A little exploration in NJ

Wednesday was a most refreshing day. C.Z. and I went to pick to a U-Pick farm in Chester, New Jersey with some new-ish friends. Despite extremely humid weather, the mood was energetic, because the two families discovered that we enjoyed many of the same things. One of these is taking spontaneous side trips, so after picking fruit and shopping for some extra produce at the farm store, we followed some signs to an old mill. I think we've found someone with whom we can enjoy exploring the countryside around New York City! I've neglected the countryside far too long because of my hesitation to rent a car, but I hope to remedy that this year.

Don't these peaches look especially fresh in my new orange melamine mixing bowl? We picked raspberries, too.

We found this old flour mill near the U-Pick farm. Right as we walked up, we saw an arm in a full sleeve lowering a bag of flour, tied to a rope, out of the upstairs window. It turned out to belong to a man in period costume, who, by the time we finished exploring outside the mill and went inside, was incongruously working on a laptop. The docents did a fine job of explaining the workings of the mill, however, and they even opened the sluice gate to set the gears to work and grind a little grain. I would like to have posted some photos of the old machinery here (it reminded me of Eric Sloane's books), but unfortunately, all of my indoor pictures turned out quite blurry.

We came home from the mill with two bags of flour for C.Z.'s baking:

And yesterday morning C.Z. and I put together a peach pie with the fruits of our exploration. When I went to start dinner and put the pie in the oven later in the afternoon, I found these decorations laid out on the cutting board. The medallion says "42 and cloudy." That's Bob's favorite running weather, which comes in the fall. The pie turned out great! And the weather, while not 42 and cloudy, is much less humid today.

I hope to post some more countryside explorations in the fall...