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Jacquemin Farms

Take children to pick their own strawberries

A hankering for fresh strawberries recently led our family of four to Jacquemin Farms, 20 minutes from Columbus in Plain City, Ohio.

My husband, Mike, wanted some sun-ripened berries to flavor a batch of homemade ice cream. We also thought collecting the strawberries together would make a fun family outing.

A quick search on the Internet revealed a number of pick-your-own strawberry farms in central Ohio. We selected Jacquemin Farms, 7437 Hyland Croy Rd., which has a three-acre, pick-your-own strawberry patch that includes five varieties of the juicy red berries.

Unseasonably warm weather has caused the strawberries to ripen ahead of schedule. Strawberry picking times at Jacquemin Farms are 8 a.m.-5 p.m., Monday through Saturday, through the end of June.

Founded in 1987, Jacquemin Farms offers fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as a small retail shop with home-style jams and jellies, and freshly fried doughnuts with strawberry glaze.

Almost all the crops sold in the shop are grown on the farm including strawberries, peas, red raspberries and pumpkins, all of which can be freshly picked by customers. Other crops, such as apples, peaches, cherries and blackberries, come from nearby farmers.

We arrived on a sunny Saturday morning ready to pick just enough berries for our ice cream. At a cost of $2 per pound, we grabbed two, one-quart containers to fill ourselves. The total cost, with a couple of strawberry slushies for the kids, was five bucks.

We were directed to a row of strawberries and asked to stay in our row. We were encouraged to eat and enjoy fresh-picked berries as we filled our containers.

A sign says that children must stay within 10 feet of their berry-picking elders. It also says not to step on the plants, words that I had to repeat several times to my children.

You can take as long as you’d like picking your berries, kneeling on the straw-covered mud walkways. Our chore was completed in about 30 minutes.

I enjoyed being out in the sunshine pinching berries fresh from the vine and seeing so many others doing the same.

Mike thought the berries were kind of small, but I liked them because they tasted much better than the giant, unnatural-looking ones you see nowadays in the supermarket. The bite-size gems produce 10 times the flavor as their counterparts and are perfect for homemade strawberry ice cream.

For more information, visit www.jacqueminfarms.com. For current information on what’s ready to pick and when, follow Jacquemin Farms on Facebook or call 614-873-5725.

The farm is open through October.

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Punderson State Park

State park pleases with resort-like property, particulars

After a full day of touring covered bridges in Ashtabula County, my family and I stayed the night at Punderson State Park in Newbury, Ohio, before heading back home to Columbus.

We arrived on a foggy afternoon in early May. Daffodils and red bud blooms lit up the gloomy weather and the sight of the park’s English Tudor mansion was something out of the movies. A concrete statue of a gargoyle perched atop a ball near the entrance added considerable intrigue.

Is this really an Ohio State Park, or the scene of a Sherlock Holmes mystery?

It’s certainly a park. Tucked away in rural Geauga County, Punderson is one of the eight state parks in Ohio that have a lodge. There are 26 cottages available near Punderson Lake, a 150-acre body of water that has one boat launch and 18 seasonal docks for rent. The park offers boating, hiking trails, camping, fishing, tennis, and golf at a Jack Kidwell-designed, 18-hole course. Punderson also is a fine location during the winter for snowmobiling and cross-country skiing.

The lodge was named after Lemuel Punderson, the local township’s first settler in 1808. The manor house took about two decades to build and was completed in 1948.

After the Ohio Department of Natural Resources took over the lake and surrounding area in 1951, the manor house was renovated into a lodge and opened in 1956. It was renovated in 1982.

The Punderson lodge apparently has been the site of several ghost sightings, but I tried not to think about that. We didn’t see or hear any ghosts, nor was I looking for their company.

We did, however, encounter a friendly host at dinner. A restaurant inside the manor offers fine dining overlooking the picturesque lake. The dining area appeared reserved for honeymooners and solitude seekers, not parents with two cranky kids. But our waitress made us feel at ease, assuring us that we were just as welcome.

Mike ordered blackened prime rib, and I had a slice of splendidly prepared halibut. Our children enjoyed grilled-cheese sandwiches with wedges of watermelon.

Afterward, we retired to our room for a ghost-free night’s sleep in a room in the manor.

In the morning, the restaurant serves a full Sunday buffet, which smelled delicious as Rosie and I made our way down the hall toward the indoor pool for a quick dip. Large windows along two walls provide a great view of the natural lake, which was formed during the Ice Age.

Rain kept the children and me indoors, but it didn’t stop my husband from awakening at 7 a.m. and playing a round of golf. He said he got 15 holes in before it started raining hard.

