It is SO tasty!

Here's a really easy, inexpensive and wholesome way to feel like a kid again.
1. Go to Baily's Dairy at Pocopson Meadow Farm, 1821 Lenape-Unionville Road. (It's also at the Triple Fresh market in Ercildoun.)
2. Buy a pint of their fresh chocolate milk.
3. Drink it in the car, savoring every creamy, chocolately mouthful.

Waste

Tony Young may be locked up in prison for 210 months, but the tales about him continue to emerge. I heard a story that a guy who used to work for Tony was mowing his grass one day and spotted something shiny on the ground. He stopped and checked it out. It was a $30,000 shotgun that Tony had just left sitting there.
Also, I'm told that one prominent Unionville resident has been trying to interest Hollywood in doing a movie on our local con man.

Labyrinth

When I was a kid we had a challenging wooden toy called Labyrinth that required you to steer a small steel ball around a tricky course by manipulating the board just so, avoiding all the little numbered holes. It took a lot of finesse to negotiate part of the path, like between the 6 and 7 holes. To be successful, you had to develop muscle memory for the right strategy.
I love driving along a certain back road because (a) it's beautiful and (b) it presents the same kind of challenge. There are smooth parts where you can approach the 35-mph speed limit. But then there are the rougher, fun parts, and after a while you learn where the bumps are and can avoid them: the stone wall where maroon hollyhocks flourish every summer, and near the abandoned old barn. And the persistent puddles in the road are dead giveaways that if you don't slow to a crawl, your shocks are going to take one heck of a beating before you get to the end of the maze.

Estate of the week

Maui Meadow Farm, 1799 Pocopson Road, is on the market for $4.5 million. The 65-acre farm in Pennsbury Township has 70 stalls in three separate barns, a heated equine swimming pool, and a 3/8-mile track. For human occupants there's a main house, which dates from 1736, a ranch house and a carriage house, and the property is in the Unionville-Chadds Ford School District. Tom O'Neill and Fran Day of ReMax Town & Country have the listing.
The farm was started in 1946 by retired general Charles B. Lyman and is now owned by his grandson, Charles B. Lyman III.
(Thanks to a Facebook friend of Tilda's for this tip!)

Share the road

Hordes of bicyclists are dusting off their bike helmets, donning their bike shorts and heading outside for some healthy exercise. Which is great -- but on our winding country roads, the combination of cars and bikes isn't always a happy one. For advice on co-existence, I turned to my brother, who used to be a competitive bike racer and is now a serious amateur who frequents Unionville roads.
What do bicyclists want motorists to know?
1. Think how you would act if you saw a person riding a horse along the side of the road. You'd slow down. Don't treat me worse than a horse.
2. Don't honk at me.
3. Don't pass me and then immediately turn right.
4. I don't care how close you come to me, just don't hit me. (Yes, he has been hit.)
So the next time you're tempted to zip past a bicyclist to save a minute or so (believe me, I know, I am too), think: "That could be Tilda's brother!"
By the way, I was asked what the "L" stands for on the bike signs around here (for instance, along the Brandywine on Routes 100 and 842). It stands for Route L, one of the nine bike routes that PennDOT has demarcated around the state.

On the cover

Perhaps you saw the recent paparazzi photos of equestrian/actress/mother-to-be Selma Blair outside a Burbank, California, tack shop, wearing a pretty blue dress and bright-green sandals. I don't follow celebrity news, but I mention this only because she was carrying the May issue of "Practical Horseman," which features a cover shot by local equine photographer and Coatesville resident Amy Dragoo. Pretty cool!
In case Ms. Blair and her partner haven't decided on a name yet, the May 6 "Wall Street Journal" reports that "Elvis left the list of the 1,000 most popular U.S. baby names for the first time since 1954." Go ahead, buck the trend!

Simon Pearce

Simon Pearce glassware is still available locally, even though the Lenape glass-blowing shop and restaurant has closed. You can buy it at Terrain at Styer's on Baltimore Pike in Glen Mills (part of the Urban Outfitters family of stores).
(Thanks to Karen D'Agusto for this tip!)

Schedule

I have the good fortune to sit on the board of a foundation that, officially, meets quarterly, allowing board members to tell potential new members with a straight face that "we only meet four times a year!"
I mentioned to a young member of my family that we had had an interesting quarterly meeting on May 6, and I could see the wheels turning in his mind. Sure enough, he was mentally plotting out the correct schedule for quarterly meetings -- the first in January, the second in April -- and yet we had not met until May! How could we have been so lax?
I tried to explain about the difficulty of getting busy people together, the time it takes to get financial reports prepared, how we were only a few weeks off schedule. He wasn't buying it for a minute. I see the makings of a formidable Internal Revenue Service employee.

Delicious!

"Buffalo Short Rib Sandwich, caramelized onion jam, gruyere, horseradish cream, red onion focaccia."
Is this a new addition to the Half-Moon's dinner menu, or have I been overlooking it all this time? It was so tasty!
And I'm told I was one of the first to try The Whip's yummy new lunch sandwich, chicken breast with avocado slices and sprouts on a Kaiser roll.
What great restaurants we have around here.

Street fightin' teens

As street fights go, it was pretty tame.
I was walking back to my car on East State Street in Kennett at dusk the other evening and found myself in the middle of a shouting match between two pairs of teenagers: one a boy and girl, the other two boys. They were half-a-block apart and standing there on the sidewalk shrieking at each other. It was impossible to tell what their dispute stemmed from, as the debate had long since degenerated into curses and creative, if unlikely, suggestions for what the other party could do.
Another noncombatant pedestrian and I exchanged glances. "Caught in the crossfire," he muttered to me.
Fortunately both groups seemed to be tiring of the argument and headed home in opposite directions.