BRATTLEBORO — The 12th annual Strolling of the Heifers Weekend, featuring a parade of flower-bedecked heifer calves led by future farmers up the historic Main Street of Brattleboro, takes place June 7 to 9.
The centerpiece of the weekend is the world-famous Strolling of the Heifers Parade, which starts promptly at 10 a.m. on Saturday, June 8. The signature heifer calves lead the parade and are followed by other farm animals, tractors, bands, and floats.
The crowd then follows the parade to the all-day, 11-acre Slow Living expo to enjoy food, music, dance, demonstrations, exhibits, and fun, all related to the Stroll's mission of sustaining family farms by connecting people with healthy local food.
Strolling of the Heifers Weekend highlights include:
• Gallery Walk and the finals of the Great New England Quiche Cookoff on Friday, June 7, from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Main Street will be shut down for a three-hour party with musicians, clowns, and street vendors, while the River Garden will host the finals of a competition aiming to find the perfect combination of New England-produced cheeses, dairy products, and other local ingredients to produce a prize-winning quiche.
• The Strolling of the Heifers Parade - Saturday morning, June 8, at 10 a.m. The world-famous centerpiece of Strolling of the Heifers: a parade like no other, featuring up to 100 heifer calves, bedecked with flowers for the occasion and led by proud future farmers, along with many other farm animals, bands, floats, tractors, and clowns. (Please, no dogs at the parade or Expo.)
• The Slow Living Expo - all day (9 a.m. to 4 p.m.) on Saturday, June 8. This 11-acre festival happens at the Brattleboro Common and on the grounds of the Brattleboro Retreat, and is attended by the entire parade audience, which follows the parade up Main Street to come to the Expo.
• On Sunday morning, Stroll Weekend continues with the Organic Farmers Breakfast - the Stroll's annual showcase of natural and organic breakfast foods - held at The Works in downtown Brattleboro from 7 a.m. until noon.
• The Tour de Heifer will run all day, Sunday June 9. In a joint fund-raiser for Strolling of the Heifers and other local charities, bike riders from all over New England will enjoy routes that will take them through scenic valleys and hills to experience farms and local food specialist operations in southern Vermont. There will be three routes - 10, 30 and 60 miles, geared to children, families, and serious riders.
• Finally, there is the Farm, Food and Fiber Tour, which begins Sunday, June 9 and continues through the fall of 2013. This is a self-guided tour of farms, food producers, and fiber producers throughout southeast Vermont. Visitors will be able to use detailed maps, directions, and destination listings on the Strolling of the Heifers website and in printed materials.
The money raised by the Strolling of the Heifers parade goes to help New England farmers and educators in various ways, including the annual Strolling of the Heifers Farm/Food Business Plan Competition with $30,000 in prizes to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship at farm and food enterprises.
Strolling of the Heifers is a zero-waste event: the organizers strive to minimize non-recyclable waste at all Strolling events. For further information, visit www.StrollingoftheHeifers.com, and see Strolling of the Heifers on Facebook.