B&B in Ephrata, PA - 1777 Americana Inn Bed & Breakfast (Lancaster Count...

B&B in Ephrata, PA - 1777 Americana Inn Bed & Breakfast (Lancaster Count...

My next overnight stay, it's only twenty minutes away. I'm working on it... 

Frankie's First Christmas Cookie & Necronomnomnom

  Frankie and I have been up all night baking. Shiner was my supervisor, but Frankie is worse. He eats about anything. He loves oysters and clams. We are using my Early American Cookbook this year. Christmas has been catproofed, so we're keeping it simple. We made simple butter cookies with a glaze: Yeti, Anne and Andy, unicorns, elephants, and ducks. I'd had one at Cornwall Furnace, a moose, and it was so good, better than mine. Cornwall has Christmas cookies, tea, and cocoa around their Christmas tree once a year. Next stop molasses and ginger snaps. My dear friend sent me Necronomnomnom, and I can hardly wait to get to that. Oh, my ghoul. I have a handmade Lovecraft doll and have yet to finish the complete works, which is huge. I've been sending offers out on Ebay for Collinwood, asking them to save it from the Leviathan, (Frankie). He's been checking into The Collins Port Inn for Christmas. Guess I have to move that too. 🌟

 

Pottsgrove Manor & St. Michael's Cemetery

  Had a fun time at Saint Michael's Cemetery in Birdsboro; there are Revolutionary and Civil War soldiers there. Found Pottsgrove Manor completely by accident. Think Grandpap and Daddy led me there as the founder of Pottstown was also the first blast furnace manager in Pennsylvania. I'm not fond of tours, but the guide is so knowledgeable and engaging.The museum gift shop is wonderful, full of handmade candles, soap, tea, redware, cards, and lots more. Had supper at one of my favorite places, The Douglasville Hotel. They deepfry pretzels like Rachel's Roadhouse in Mercer. Slippery Rock alumni know what I'm talking about. A paperback picture and ebook ought to be available on Amazon soon. I'll keep you updated. 

 

Ephrata Cloister

We spent a rainy day at Ephrata Cloister. Picture booklets and ebooks will be available soon on Amazon.

Dana Keyes Author Page

 In 1732 Conrad Beissel founded Ephrata Cloister, now twenty-eight acres right off of West Main Street in Lancaster County, Ephrata, Pennsylvania. Beissel was a hermit seeking religious freedom and believed in the Second Coming which he thought would lead to a spiritual oneness with God. 

  The cloister served as a Revolutionary War hospital tending to two-hundred-and-sixty soldiers some of whom rest in nearby Mount Zion Cemetery, which has just been placed at the top of my to-do list. 

  Conrad Beissel passed away on July 6, 1768 at the age of seventy-eight. The community never quite recovered. The last chaste member died in 1813, they are buried in a peaceful cemetery on the grounds. It became a Baptist church afterwards until 1934. In 1941 the Pennsylvania Historic Museum Commission assumed responsibility and you can tour the grounds and shop at the museum shop which is loaded with charming homemade local crafts and music. I got some paper dolls and an owl finger puppet who I’ve named Conrad. He will become a wise hymnast in my current doll soap O, My Ra!  

 

O, My Ra!

Ron got some homemade lemon chocolate. It’s good. I got a couple of fraktur choral manuscript postcards too. Afterwards we ate at The Lincoln House. I had a vegetable bowl and an apple pear sangria, very nice. They have an Apple Dumpling Festival in the Autumn and a Christmas concert. We’ll be back, and I’ll probably pick up a cd and more. They sell the redware dishes like we got from Cornwall Furnace for the dollhouses, same artist I’m sure. My paper dolls are Pennsyvania German 1765-1800 by Jan Wood Zimmerman, 1988. The cloister is worth a visit for the shop alone. 

