What to do on the coldest day of the year so far?
Make popsicles!
We headed to Lowe Mill and met up with Suzy who owns Suzy's Pops for a tour of her shop and a chance to make some pops!
She gave us a little tour of the mill, talking about the history of the building and how it came to be an artist haven in Huntsville.
It was a shoe factory, so the shoe is a reminder of that.
The yellow circles are where workers stood to operate their machines. The red lane in the middle is where the carts ran back and forth with materials and now and then there was a metal plate covering what was once a hole where a pulley or other bit of machinery would come though.
The kids got hairnetted and gloved up and Suzy told us about all the steps to making a good pop.
They made strawberry pops, the first step was mixing sugar and water to make a simple syrup.
While that heated, the kids took turns hulling the strawberries.
They juiced a couple lemons, too.
She walked them through the whole process, that's Inde adding the last couple sticks to the holders.
They mixed the syrup and berries in the mixer, then added the lemon juice for some tang.
They poured the mix into 4 big multi-pop molds and added the sticks. The pops sat in the freezer, which was a small container filled with a super cold liquid, for about 15 minutes and then came out for a quick dip in a warm bath and:
It happened SO FAST!
The kids got to try their hand at bagging the pops.
She showed us the final steps-flipping the tray over into a stainless steel pan and then using the heated sealer to melt the open bag together.
She passed out pops to everyone, even the moms got to have one!
While we ate, she told us more about herself and how she got started and some of her plans for growing her business. It was all really interesting, but I think everyone's favorite part was brainstorming for a new pop idea.
They came up with Frog Egg pops. We'll have to go back and see if they got made!
You can check for yourself, she's open Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday from 12-6 and Friday from 12-8 at Lowe Mill, second floor way in the back!
Afterward, we had lunch and took a short walk on Monte Sano to look at the ice.
This is a frozen log in a waterfall
