A look at Maryland's new Ice Cream Trail

"My great grandfather came here in 1895 and worked the farm as a sharecropper.  Bought the farm about 1906."

Bob Prigel is a fourth generation dairy farmer in northern Baltimore County.

Although he is local and family owned, he finds it tough to compete with global farming corporations.

Bob says, "the idea we came up with is we would take our product right to the people.  We live in populated areas so why not give them the opportunity to consume the products we produce."

And what the Prigel family produces well is ice cream so they opened a creamery.

"You can't get better ice cream than at creamery's like this."

The Maryland Department of Agriculture agrees, and they want you to visit the state creamery's this summer.

They've opened the Ice Cream Trail, an assortment of seven dairy farms in Maryland that serve ice cream and other dairy products to the public.

Secretary Bud Hance is with the Maryland Department of Agriculture.

"It provides an opportunity for consumers to actually get out on a farm, learn about how ice cream is made and how a farm operates.  They have an opportunity to ask questions and the other benefit is that we're hoping to help these producers across the state to be profitable and survive"

The ice cream trail will take the guess work out of which dairy farms to visit.

Jennifer Burch lives in Perry Hall.

"Yeah, it's easier because I was trying to research different creamery's to go to so now this passport is making it easier for me and giving me a list of places to go"

Ines Horlacher also lives in Perry Hall.

" So we're really enjoying our little tours of creamery's around Baltimore and Maryland"

Also, there's geocaching.  A hi-tech treasure hunt using GPS, encouraging you to have fun and win prizes while visiting the farms.

With the first day of summer temperatures expected to be in the upper 90's, there's nothing like some nice refreshing homemade ice cream to make your work day go easier.

On the Ice Cream Trail, I'm Lamont Williams, ABC2 News.