Common and the Brattleboro Retreat campus where there will be music, cheese and yogurt tasting, and many different kinds of food to sample for lunch. There will also be an antique tractor show, goat racing, and local entertainment on 4 stages. On Sunday, the Tour de Heifer will leave from Lilac Ridge Farm in West Brattleboro. The Tour is a bike ride that can be 60, 30, or 10 miles, and passes many of our local farms along the way.

It’s a full weekend of activities, so make your reservations now at our New Hampshire Bed and Breakfast Inn.

The Keene Ice and Snow Festival is one of the highlights of the year in Keene, New Hampshire, just a short drive from our romantic New Hampshire bed and breakfast. It’s this Saturday, February 18 from 10:00 until 4:00 in downtown Keene and it’s free!

Featured activities are: professional and student ice carving, snow sculpting, and a snowboard rail jam. There are craft activities for the kids, a craft fair with lots of vendors, snowman making, horse drawn wagon rides, a bonfire and s’mores, a fire truck display and musical performances. If you want to really embrace winter, try tubing or snow boarding at Granite Gorge, located just outside of Keene on Route 9. Nothing like hurtling down an icy hill at breakneck speed to get your heart pumping!

Part of living in northern New England is getting outside and enjoying the cold weather. The Keene Snow and Ice Festival gives you so much to do that you’ll forget that it’s cold!

Gaines Farm Corn Maze

It seems that Summer is officially over and Fall has arrived at Chesterfield Inn! I know this because the Gaines Farm Corn Maze opens this Saturday. For those of you who haven’t ever experienced it, a corn maze is a maze cut through the corn stalks in a corn field, with dead ends, winding paths, and, finally a way out. The challenge is to make your way through the maze without getting lost, and finding your way out on the other side!

I grew up on a dairy farm in Hardwick, Massachusetts, and as children we used to play in the cornfields. We never had anything as sophisticated as a corn maze, but we would play between the rows, in our own little world. You see, the corn stalks grew over 7 feet tall, so that once you entered the cornfield no one on the outside of the field could see you. It was perfect for us and we spent hours playing games between the giant rows of corn.

The Gaines Farm corn maze covers 7 acres of cornfield, and the corn has grown to heights of up to 10 feet. The pattern of the maze, as you can see here, is a tribute to the 250th anniversary of the town of Guilford, Vermont, which is about 20 minutes drive from our New Hampshire Bed and Breakfast. The corn maze opens this Saturday, September 17 and will be open weekends until October 30. Admission to the maze is $7 and includes entrance to the baby animal barn, pumpkin bowling, and many other activities. Fun for kids of all ages!

On Saturday and Sunday, September 24 and 25, a group of artists whose studios are located in Brattleboro, Marlboro and Dummerston, Vermont are hosting an open studio tour. These artists enjoy living and making art in this beautiful corner of Southern Vermont, a place where artists are welcome and supported by the local community. These artists invite you to come by their studios and get an idea of what their creative process is like.

You can choose between Kris McDermet‘s hooked and braided rugs, Doug Cox‘s handmade violins, Malcolm Wright‘s woodfired pottery and clay and bronze sculpture, Petria Mitchell’s and Jim Giddings’ paintings, and Josh and Marta Bernbaum‘s blown glass. You can download a map and make your way around the hills to the artists’ studios. All of these artists’ work is rooted in the natural beauty that surrounds them, as well as the culturally sophisticated town of Brattleboro.

So, plan a weekend away and make your home base the Chesterfield Inn. You can drive up Friday night, enjoy a delicious dinner at the inn, sleep until you wake up, enjoy a famous breakfast at our New Hampshire Inn and head out on the tour. What a great way to spend the day, exploring the back roads, looking at art, and actually meeting the artists in their studios!