What impressed me most was the cleanliness and seclusion of the park. It felt more like we were at a private resort. As a manor house, the lodge doesn’t have soaring ceilings or a great lobby sitting room. There’s a winding staircase that leads to some rooms. We went upstairs and discovered a small room, tucked away, that’s used as a library.

Punderson is one of eight state park lodges that participate in the “Stays for As” program, which rewards students of any age for good grades. Just show proof of an “A” on a report card, and receive $10 off the published room rate. Only one report card per room may be applied for the discount of up to $50 off.

Other participating parks include Burr Oak, Deer Creek, Hueston Woods, Maumee Bay, Mohican, Salt Fork and Shawnee. (The only other state park lodge is the Lodge at Geneva.)

For more information, visit www.ohiostateparklodges.com or call 1-800-282-7275.

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Dawes Arboretum: Explore 1,800 acres of plants, trees at Newark nature preserve
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Dawes Arboretum

Explore 1,800 acres of plants, trees at Newark nature preserve

I’ve driven by the Dawes Arboretum in Newark, Ohio, many times while traveling to and from my husband’s hometown two hours east of Columbus. I’d often think to myself, “One day I’m going to visit that place.”

I recently fulfilled that desire on a hot weekday in July, driving the 30 miles from Columbus to explore the arboretum’s 1,800 acres. I found an abundance of plant collections and gardens in an attractive, rustic setting.

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My first stop was the visitor’s center, where I picked up a map. There are 8 miles of hiking trails and a 4-mile auto trail looping around the property. I decided to walk the auto trail, part of which was closed for grounds maintenance. I put my son in his stroller, and we ambitiously set out to explore the more than 16,000 plants and trees.

At times the place looked like a cross between a golf course and a cemetery. It was spacious, well manicured and peaceful. I felt a little guilty walking all over what seemed like private property. But I adhered to the arboretum’s motto: “Explore. Experience. Enjoy.”

There were surprises at every turn. Colorful butterflies landed on white hydrangea. Geese squawked alongside a lake with an island, which was accessible via a bridge. Closely planted shrubs spelled out the words “Dawes Arboretum.”

Other highlights included a seasonal garden, a cypress swamp and a Japanese garden with a serene lake and stepping-stones. They say the Japanese garden is especially beautiful in the spring, when the cherry trees are in bloom. (View the flowering schedule here.)

Beman and Bertie Dawes founded the arboretum in 1929. The couple loved trees and nature, and lived on the property with their five children.

Beman Dawes became wealthy while working in the gas and petroleum industry. He was the founding president of the Ohio Cities Gas Co., which later was known as the Pure Oil Co.

Bertie Dawes loved gardening, fishing, bird watching and photography. Both died in the 1950s. The Arboretum continues its founders’ mission of education, conservation, research and maintaining plant collections for the public to enjoy.

The property is huge, but I conserved enough energy to climb a 36-foot observation tower to view the “Dawes Arboretum” hedge lettering. Measuring 2,040 feet long, it’s one of the largest of its kind in the world. Beman Dawes thought it would be an interesting landmark for pilots as they arrived and departed nearby Port Columbus Airport.

Mission accomplished.

Dawes Arboretum is located at 7770 Jacksontown Rd. SE in Newark. It’s free to visit and open 7 a.m. to dusk every day except Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day. The Visitors Center is open Monday through Saturday, 8 a.m.-5 p.m., and Sundays, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Guests are welcome to picnic on the property, except near the Japanese Garden. Dogs, on leashes, also are welcome.

Tours of the Daweswood House Museum are offered weekends at 1:30 and 3 p.m. and cost $2 for adults, $1 for children.

For more information, visit www.dawesarb.org or call 800-443-2937.

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Kingwood Center

Thousands flock to majestic grounds each spring for colorful blooms

Every spring people want to know when they can witness the full splendor of 20,000 tulips at Kingwood Center, a former estate that’s now a 47-acre public park in Mansfield, Ohio.

Tulips have been Kingwood’s main attraction since the grounds opened to the public in 1953, one year after the death of property owner Charles Kelley King. The annual display draws thousands from around the state. Many visit on Mother’s Day. Some pack picnic lunches and plop down on the lawn with their families for a peaceful afternoon among the spring bloomers.

In truth, predicting when Kingwood’s tulips will come forth is an inexact science. Ohio’s fickle weather patterns make it a guessing game. Senior gardener Charles Applegate said the best chance to see them is typically the last week of April or the first week of May.

“If it stays sunny, dry and cool, the blooms will last longer,” says Applegate, who’s worked at Kingwood since 1965. He says the reason people get antsy to look at flowers this time of year is simple: “People have been through a cold winter and they want to see color. And the tulips are very bright. Unfortunately, they’re temporary.”