Ephrata Cloister

 

Iris: Wooden Antique Style Doll

Get Iris

 

Season's Greetings

 Of course my thirty-five Christmas cards have been sent, (everybody isn't dead), and I had some internationals, (The Pony Hexpress now charges $1.50 to send one small international Christmas card), so next year... I've been on the wrong side of Christmas the past couple days. Besides Queen Ann Ron had also gotten me my subscription to Antique Doll Collector this year, and I was in the batrhroom pouring over this month's issue when I came across an article on Christmas dolls that is so darling I just know I'm going to be cutting it up and making special holiday cards for my doll friends with those pictures next year. I also enjoy photographing my dolls and making cards, calendars, and charms. I do dress my dolls seasonally as well, but mostly stick to the Himstedts with that anymore as the paint chips off the antique dolls' bodies the more you dress them. I did discover Heidi, my Otto Dressler, however, has a solid wooden body, though, that way. I presumed it was composition, but through the paint flaking I am able to see beautiful wood grain. Anyways, Dodi and Mistraldespair don an old chair in the foyer greeting us. Both are handmade. I'd gotten Mistraldespair, the snowman, first. There is a grand old sprawling dance hall looking house in the next town over where I first lived when I moved to this corner of the state. I'd walk past, admiring it, imagining what might've gone on there, back in the days of Scrooge. After we moved a shop had set-up, there, The Primitive Barn, which sold primitive things from candles to soap made by local artists. I would drive past for years, like I do, (stubborn), and think I was going to stop in there sometime. A couple of years ago, right about this time, I finally did, and discovered rambling old rooms with creaky floors, garlands of dried herbs, and even an old cupboard which held witchy things like crystals and incense. I didn't know what to get, but Mistraldespair was on sale, half off, and my favorite, although there were a couple of Santas who were also adorable. I've inherited a lot of Christmas stuff, and although I lost most of my original city stuff I first bought in my twenties when I ran away, I've gotten a lot of gifts, too; so it now takes me all day to decorate, and I don't even bring everything down from the attic. It's just too much, and I prefer simple hassle free old-fashioned holidays to the new commercialized screaming headaches. Anyways, I had gone back to The Primitive Barn again around Valentine's Day and got Ron Incense Matches for Mardi Gras, a stuffed rabbit for his Easter basket, and a little bird house for his birthday. I returned in June looking for an Uncle Sam, only to find it closed. That was sad, and I've been working on my Uncle Sam ever since. I'd drive past, (it's along the way to The Pony Hexpress which I still have to use occasionally, unfortunately UPS charges a FORTUNE to post internationally over here: they must work on that), seeing the empty house was for rent. Looks like somebody must've rented it recently as it has a new coat of paint and is looking spiffy. It's a beautiful house, wonder what will open there next. Dodi came from Christmas at Joanna Furnace last year. She was five dollars, and when I bought her from Mr. Glass he said, "Look how surprised she is." He had an antique this year, some church dolls, and an antique doll bed. I'm going to have to bring more money next year. I spent it all on homemade cider this year and could only afford a knit elephant who sleeps in my bed with my other elephants. These two look like they're made for each other. I'm usually not into primitive things as they're mostly crappy, made in China, but my two lovelies are very well made by Pennsylvanian artists. Dodi stays out year round, but I'm always sorry to put Mistraldespair away for Valentines Day. 

Holiday Card

More Doll Stuff

Joanna Furnace Apple Fest

What a fangtastic fall weekend! Today was Joanna's Furnace's Apple Festival. We usually attend their Christmas shindig after Thanksgiving, and might've been to The Hay Creek September festival twice, but I don't think we'd hit The Apple Festival before, and it was off-the-hook! I had three ciders and apple fritters. Look at my twenty-seven dollar score: raw indigo wool and handmade lace for my Peggy Shippen doll, the only plague book I'd missed besides the brand new one that after The Great Courses with all the CONVID I'm going to pass on, an antique book on Early American costumes, a bean cookbook, a couple of handmade gnomes, (wood and plaster), incense, a wooden jack-o-lantern pin, even a bitsy handmade imp for the dollhouses, hexcetera... O, my ghoul... 

 

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