While visitor-friendly farms are becoming fewer and farther between with each passing decade, some are diversifying, offering the opportunity to visit, lodge overnight, and get your hands dirty with everyday farm chores. Harvest season (fall) is an ideal time to visit, when you can help reap the season’s treasures. But do realize that lodging is limited at the more authentic farms, so reserve early! Liberty Hill Farm (libertyhillfarm.com) in Rochester, Vermont, invites guests to collect eggs, harvest vegetables, milk Holstein cows, and bottle-feed the calves. Don’t wait to book; there are only seven guest rooms in the inn, which was built in 1825. Or sign up for a class in chicken raising, goat care, or goat-cheese-making at Mountain Goat Lodge (mountaingoatlodge.com), a luxe B&B on a goat-rescue farm in central Colorado’s highlands. At Oregon’s Leaping Lamb Farm (leapinglambfarm.com), visitors can pick the produce, let the animals out to pasture (or help corral them), and aid in feeding. To participate on a working farm is to immerse yourself in the heritage that sustained this country through its founding centuries.
—Stephanie Citron
ASK THE VET Hair of the Dog
Question: My husband, who didn’t grow up with dogs, worries that it is unsanitary for our toddler to hug and bury her face in our dog’s fur, while I say it’s fine. Can you help?
Researchers did an intriguing study that should help your husband feel comfortable with your daughter’s affection for her dog. They identified bacteria on the neck fur of 30 dogs of various breeds and compared them with bacteria on the beards of men ranging in age from 18 to 76. They found bacteria that cause human infection on only 13 percent of dogs’ fur compared with 39 percent
