Goodbye, Sarah

Today a lovely, spirited young woman named Sarah Thomas died, and many, many people are going to miss her, myself included. She was an exercise rider for Jonathan Sheppard's Ashwell Stables, and not long ago she wrote to me, asking if I could encourage drivers on Street Road to have some consideration for the horses and riders and slow the heck down. I did, and our local policeman went out and issued some speeding tickets, and she sent me a message with about 10 exclamation points, saying how grateful she was.
Sarah suffered a fatal head injury when the horse she was riding spooked for some unknown reason and she came off (yes, she was wearing a helmet and flak jacket), her father, Victor, told me. She was rushed to Christiana Hospital by ambulance and stayed conscious long enough for her parents to talk to her, but then suffered a massive stroke. After that, there was no hope of recovery.
Sarah was so vital and enthusiastic that it's hard to believe she is gone. Her friends have posted photos on her Facebook page showing her riding along Lamborntown Road in the snow, playing polo, watching the World Series at the Whip, celebrating at weddings and parties.
My deepest sympathy and prayers to her family, and here's hoping her spirit is in Houyhnhnm Land with her beloved horses. Her father told me that thanks to Sarah's organ donations, as many as seventy people will live longer and better lives, which I think is a beautiful and fitting legacy.
The family is planning a gathering at their farm this summer to celebrate her life. 
(Thank you to Emily Rodger Barber for the photograph. "I love that photo," her father said.)

H&G Day!

Today was the annual Home and Garden Day to benefit the Bayard Taylor Memorial Library. I worked in the morning as a front-door greeter at a Pennsbury Township house, and I'm guessing you can imagine the fun I had welcoming tour-goers.
Because I had limited time in the afternoon I made it to only two other houses after my shift was over, but both were spectacular inside and out. I loved the lavender growing in little niches in the stone wall at one of them; the garden in the other one gave me the answer as to whether it's OK to have other plants growing in a bed of lamium (it is).
Huge congratulations to the tireless ladies on the Special Events Committee for lining up so many amazing houses -- and such a variety -- year after year, not to mention the restaurants and caterers, florists and artists and the army of hostesses and parkers needed at each spot.
And the weather! After the thunderstorm and heavy winds the evening before the tour, we were just so lucky to have sunny, cool weather on Saturday. I can remember one tour when the temperature was in the 90s, and another when we had a such a deluge of rain all day long that some cars got stuck in the pasture and had to be towed out with a tractor.
Among the guests, I was delighted to see the library director, Donna Murray; library board members Doug Singo, Bill Landmesser and Heather Ramsey; and library employees John Hendrix and Kit Ramsey.

Party time

The summer party season has started: somebody over the hill from me is having one heck of a rocking party this evening, with a live Mexican band. I can hear the amplified bass off in the distance and even slightly feel the vibrations. They started in the late afternoon and were still going strong when I turned in for the night.
(It reminds me of my college days, when the boys who lived in the room underneath us had their huge stereo speakers facing up. To this day I know by heart the bass line to Boston's "More than a Feeling.")
At first I thought the party was being held at the large farm just down the road from me, but no: a friend in Doe Run Village pinpointed it at a property off Route 82 beyond Blow Horn. My brother said he had spotted a big white tent and UHS-colored balloons there when he passed by earlier in the day, so I suspect it was a graduation party.
Another friend said there was an outdoor party going on up her way as well, off Stargazer Road. "Wouldn't be so bad if the band was any good," she reported.

Grammar police

Weekly, it seems, we are told that grammar standards are falling all over and we should just give in.
Nope. Not here!
1. "Hopefully" does not mean "I hope." It means "with hope." As in, "Tilda, you're going to bring those lemon cookies, aren't you?" the Young Relative asked hopefully.
2. "Impact" is not a verb unless you're talking about a bomb exploding; "impactful" is even worse. Use "influence" or "affect" and "influential" or "meaningful."
3."Is comprised of" does not make sense. "Comprise" means "consists of"; the whole comprises its parts. As in, "Downtown Unionville comprises the post office, the elementary school, the fire house, Catherine's, and the feed store (for a little while longer, at least)."
4. Sensitive readers may want to skip over this final one (I know at least two English teachers who are Tilda readers). In an editing project yesterday I came across this sentence: "In this chapter I shall attempt to center-stage the argument that..." I suggested to the author that "center-stage" is not really a verb, and perhaps "highlight" or "focus on" or "develop" might be better?

One serving of litter

The residents of Brandywine Creek Road, Brandywine Drive and Harvey's Bridge Road in Newlin Township are being tormented by somebody who deposits empty plastic bottles of V8 juice along the roadside nearly every day. Is it a bicyclist? A jogger? A rider? My sources tell me that despite their best efforts, no one has spotted this litterbug. One Brandywine Drive neighbor went so far as to put out a box conspicuously labeled "V8 bottles here," hoping to shame the person into breaking this habit, but it didn't work.
"Whoever it is," said township supervisor Janie Baird, "drinks a lot of V8."

All about image

There's a Federal Express drop-off box at the West Grove post office, and yesterday I saw the FedEx guy on his rounds. After picking up the packages, he went back to his truck, got a spray bottle of cleaner and thoroughly wiped down the drop-off box -- which was pretty clean to start with. I was impressed.

