HOME | POLITICS | SPORTS | LIFE | SCI/TECH | OPEDS | HELPFUL TIPS
|
July 20, 2006 Got Cheese? Ok so that’s a bit lame. But in essence that is what you have to say when you walk into Sweetwater Valley Cheese store. What you are faced with is a variety so large the only thing you have to ask yourself is what flavor don't they have. Road trips make for fun times. The smell of the road, the heat of no air conditioner, the sound of big trucks drowning out your conversation. But what is most interesting is the Billboard signs. You may think that these signs are ugly, bothersome and in some cases distracting. They are a tribute to the advertisers art and they have another quality not many, unless you are a road trip person understand, these monsters of the road contain information. At times information pertinent to the family travel. It was on one of these that a place was shown. Simple graphics but something so much more, it was a sign about Cheese. Not just y cheese. While Wisconsin and Vermont have their famous ribbon winning cheese, so too does the Tennessee valley have their cheese. Cheddar's of almost every conceivable flavor to be exact. My husband had to go to wok so we tagged along for a road trip. On Highway 11 near Sweetwater is a farm, Not just any farm, and the farm that produces Tennessee Cheddar. Here the cheese cheddar aficionado can sample every flavor made, and sample honeys, Moonshine jelly. (Made from tequila) and then take a tour. Now here is how this works. If you can pry yourself away from the trays of samples, you can go on a tour. The tour begins in the cheese store where you watch a video. After watching this video and sampling you head out to walk towards the barn area, But first stopping at the grain storage. No longer do they use silos, as they are too dangerous. Open covered bunkers are stacked high with multiple grains. Cottonseed, leavings from the Jack Daniel's Plant, all kinds of grains and mineral mixes that are scooped up and dumped into a grain mixer and mixed with a bale of hay. This is mixed and made ready to feed. Next stop down tot the barn, A nice cool barn at that. Heavy-duty fans circulate cooled air. It was amazing that in the heat outside 90 degrees it felt like it was about 72 in the barn. The marvel design is used to keep them cool and comfortable. They even have soft beds. It was then onto the milk house where you could see the machinery, cooling tanks. As you walked back up to the cheese store there was acres to look at. And in some fields some cows, some horses. It was Peaceful and quiet. Sweetwater Valley Farm is perfect for a stop for anyone. You don’t have to have a reason to stop by, you just want to stop by, visit the cows eat some cheese and enjoy the place. ------------ About the author: Currently Julia is working on creating new books of Folk Crafts from History and getting entries ready for competitions and state fairs. LULU.com is her pereferred publisher and will have all of her volumes available for print this summer. She is still at DePaul University plugging away at her BA in ethnography and stays at home in the East Tenneseee area with her hubby, daughter, nine babies and acre's of wild fruit. Email: jimmysdevoted2@bellsouth.net Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
