Green Day 3: pH Testing

As a former chemistry minor and present Person Who Is Attracted To Colorful Shiny Objects… I had to go check out this pH display.

pH stands for “potential Hydrogen,” and it’s basically (forgive me, chemists) an approximation of how many hydrogen ions are in a liquid. Lots of hydrogen ions = low pH = acidic; few hydrogen ions = high pH = basic/ alkaline.

This particular company (Pur2o) was trying to sell us on the idea that water should be BASIC, not neutral, and set up this display to prove how acidic most bottled water is, particularly compared to their own very alkaline water. (I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that they used phenol red as their pH indicator.) Several fairgoers were skeptical about the underlying concept of this.

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Green Day 2: Tiny Turtle

This is my favorite photo from the day.

Rizzo, of Rizzo’s Reptile Discovery, brought some tiny turtles to show off at Maplewood’s Green Day!

I was lucky enough to nab this shot while he was standing still to answer a question from the guy standing in front of me; otherwise, he was bobbing all over the place. Neither this photo nor his website give any indication of what a fun performer he is/was.

Green Day! (not the band.)

In honor of Earth Day, Maplewood’s Green Day Fair was today! It was a big celebration of all things environmentally friendly.

In addition to all the vendors and eco-friendly demonstrations, the main stage featured local bands, so fairgoers were serenaded with ongoing music.

This is MoodRing, a self-described jam band.

I’ll be showing a few more photos from the festival for the next few days, so stay tuned!

South Mountain overpass

Have you ever seen a bridle trail/ hiking trail that crosses over a highway? I mean, aside from the non–road–overpasses I’ve shown you recently. (NOBODY is supposed to use THOSE ones.) This is more in the “pedestrian overpass” category, which is totally normal, except that this is a hiking trail, not a downtown area, which is where you’d normally find pedestrian overpasses.

This one can be found in the South Mountain Reservation, allowing the Lenape Trail to safely cross South Orange Avenue.

Pretty white flowers

Sometimes I just like to take pictures of pretty flowers. So sue me.

This might be an elderberry, but I’m not entirely sure. What do you think?

Trainlight

When I stepped off the train at Summit, I was greeted by a big glittering beam of light at the other end of the platform, slanting down over the top of the train, illuminating the evening dust.

Naturally, I whipped out my camera and tried to capture it. Not sure I succeeded.

In any event, this shows the new monitors at Summit. The monitors let you know which train is coming next, and whether that next train actually stops at your stop. Either I don’t notice things (very possible) or they were just installed a couple weeks ago.

Sappy

Who doesn’t love sap? (Rhetorical question, probably a lot of people. But it’s so sparkly!)

The littlest park

This statue in Springfield of a Continental soldier has the distinction of standing on the smallest state park in New Jersey. How cool is that!

…It’s almost the sort of thing they’d make a sitcom episode about!

Fishing for birds

Someone went fishing in the Passaic River and got his/her lure tangled in a tree!

A slice of history

In the Frelinghuysen Arboretum, there’s a display with an old stump. It has numbers to point out which rings are associated with what years, and why those years are historically relevant— much like the famed Giant Sequoia in NYC’s Museum of Natural History, but on a much smaller and more local scale.

“19,” for example, is for 1968, when the Great Swamp was officially called a National Wilderness Area.

Almost all of the associated history is of local interest only, and even some of those local interests are questionable. (Since when does Morristown care about Atlantic City?) Here’s the complete list, in case you have some burning curiosity:

1. 1738 – Morris County is created by the state legistlature
2. 1738 – Colonel Lewis Morris of the province of colonial New Jersey becomes first governor
3. 1755 – The Morristown Green is first used and constructed to serve as the town courthouse and jail
4. 1777 – George Washington spends 5 months in Morris County with his troops
5. 1787 – New Jersey becomes the third state to join the Union
6. 1790 – Trenton is selected to become the state capital
7. 1816 – The First Presbyterian Church is founded in Morristown
8. 1835 – Morris and Essex Railroad Company chartered
9. 1861 – The Civil War begins
10. 1865 – The sixteenth President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln is assassinated by John Wilkes Booth
11. 1879 – Thomas Edison invents the first light bulb
12. 1887 – Matilda Felinghuysen is born in New York City
13. 1891 – “Whippany Farms,” now known as Frelinghuysen Arboretum, is built as a summer home for the Frelinghuysen family
14. 1915 – Alison Turnbull Hopkins, Officer of the Women’s Political Union, campaigns for New Jersey’s suffrage referendum in Morristown
15. 1926 – Bell Laboratories converts a dairy barn into experimental radio station to develop high power broadcasting
16. 1929 – The Seeing Eye is originally incorporated into Morristown
17. 1930 – Charles B. Darrow develops the game Monopoly. Names in the game originate from Atlantic City street names
18. 1939 – More than 50,000 New Jersey residents join the WWII effort
19. 1968 – The Great Swamp is classified as a National Wilderness Area; it is a landmark event
20. 1969 – Matilda Frelinghuysen dies at the age of 82
21. 1971 – The Frelinghuysen Arboretum is dedicated
22. 1978 – New Jersey legalizes gambling in Atlantic City. One of four casinos opens to an enthusiastic response
23. 1975 – “Branching Out!,” the children’s gardening program, is started by the Garden Club of Morristown in conjunction with the Morris County Park Commission