More Mullica Hill - the Amish Market

On the way to Mullica Hill, my traveling pal of the day and I passed The Amish Market and decided to stop for lunch, which was delicious!  We also shopped around and I found a few things for Christmas.  I do think it is a good idea to get them when you see them.

Mullica Hill was likewise productive and I bought a few things there too - but this time, for me!  I bought cat salt and pepper shakers, for one thing, and some ornate vintage hankies for another.  There are such pretty collages in the Lady's Room of the Robin's Nest in Mount Holly, that are created from vintage hankies and postacards, that I always want to make one of my own. 

The Blue Plate is great, but if you want to stop before you get to Mullica Hill, give the Amish Market a try.  You can also buy wonderful things to take home while you are at it!  I plant to go back again before Christmas to buy gifts of food for people, cheeses and such.

Bon appetite!  and Happy Trails, Jo Ann

Oh, by the way, at the Old Mill antique shop, they gave me a great brochure -  Mullica Hill, NJ:  A Walking Tour.  Therein, I found interesting historical tidbits on various places in the town, including history of the Old Mill, which, it turns out was an old Train Station!
There is also a house called the Mullica House, at 20 N. Main, that was a family home of the founding Finnish family of Mullica, for whom the Mullica Creek as well as the town were named. 

Fun' Lunch and a HikeDay Trips List

Yesterday, Friday June 27, three friends and I had a fun day trip and I was thinking (on the way home, since I didn't have to drive this time) about all the fun day trips we take and I thought I'd jot down just a half dozen today on the blog.

1.Mays Landing and Ocean City:Yesterday, we took Route 559 which is a lovely road and never has been crowded in the years I've taken it, to Ocean City.  There is a detour for a bridge that has been out for months, but it is a simple detour easy to follow.  This route takes you by Lake Lenape and the antique store by the same name in Mays Landing.  A good place to stop for lunch is the Sugar Hill Restaurant with tables indoors and outdoors overlooking the water.  
The Ocean City boardwalk is 3 miles round trip to hike and also has a nice place to eat called the Ocean Cafe', for those who don't eat junk food (which is all  of my friends now that we are watching our weight and minding our health).

2.Millville:  Millville has a couple of great hikes.  One I'd save for winter when there are no ticks and that is the Maurice River Bluffs Hike, off Silver Run Road.
For all seasons, by all means stop at Wildflowers, on Main St. the Vegan restaurant and I guarantee you won't leave hungry.  For summer hikes, go to the river and hike the river path, then cross the walking bridge over the Maurice and there is another 2 or 3 mile trail that isn't as wooded and so safer from ticks.  Afterwards, stop at Bogarts' coffee shop for a tea or coffee refresher and music and maybe a book or two!  I like to visit the Botega Galleria across from Wildflowers, too - beautiful paintings at reasonable prices.

3.Mount Holly - I like to walk the streets and especially the Mill Race area then stop for lunch in the Robin's Nest.  In the fall they have the Battle of Ironworks Re-enactment.

4.  Tom's River has the River Lady paddle boat lunch which my hiking buddies and I plant to take in July.  We like to take the lunch excursion which does, fortunately offer a vegetarian choice - penne past in blush sauce, very good.  And you can walk around the historic town.  Haven't got a hiking trail for this trip yet as it takes us so long to get there and get back, that teh boat trip and lunch is usually enough, but the Historic Society is a good visit, too.

5.  Audubon and Haddon Heights offer fun places to eat and the Audubon Lake Haddon Heights 3 mile park to hike.  For lunch, you can stop in the Audubon side at Simply Soups on Atlantic Avenue, and in Haddon Heights, the Station House Restaurant.  Both of which are  close to the little local train stations which I love and wrote about recently.

6.  Needless to say, Burlington and Bordentown are excellent towns to visit, but I don't have time to go into them now and my favorite restaurant has closed - the Galleria.  So I need to do more research to talk about them, or you could go and find stuff to write to me about!

7.  Today, after I walk the dog at Big Timber Creek Dog Park, I'm off to Mullica Hill for the Red Mill Antiques and the Blue Plate for lunch.  (I have written that the Murphy's Book Loft barn of books is now closed - sorry about that, so that's off the list of favorites to visit in Mullica Hill)  We'll walk the main treet and check in the shops and admire the houses and gardens.

Happy Trails - walking and hiking are the excellent ways my friends and I stay healthy and have fun!  Hope to see you on the trail or to hear from you at my e-mail -
wrightj45@yahoo.com

Funny Picture

I know the Whitall Volunteers picture looks like a Colonial dame is being held at gunpoint.  It is an entirely unplanned funny photo and I was perfectly safe!

