Mark Papazian, of Glocester, adjusts his helmet before riding away on his Streetglider from Ocean State Harley Davidson in Exeter. Built as a destination for bikers, it opened in 2004 and won the town’s first planning award, in 2005.

The Providence Journal / Gretchen Ertl

EXETER — Change comes in small ways that often go unnoticed.

For example, how long has that horse been standing on Route 3, next to Warren’s Bargains Galore?

The life-size Clydesdale at the entrance to Mulch ’N More is already becoming a landmark, and Mike Baird only bought the property from Warren Philippi in February.

Since then, he has started selling different colors of mulch, an offshoot of his Coventry business, Mike’s Professional Tree Service. He brought in a sales shed, built a stone wall and trotted out the horse, which gets attention for the menagerie of garden statuary, lamps and clocks that Jennifer Hunt sells along with mulch.

Exeter has added a few new points of interest between some of its longstanding landmarks. Today we’re taking a 12-mile trip, starting from Exit 5A on Route 95 and ending at the Rhode Island Veterans Cemetery, on Route 2, to introduce you.

The Clydesdale, which Baird said he made and Hunt painted, heralds his plans for a building 50 feet by 100 feet that will house the mulch business and an auto parts store. He’ll plant hay in the back four acres, he told town planners last week.

He also called their attention to a rock he brought from home. It’s in his new stone wall, and it’s white. He estimates its weight at between 5 tons and 6 tons, because that’s the maximum the claw on his log truck can handle. The quartz specimen is about 5½ feet high, 3 feet thick and maybe 9 feet long.

Baird, who said he built the Blackwater Tavern just down the road, praised the foresight of the Planning Board and town planner in preserving Exeter’s rural look. He said they worked with him every step of the way.

LANDMARKS LINE Route 3 in clusters. There’s the water garden store, A Piece of Paradise, then the Middle of Nowhere Diner, which has changed hands since we last looked in. Louie Zarokostas bought the diner from Neil White, who once worked for him at the Gentleman Farmer. Zarokostas says the Gentleman Farmer in Coventry is no longer in the family but his son owns the one in Charlestown, at Routes 2 and 112.

A little farther south on Route 3, the coral impatiens in the flower “bed” — a bed frame painted white — at 323 Nooseneck Hill Rd. look much better this year than the red, white, and blue ones that Ray Warner planted last year. He said he’s been doing it for his wife, Sarah, for 35 years. She said it hasn’t been that long. He made her a heart-shaped garden in the back, he said, and that one has a bed frame, too. It’s her bed of roses.

Retired from Electric Boat, Warner makes mailboxes like his own, which stands at the end of his driveway, right next to Cookie’s Shop. Since Anthony Francis Cook died in March, at age 98, the shop is being cleaned out, slowly yielding treasures from its depths.

We’re headed for the Ocean State Harley-Davidson Shop, but as we pass the light at Route 165, we remember that Little Country Pizza is a happy place now that owner Faraj “Frank” Boutros, who was arrested in 2003 and deported to Syria, is back with his family. His wife, Vera, said their younger daughter, Chantal, postponed her wedding on the faith that her father would be able to return to the United States. The wedding was June 22.

The Harley store is maybe a half-mile farther south. It’s on the right and looks more like Grandma’s house than a giant retail operation. A red barn and homestead with a porch welcome all who drive down the curve through the wildflower meadow.

Built as a destination for bikers, it opened in 2004 and won Exeter’s first planning award in 2005. Residents at A Vision for Exeter event in June scored it high for representing the kind of growth they want to see.

Events such as cruise nights, farm tour rides and mystery cookouts fill the tables under the picnic shelter. Two kinds of catapults sit behind the building for Oct. 25, when they will be hauled into place for the annual Halloween Pumpkin Chucking event. General manager Dana Bishop, whose wife, Amy, and her family own this store and the one in Warwick, explained that hurling pumpkins at a target satisfied not only single bikers but also families with children. This year, participants will be encouraged to modify pumpkins before they are flung.

LET’S HEAD back north on Route 3 and take a right onto Route 102. A little after Wawaloam School, the name changes from Victory Highway to Ten Rod Road. The Blueberry Hill Farm Country Store is coming up on the right. It’s one of the old landmarks. Jason Whitford runs it now, and his father, Clark Whitford, presides over the porch, raising a fly swatter to acknowledge friends as they drive by.

Across the road, a row of concrete blocks that look like giant Lego pieces are arrayed across the entrance to what may someday become a condo village for the over-55 crowd. Developer Kevin J. Casey said post foundations were poured yesterday for a 12-foot gate to keep out a younger crowd, those who have made the 118 acres an illegal ATV park. “No trespassing” signs and the Lego blocks came just in time for Casey to avoid a $1,000 fine for not securing the entrance.

THE CHERISHED barns, stones, fields, mills and trees of historic Route 102 are still there, and so are the farm enterprises of Route 2. But there’s something new at the Rhode Island Veterans Cemetery. A $5.7-million federal grant is providing a new entrance, administration building and other improvements. Denise Breckel, of the state’s capital projects office, said improvements have been in the works since the late 1990s. The state Department of Human Services oversees the cemetery.

Breckel spoke to concerns that large funeral processions would back up traffic and cause hazards at the already unusual intersection where Exeter Road and Main Street meet Route 2, with South Road coming in at an angle.

“We realized this was a problem,” she said yesterday. Stacking lanes were built inside the cemetery, not along Route 2.

Another improvement is an interactive kiosk where people can find the location of a grave by entering the information on a screen. This will replace the current system, of a book in a Plexiglas case with holes for hands to turn the pages.

She expects an unveiling ceremony this fall.

dnaylor@projo.com