Starting today, the parlor will be open from 10 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. on Saturday and noon to 7:30 p.m. on Sunday.

The Nutter family plans to keep the new store open later starting in the spring.

The parlor, which is on Rocky Ridge Road at its intersection with Dairyland Road, has been more than a year in the making, Robert Nutter said on Sunday afternoon. The family started working through the permitting process in late 1999 and broke ground this summer.

For some, the news of the opening today may beg the question: Ice cream on Jan. 1, just when the weather has turned consistently cold?

Farm manager Russ Siebert laughed and said that he, for one, likes to eat ice cream year-round, regardless of the temperature outside.

Nutter said he had hoped to open the parlor earlier this year and he'd been disappointed at first that it took so long to get the new venture permitted.

But he said that now he's happy with the timing, because it should give the parlor a chance to get up and running at a relatively slow pace.

Nutter's daughter, Muffin Brosig, agreed with that idea, but she also said she expects the parlor to be a lot busier immediately than does her father.

"We won't be as busy as we would have if we'd opened in June, but I think we'll be busy," said Brosig, who is office manager for the farm's milk-bottling operation.

Brosig is basing her optimism in part on the turnout for several free samplings of ice cream in recent weeks. She said many people showed up, even though the samplings weren't publicized much.

At the last sampling on Dec. 22, about 400 cups of ice cream were given away in two hours, Brosig said.

"There have been some people that came in for the samplings that were actually upset because they couldn't buy anything yet," she said.

The parlor has a porch with rocking chairs and it faces west, with a view of Maple View's silo and fields and the surrounding farmland. Dolly Hunter will manage the parlor, and eight part-time employees will be working there, some of whom have helped out on the farm in the past, Brosig said.

The family is using milk and cream from the Maple View dairy to make the ice cream. The dairy has a lot of excess cream because skim milk is the dairy's best seller.

For now, the flavors include chocolate, double chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, strawberry cheesecake, butter pecan, mint chocolate chip, honey toasted almond (with honey from Jack Tapp's farm), teaberry, eggnog and pumpkin.

There also is fat-free banana and strawberry sorbet, and two flavors with no sugar added - strawberry sundae and toasted almond.

"We're not going to be bashful about trying new flavors," Brosig said. "Our customers will tell us what they like."

Maple View also will offer milkshakes, and it will sell its bottled milk in the store as well.

And Nutter said a variety of other farm products may be offered in the store at some point in the future.

Nutter and Siebert said the dairy operation is doing well overall, and they described the ice-cream parlor simply as a way to add value and diversify the business.

Nutter gave credit to former UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Michael Hooker for inspiring him to start thinking about diversification, after a visit Hooker made to the farm.