King would have enjoyed this scene. The recreational gardener, who made his fortune in Mansfield working with the Ohio Brass Company, requested that his property be used as an educational institution for the advancement of horticulture and gardening after his passing.

The Kelley King Trust operates Kingwood as a nonprofit business, and it is open to the public for a nominal fee nearly year-round. The property includes a 1926-built French Provincial mansion housing a horticultural library and many original furnishings. Greenhouses contain seasonal floral displays and a variety of unusual plants for sale. The center’s greatest delight, however, is its gardens, which produce an abundance of flowers, trees and shrubs that bloom from early spring to late fall. The headliner is the annual tulip display, which spreads over 55 beds.

“We always want it to be perfect,” says Bill Collins, Kingwood’s head gardener. “When the spring flowers are blooming and the tulips are out, it’s just spectacular here.”

Kingwood’ tulips hail from Holland. Bulbs are selected at their prime and shipped to a distributor in Cincinnati. Each October a staff of nine gardeners plants thousands of tulip bulbs. Using a hand-held trowel, each gardener digs a 5-inch-deep hole for every bulb, and the planting takes about a week.

Tulips do best in a sunny, dry and cool climate. In those weather conditions, the colorful display can last up to three weeks.

Kingwood annually holds a Spring Flower Festival in early May. The all-day event includes vendors, entertainment, workshops, lectures and plant sales.

For more information, visit www.kingwoodcenter.org.

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Pigeon Roost Farm

Pick pumpkins, pet animals, play outdoors

Nothing says autumn like a well-groomed pumpkin patch. When the calendar turns to October, I always go looking for a place to pick up a few jack-o-lanterns to be.

This year my family discovered Pigeon Roost Farm, along Rt. 40 in Hebron, Ohio. Seeing my 2-year-old daughter’s face light up as she wandered among the pumpkins and frolicked at the farm’s extensive playground assured me we had hit upon a gem.

The 80-acre farm, located at 4413 National Road SW, offers a cornucopia of fall delights that draws nearly 35,000 visitors a year. Most pumpkins cost 35 cents a pound. You can pick your own in the field or select a pre-picked specimen or two. Just stack them in one of the many provided self-serve wagons, which doubled as a stroller for Rosie.

Ralph and Janice Jutte run the farm. They opened it to the public in 1980 to teach their children to work hard. Back then the business was a self-serve melon stand positioned under a tree. They later named it Pigeon Roost after the carrier pigeons that frequented the area in the past.

“It’s our intent to provide a positive farm experience and give younger generations an opportunity to spend time on a working farm,” Ralph said.

The farm has a bounty of beautifully displayed pumpkins, gourds and squash, straw bales and corn shocks. There’s an old barn full of crafts for sale, and another offers creepy toys including bloody fingers, plastic vampire fangs and rubber bugs. Other items for sale include honey, bath products and a variety of snacks.

There are lots of friendly animals at the farm, including goats, chickens, rabbits, sheep, turkeys, peacocks and even camels. We chuckled at Billy Goat Hill, a raised wooden plank where about a dozen goats jostle for position. I did have a brief run-in with Martha the pigeon, the patch’s mascot, who briefly mistook me for a roost. But I survived.

We were very pleased with the accommodations for children. At the top of that list was the Great Pumpkin Fun Center, a playground with more than a dozen attractions, including a corn maze, a hay tunnel, a pick-your-own pumpkin patch and two side-by-side slides that follow the grade of a hill. Admission to the playground is $6, free for those under 2 years old.

Pigeon Roost is open daily from 10 a.m.-7 p.m., from September through November. There’s a $3 charge for weekend hayrides. We visited on a Monday, when business was brisk but the farm wasn’t too busy. We can’t wait to return.

For more information, visit www.pigeonroostfarm.com.

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Murphin Ridge

 Inn welcomes families seeking escape to solitude

Talk about remote. Murphin Ridge Inn sits along a gravel road atop a mountain ridge in the Appalachian foothills in southwest Ohio. The inn’s closest neighbors are the residents of a small, Adams County Amish community. And although Murphin Ridge has wireless Internet connection in six cabins and a small television in the gathering room, most people come here to get away.

“Our guests tell us over and over again, they come here to rest, relax, read, walk and cuddle up,” says innkeeper Sherry McKenney, who with husband, Darryl, bought the inn in 1997. “So we offer little extras.”

The inn has been in operation since 1989. Located on 142 acres of farmland and forest, it offers a guesthouse with 10 rooms and an outdoor pool, and nine cabins outfitted with a fireplace, whirlpool tub, two-person shower and porch.

