Maple syrup prices have gone right through the sugar house roof. At roughly $10 for a mere pint of maple syrup, it now costs more to top off your pancakes than your car. (If you filled your tank with syrup, that is.)

Each game warden in the state has a list of people to call when there is a road accident that involves a deer or moose. Once comprised of only butchers, today the list is open to anyone—anyone willing to receive a call, often in the wee hours of the morning, that will require them to scramble out of pajamas and into boots and coat and into the night to pick up the game.

Leaning over the small vat of warm fresh milk, Louella Hill grabs a metal tool known as a cheese harp, and begins to swish the harp in figure-eight-like movements, cutting young curds that feel more like slippery jelly than dense chewy cheese. She does this to separate the curds from the whey – and is just one step in a process used to create Divine Providence -- Rhode Island’s first artisan cheese.

The story of the milkman traces a century of change in New England home life. Once an essential connection between farm and home, the milkman has become a part of our regional folklore and is the centerpiece of SPNEA’s latest exhibition, From Dairy To Doorstep: Milk Delivery in New England, 1860–1960.