Whitall House Flower Show June 22, Sunday 2014

I just returned from doing my two hour shift of tour guiding at the James and Ann Whitall House, Red Bank Battlefield, National Park, NJ.  We had a steady stream of visitors on this exceptionally lovely summer day.  It couldn't have been nicer.  There was a gentle breeze and a mild and friendly sun - no humidity.  It was the flower show in the house and in the gardens, which added immensely to the pleasure and beauty of the day.  

The visitors were interested and polite and it was a sheer delight to offer this small amount of my time to help people enjoy a priceless treasure of American and New Jersey history.

Speaking of history, yesterday at Monmouth Battlefield couldn't have been nicer either.  Same thing, cool breeze, intoxicating summer grass aroma and shade under the trees, colorful costumes that made me green with envy, well stocked suttlers that made me sorry I left my purse in the trunk of the car.  The stirring battle re-enactment  makes me marvel every time I see it how the men of that time suffered and struggled to make us free.  We also enjoyed the well done performance of the Molly Pitcher character interpreter.  She is so believable and interesting.  When I got home, I had to watch a couple of episodes of TURN on AMC - on demand (less commercial interruptions) to continue the Revolutionary theme.

It is my hope that this blog helps others to find fascinating and INEXPENSIVE entertainments right here in our own backyard all year around!  AND, people who have businesses that I hope you will patronize:  my friend harry bought a wonderful costume shirt from
"Knightingales & Gibson Glassblowers, Lisa Lambert & Phil Gibson, Sutlers: contact -  brunswickcastle@hotmail.com
Today I bought pinelands wildflower honey at the Flower show from:  Hudons's Sweeties, Wenonah, NJ 856-468-1367
Happy TRAILS!  Jo Ann


"Back In Your Own Backyard"

The bird with feathers of blue
Is waiting for you
Back in your own backyard
You'll see your castles in Spain
Through your window pane
Back in your own backyard
Oh you can go to the East
Go to the West
But someday you'll come
Weary at heart
Back where you started from
You'll find your happiness lies
Right under your eyes
Back in your own backyard


http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/billieholiday/backinyourownbackyard.html

Monmouth Battlefield Annual Weekend Event

On Saturday, June 21, a volunteer buddy from the James and Ann Whitall House in Red Bank Battlefield, National Park, and I will be driving up to Monmouth for the weekend re-enactment.  In case you are interested, here is the link with an activity schedule for the day:
http://www.revolutionarynj.org/events/annual-battle-monmouth-reenactment/

On Sunday, the Whitall House hosts the annual flower show; it is a beautiful way to spend the day and I'll be tour guiding at the house for the first 2 hours, from noon to 2:00.  Hope to see you there!

Tonight I missed my first of 4 classes on the Great Civil War Battles, which are being given at Camden County College.  It is from 4:00 - 6:00.  I was really looking forward to it but I was out hiking with a friend, then I ran some errands, went out to eat, and fixed a broken turn signal on my car.  When I got in the house, it was already 45 minutes too late to go.  Well, I'll go next week.

Hope you are all finding ways to keep cool these days, a buddy and I hiked Audubon Lake/Haddon Heights Park today, 3 miles and it was cool and pleasant. 

I have another entry ready to go with pictures, but I will save it because I want the title to reflect it.  I'll post it tomorrow - it will be "Little train stations along the Atlantic Avnue"

Till we meet again - Happy Trails!  Jo Ann

Flag Day, June 14, 2014

Happy Flag Day!  First of all, I like to celebrate:  my birthday, every holiday, and I like to REMEMBER as in Memorial Day and D-Day and other days when important events have happened in my history or our nation's history.  If that weren't reason enough to enjoy and celebrate Flag Day, here's another - it was started by school teachers!  As any of you more frequent visitors may remember, I was a school teacher for 32 years before I retired.  Naturally, I did other kinds of work before college and teaching, so I actually worked for over 40 years before I retired.  But, anyhow, I want to support the efforts of my fellow teachers in creating another reason to celebrate - AND - I love this country and I love this state!

Now, it is common knowledge that there is no solid proof that Betsy Ross actually made the first American flag - and there are bits of evidence pointing to other flag makers of the period, however, Betsy Ross is a much loved American Icon and she serves as a symbol of all the other artisans who were working for our nation in the Colonial period and who suffered during the Revolution.  She lost her husband, Ross, and she endured the British occupation of Philadelphia and the many privations that everyone suffered in that time of civil strife.  We do know, solid evidence in the form of receipts, that she sewed shirts for George Washington and made flags for various branches of the military.  Flags were a very important communication tool both on and off the battlefield.  