An 1828-built farmhouse features four dining rooms with original fireplaces and a kitchen where gourmet meals and fresh-baked desserts are whipped up.

Executive Chef Jackson Rouse brings many years of experience in fine dining, most recently at the Iron Horse Inn in Cincinnati, and he likes to feature local in-season foods. The property has a garden where the innkeepers grow fresh vegetables, herbs and flowers.

Murphin Ridge also has a 2.5-mile hiking trail that leads past working Amish farms where visitors can view the Appalachian foothills, enjoy the night sky by the bonfire or visit nearby Serpent Mound State Memorial.

For more information, visit www.murphinridgeinn.com.

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Inn and Spa at Cedar Falls

Cabins offer respite for weary city folk

Energized by cups of Starbucks consumed during an hour’s drive from Columbus, we barge through the front door of a cabin in the Hocking Hills region of Ohio.

We spy a kitchen stocked with dinnerware and utensils, a cozy bed smothered in wooly blankets, fresh chocolate chip cookies on an antique table, and a sign above the kitchen sink that advises: “Welcome, relax, renew.”

What? No television, phone or Internet?

Technological withdrawal is our fate, or perhaps our luxury, inside the cozy cabin at the Inn & Spa at Cedar Falls, where we can temporarily escape the noise of the city. We sit on a comfortable couch before the fireplace and watch 2-year-old Rosie dance to country music playing on a local radio station. We flip through photographs we’ve snapped months earlier and never taken the time to appreciate. We cuddle, talk and laugh.

Although disconnected, we feel reconnected.

Ohio’s inns allow families to rediscover what’s important in their lives. Whether it’s a cabin in the woods or a hilltop inn in a small town, opportunities abound for central Ohioans to find solitude a short drive from home.

Wedged into a steep hillside near Cedar Falls and Old Man’s Cave amid Hocking Hills State Park, the 22-year-old Inn & Spa at Cedar Falls combines rustic living with cutting-edge luxury. The 75-acre property includes a nine-room inn, five cabins and 12 cottages. Adjacent to the inn is a log house that includes a fine-dining restaurant attached to a newly-built conference center, tavern, gathering room and rooftop garden. Guests who need them can find Internet access and a big-screen TV here.

The Inn also includes a spa where therapists offer massages and an array of body treatments in a small building tucked away from the main road.

Innkeepers Ellen Grinsfelder and Terry Lingo have steadily added to the inn, which was the vision of Grinsfelder’s mother, who passed away in 1991. The inn owes much of its attraction to the friendliness of the innkeepers, who met and married shortly after the inn opened.

“The Hocking Hills area is very kid-friendly,” Grinsfelder says. “Having kids of our own, we know that the family component is really important.”

For more information, visit innatcedarfalls.com.

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Tom’s Ice Cream Bowl

Tasty treats served in true 1950s fashion

My family often visits St. Clairsville, Ohio, my husband’s hometown two hours east of Columbus. We like to break up the drive by stopping halfway in Zanesville to visit Tom’s Ice Cream Bowl.

The restaurant, at 532 McIntire Ave., features ice cream that’s freshly made on the premises. Tom’s also sells an assortment of nuts and chocolates by the pound. The nuts are roasted in the store, and the chocolates come from Ben Heggy’s Fine Chocolates of Canton.

Owned by longtime employee Bill Sullivan, Tom’s is a throwback to the 1950s. Outside it’s a plain building, and I do mean plain. But inside it’s ultra hip with original ’50s furnishings including yellow Formica tables, steel-frame chairs, pebble-tile floor and freezers that were made more than a half-century ago.

But before you think that Tom’s is some kind of fancy eatery that’s all dolled up to look old, think again. Those white, button-down shirts and black bow ties that the male employees wear are legit.

“We’re not retro. We’re the real thing,” Sullivan said.

Tom’s serves lunch and dinner including soups, sandwiches, side dishes, sodas and phosphates. But it’s the ice cream, candy and roasted nuts that keep us coming back.

On a recent stop I ordered the banana split, and the sloppy masterpiece was like nothing I’d ever seen. My server started by slicing a banana into disks and slapping them into the bottom of a soup bowl. He covered the bananas with a stack of three scoops of ice cream – vanilla, chocolate and strawberry. He finished by topping the mini tower with a ladle full of marshmallow sauce.

Sullivan explained that many of the ice cream dishes come in soup bowls (and hence the name of the restaurant) because a customer way back in the ’50s was making a mess using a dish. He asked for a bowl, and the tradition was born.

For more information, visit www.tomsicecreambowl.com.

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