The Caribou Parks and Recreation Department’s Take It Outside Adult Series took a trip to southern Aroostook County Oct. 14.
The group recently toured Houlton Farms Dairy. This family-owned business, located in Houlton, has long roots in the Aroostook milk, butter and ice cream industry. The Lincoln family has had to take the necessary steps to compete in the dairy business and tour guide Eric Lincoln gave the participants an excellent account of how their family has been able to survive.
Contributed photo
At the Houlton Farms Dairy production facility are TIOAS participants, from left, Sharon Nadeau, AnnaMarie Judd, Lori Risner, Louanne Watt, Nancy Pelletier, Carol Doody, Lorna Pike and Margaret Gillespie.
Participants were given a tour of the production facility and to make this even more special, all participants were given a sample of vanilla ice cream fresh out of the ice cream maker. Following the tour of the production facility, tour organizers gave the group a slide show featuring the history of the company.
Prior to leaving, the Lincoln family gave all tour-goers Houlton Farms Dairy LED flashlights, pencils and ice scrapers.
The group then headed south to Smyrna Mills for lunch at the Brookside Inn, followed by a guided tour of the Amish community in Smyrna Mills. The Amish have always been welcoming and provided one of their community members as a personal guide.
This year, the first stop on the tour was at their one-room schoolhouse, where participants were able to observe the grades 1-8 students diligently doing their work. After all the kids stood up and introduced themselves by grade level, TIOAS members in turn introduced themselves to the children, who then sang two songs.
Tour-goers were later given the opportunity to ask the Amish representative questions about the religion and practices.
They visited a couple of the other businesses within the community, including Northeastern Rustic Log Furniture and Sontental Dairy, and were given the opportunity to tour their cheese-making facility and taste samples of their cheese, then make purchases of their favorite varieties.
