With cold weather finally upon us, and my health taking it’s seasonal decline, I have started to alter my destinations a bit – though I will likely continue to trek through the woods when I can I think it’s time to adjust my attention to some interesting indoor locations. This last one came up as a surprise. I was spontaneously invited to attend a dinner at East Hill Farm, an event they put on maybe once a month or so.

I have driven by East Hill Farm MANY times. I had no idea what it was, I thought it was probably an equine breeding facility or something similar but actually it’s a pretty large complex that has a whole host of services from vacation rentals, special event dinners, wedding bookings, horseback riding lessons, field trips, meat sales, you name it, this place has their paws in it. How could this get by me so unnoticed?! Probably because many of their services are beyond my normal price range, but that’s OK, there’s nothing wrong with checking them out!

So I ended up at this dinner with a group of people and as usual I was a bit out of it. Though I knew where this farm was I didn’t know that so I typed the address into the GPS which summarily drove me into the woods where the road ended rather abruptly. I had to turn around and try again! But I was not late!

I drove in and parked, this place was packed. Luckily there was someone waiting out here for me because there’s three entrances into the place and it’s fairly disorienting. I sat down at the table, laughing about the little mishap on the way over. There was a big table of appetizers here and people were picking at them buffet style. I was starving. I took a piece of vegetable pizza and some other random tidbits and sat down. There was a fascinating mix of people here – from the very young to the very old, many dressed up fancy, but just as many wearing casual clothes. A violin player serenaded the crowd. Off in a side room there was a silent auction composed of all sorts of goodies from local farms and crafters – 50 pounds of potatoes, a box of gourds, several jars of  zucchini relish, an unlabeled mason jar of apple cider moonshine. The crafters items were less impressive – etched glass, a few carved woodblocks, a few felt pieces, nothing particularly out of the ordinairy, nothing you couldn’t find in a kitchen or country store. I pondered if I could help that but there was no information on how to donate.

I had quite some time as we waited for the actual meal. I had no idea what to expect but there was a card here with the menu. I thought it was like a normal menu where you pick what you want off it but no, everyone would be fed everything on the menu… four or five appetizers, a rather large meal, followed by several desserts! They specialize in seasonal foods and anything maple syrup. This time around they started out with a bowl of tomato bisque which was amazing followed by a blueberry fritter in fresh real maple syrup which was almost almost too much for my palette to bear. Delicious! The salad was less impressive but not bad. Dinner consisted of pot roast, savory mashed potatoes, carrots,  and warm apple sauce that I think was imported from heaven. Never had applesauce warm before. Now I wonder why! Dessert was made from various combinations of local ice cream, blue berries, and maple syrup which was also amazing but by this time I was too full to eat any more. So was the rest of my party. We skeddaddled a bit early, before the last dessert which appeared to be a full bowl of vanilla ice cream topped in maple syrup, something I would normally jump at if I weren’t so damn full!

Outside a horse stared intently at the bumper of a  car in the parking lot – checking it’s own reflection? I have no idea. It was weird. All around there were pastures for horses and who knows what else, a large barn off the back of the parking lot. This place must be beautiful in the daytime, maybe I was starting to see why someone would chose to have their vacation at a farm. I will be keeping my eye on this place in the future!

**Photo not taken by me – but I needed to put something up of the establishment…

 

<strong> If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!