In my mind the blue stands for hope and as a metaphor ("Blue Skies" for happiness) and well-being, the red for the blood shed by the tens of thousands who died to make us free, then to hold together the Union, and then in foreign wars.  To me the white stands for shirts, bandages and bed sheets and the homely things made by women to help the soldiers and the wounded in their time of need.  For example, Benjamin Franklin's daughter Sarah Bache, raised a fortune to buy material and then organized womens' sewing circles to make shirts for the starving and half naked men in the Continental Army. 

On the subject of remembering the behind the scenes but ever so important efforts by New Jersey women, we should not only remember Betsy Ross, maiden name Griscom, who was raised on her family's farm near Glucester City in New Jersey, but also Clara Barton, who taught school for a time in New Jersey and her little one-room school can still be seen in Bordentown.
She went on, after her teaching career, to work diligently in Washington D.C., to see to it that as many of the Civil War Union dead as possible were identified.  To anyone who has had a loved one in the military in a war zone, you know you'd want to know your loved one was found and buried and not be in perpetual torment with a Missing In Action mystery.  She formed a clearing house for information for families of missing soldiers and identified more than 10,000 of the missing buried in unmarked graves over the battlefields of the Civil War.  

a digression:  Megan Smolenyak of ancestry.com fame, who lives in Haddonfield, NJ, also works, in this very period, to help identify remains of war dead which are still being found and brought home for burial.

Well, these are just a few of my thought today, on Flag Day!  I'm off to Millville now to have a delicious vegan lunch at Wildflowers, then a  boatride on the Maurice River with Captain Dave, and several friends and a more beautiful day for such an excursion, could not be imagined.

Some Fun Flag Facts:
The oldest American Flag is the Forster Flag of 1775, which was a field of red with 13 white stripes in the corner.
In 1914, Franklin Lane, Secretary of the Interior delivered a Flag Day Address in which he repeated words he said the flag had spoken to him that morning:  "I am what you make me, nothing more.  I swing before your eyes as a bright glean of color, a symbol of yourself."
On August 3rd, 1949, President Truman signed an Act of Congress designating June 14th a National Flag Day.
My favorite American Flag is the DON"T TREAD ON ME flag.

Happy Trails!  Jo Ann

Medford Friends Celebrated 200th Birthday

The Medford Friends were actually worshipping in a building in 1759, but their "new" building was constructed in 1814, so on Sunday, June 8th, they celebrated 200 years of "people from the generations who have lived lives of faith and service" and have met to share their worship at the Meeting house at 14 Union Street, Medford, NJ.

I arrived early which gave me the opportunity to read the display boards that described some of the many worthy programs the members have set their hearts, hands, and minds to over recent years.  There was a program to collect useful home items for the needy, a letter campaign for various causes including the ceasing of nuclear weapons proliferation, a writing campaign from the youngest members to survey members thoughts over what they would be willing to give up or go to jail for, the way various worthy social heroes have, such as George Fox and Mahatma Gandhi,  as well as what things we might feel were essential to take with us if we had to flee.    

My answer was that I would be willing to go to jail for what I believed in and in jail, I would use my college degrees and experience to work in literacy programs.  The things I would take with me if I had to flee would be my dependent animal companions who love me and need me.

After an one hour un-programmed worship (which is like meditation in that you free your mind to allow the inner light to show you something meaningful) in true Society of Friends tradition, we enjoyed a very well researched lecture by a Friend who is a professor of religion and an author of several books on religion.  Unfortunately, I couldn't find my pen during the lecture to take notes, and I've forgotten his name, but two of my friends attend this meeting and when I talk to them, I'll get the name and add it.  He did a marvelous lecture on writings of published Quakers who had visited the Medford Meeting as they traveled in the ministry.  He was entertaining, well spoken, charming and enlightening.  

This was followed by a delicious lunch.  Two other friends of mine, who are also vegetarians, were there and we wondered if there would be anything vegetarians could eat, but as is so often the case these days, most of the many tempting dishes provided were vegetarian.  

After this delicious luncheon, we were treated to a folk music concert by a very talented couple who are members of the Meeting.  

There was outdoor fun for all ages following the concert but both my back (the hard benches and long time sitting) and responsibility to my dog, demanded that I get in the car and head home.  It was a wonderful day.  And during the Meeting for worship, with my mind clear and my attention free to relax, I was given the thought that a birthday is a signal of new life and that every minute of every hour of every day is an opportunity for a beginning, a new birth, a chance to change, to be changed, to start anew.  

Happy Trails!  Jo Ann

Oliphant's Mill Has Lost its Wheel

Today two friends and I went to the Smithville that is in Atlantic County, not to be confused with the historic Smithville that is in Burlington County.  My purpose was to have a better look at Oliphant's Mill which I had been reading about in Old Mills of Camden County by Charles Boyer.  It had been the last standing mill in Gloucester County until it was moved to Smithville.  Here is a quote from a website about it:

"In my part of New jersey these things (old mills) are getting harder and harder to find. This one is on its last legs after being moved here from Gloucester County. When new sources of power replaced these things, mills were eventually abandoned for easier ways to run equipment. Many mills just decayed where they stood which seems to be the case with this wheel. Storms, especially a September 1, 1940 storm, demolished the remaining mills as well as bridges and mill dams in our area. The last mill in Gloucester County was this mill, Oliphant's Mill, south of Swedesboro along Kings Highway. Samuel Morgan's will mentioned his grist mill. Samuel Oliphant purchased the mill in 1871. It operated until 1937. In 1964, the mill was dismantled and moved to Smithville in Atlantic County. There you may see Gloucester County's last standing mill reconstructed. It needs some help"
http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMGNF9_Oliphant_Grist_Mill_at_Smithville_Village_Greene_Smithville_NJ

Yes, indeed, it does need some help, in fact the wheel is now gone which was there the last time I visited Smithville.  I can only hope it was removed for repair and will be returned.  Speaking of mills however, I had the great good fortune to see two in operation.  While at a hsitory symposium at Walnford, I saw their functioning grist mill in operation and when I visited the Daniel Boone homestead in Pennsylvania, I saw a very primitive small one saw mill in operation.  Every since I was a child and had one of those tin bucket water wheels for the beach, I have been fascinated with waterwheel technology.

Also it was a lovely day at Smithville and I enjoyed the many saved historic buildings.  Tomorrow, I'll post one of the little red schoolhouse of 1871. 
Happy Trails!  Jo Ann

A Lovely Way to spend a day - HOPEWELL, NJ

Yesterday, with my regular hiking buddies, Barbara Spector, and, Trixie, my Lab mix,  Itook a delightful ride to Lambertville, NJ with a great stop at Gravity Hill Farm (www.gravityhillfarm.com), located at 67 Pleasant Valley Road, Titusville, NJ.  It is a Certiied Organic Farm, where we refreshed ourselves with a taste of a delicious frittata and fruit smoothies. 

We also checked out the wide assortment of delicious looking mushrooms.  Outside, while we enjoyed our smoothies, we bought some things made by Seeds for Change (www.seedstosew.org).  They were selling lovely fabric gift bags, and since both of us had birthdays coming up, we bought some.  They were such pretty fabrics, that you could actually buy an assortment of bags as a gift in themselves, which I plan to do by ordering off the internet.  I bought a set of six bags, in vintage fabrics, 3 small, 2 medium, 1 large for $27.   The small bags would be perfect for a gift book, the medium for a shirt or something, and the large, well it is big enough for a winter coat.

There were also two especially handsome Polish chickens singing out on the patio as we browsed the beaded jewelry and other charming things that might make nice gifts. 

We didn't stop to shop at the Flea Market because we didn't want to leave the dog in the car since it was nearly 80 degrees, but we both have shopped there before and can vouch for both a wide array of wonderful things and very reasonable prices. 

This time we headed for the Delaware and Raritan Canal and did a 3 mile hike on the shady, breezy canal tow-path. 

Traffic on the road wasn't bad either going or coming home (especially in consideration of the day, Sunday, and the weather - delightful) although there were many bikes on the canal path.  I'm sorry to confess I did not get the name of the little deli where we always stop for a sandwich, which is right on the canal path, and the sandwiches are made with the freshest of ingredients, and can be eaten at the picnic tables outside the deli.

The Seeds For Change organization makes trade and profit possible for women in Kenya, Africa, but aside from the gratification of spending money with an organization that does good in the world, wrapping gifts in pretty reusable bags instead of wasting paper is also attractive!

Happy Trails, Happy Tails & Tales, and Good luck with considerate shopping!   Jo Ann

ps.  Next Stop:  Beverly National Cemetery, where a grandfather and grandmother are buried:  It is a National Cemetery located near Edgewater Park, NJ