Wyeth

I've come across TWO mentions of the Wyeth family in the national press in the past few days.
1. As part of a "Wall Street Journal" story about notable attractions in the Philadelphia area, novelist Lisa Scottoline recommends a visit to the Brandywine River Museum: "Right outside the city, this museum is our temple to the Wyeth family. You see the work in the settings where they were painted." (She also suggests visiting the 9th Street Italian Market and two Philadelphia bakeries: Isgro Pasticceria and Termini Brothers.)
2. In the May/June issue of "The Magazine Antiques," there's an article by Yale art professor Alexander Nemerov about Andrew Wyeth's 1944 painting "Night Hauling," "showing a lone man on the ocean at night, furtively stealing from a lobster trap amid twinklings and gleaming pours of phosphorescence." Analyzing the wartime painting by reference to sources as varied as natural history, Jackson Pollock, Winslow Homer, Virginia Woolf,  and the movie "I Walked with a Zombie," Professor Nemerov concludes: "The war years enter Wyeth's art and he consents to be bent by them, letting the strangeness come precisely from this willingness to paint the old dreams in a world where there are none."

Chocolate-covered strawberries

I'll warn you right now: there is a lot about food in this week's column. I didn't plan it, honestly. And I really need to share this strawberry recipe with you while they are still in season.
In a 2-cup Pyrex measuring cup, put 2/3 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips, 2 tablespoons of butter and 2 tablespoons of corn syrup. Melt in the microwave (a minute or so) and stir until perfectly smooth. Add 1 tablespoon of Kahlua and 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract and mix well. Let the chocolate cool and thicken for a bit.
Set out mini-size paper baking cups on a platter. Holding them by the stem, dip the strawberries in the chocolate (the depth is just right in the 2-cup container) and place them in their little cups, with the stems all facing the same way for neatness. Keep the platter in the fridge til it's time to serve.
This makes enough chocolate for about a pound-and-a-half of strawberries.
Every time I bring these to a party, people love them. They look really fancy, but in reality they could not be easier to make.

World class

On Monday afternoon I stopped by Phillip and Evie Dutton's open house at their training facility, True Prospect Farm, in West Marlborough. Phillip, as you probably know, is a world-class event rider and trainer who is going to compete in this summer's Olympic Games in London.
Phillip said one reason for holding the open house was to thank the community for its support after the devastating barn fire at True Prospect last May that killed six horses and displaced some young people who lived and worked there. Phillip introduced the guests to several of his magnificent horses, describing their bloodlines, histories, particular strengths and personalities, and then tacked up one of them and demonstrated some dressage moves and took him over a few jumps.
"This is an easy horse to ride," he said.
"Yeah. An easy horse to ride if you're Phillip Dutton," wisecracked the guy next to me.
It was so interesting to get to see the beautifully kept stables and the indoor arena, and I had fun catching up with some neighbors. And I liked the lettered dressage cones they used to block off one driveway -- a nice touch.

Sharps

The other day I was taking my recycling over to the SECCRA landfill on Route 926 and noticed with some surprise that there's a drop-off box for used needles and syringes. This gave me pause for a moment -- until I remembered that many people use needles to give themselves daily injections of insulin and heparin at home. Pet owners, too, sometimes use needles to administer various treatments. So now you know where you can safely deposit your "sharps."

The parade

I just got home from another wonderful Memorial Day parade in Kennett Square. I'm sure you will see lots of great photos of it elsewhere in these pages. Fire trucks, Scouts, tractors, military vehicles, antique cars, high-school bands, bagpipers, military re-enactors, politicians, church groups, youth groups, service clubs, local businesses, the Ferko string band from Philadelphia, motorcyclists, penny-farthing bicyclists (it was so cool to watch them dismounting!), a unicyclist, an Uncle Sam on stilts, and most importantly: veterans.
I spotted the Young Relative marching with his Scout group and went out to give him a hug and say hi.
"Oh, I'll bet he liked that," one of my companions kidded me. I told her I had no choice; it's in my job description.
My friends got there early and saved our traditional spot along the sidewalk on the shady east side of North Union Street, a great vantage point. They brought flags for all of us to wave.
Although there was a heat warning in place, it was perfectly pleasant throughout the morning -- for us spectators, at least; I'm sure the military re-enactors in their wool uniforms would disagree.
Two of my pals got especially jazzed up seeing the giant military vehicles with heavy-duty tires, which would have no problem getting up or down their vertiginous driveway even after an ice storm.
"This," declared one friend, "is the best small-town parade in America." And she may well be correct. Huzzah to the organizer, Bill Taylor!

Cool

I was at a terrific Unionville party this afternoon where at first I knew only the host, the hostess, and one other person. Keeping everyone's names, spouses, jobs and dogs straight was like one of those logic puzzles: "The state-store employee does not own a corgi." "The medical malpractice lawyer is not married to the German shepherd's owner."
The subject turned, naturally, to the abruptly hot weather, and those of us who don't have central air conditioning grumbled about the hassle of installing our window units. I asked if anyone had experience with those newfangled portable A/C units that you can wheel around from room to room as needed.
One guest said she had indeed been "eyeballing" them -- but then she went on vacation to Texas last week and instead splurged on a pair of Lucchese cowboy boots.

She sent me this photo when she got home. Not everyone would have made that choice, certainly, but you have to admit, they are pretty darned good-looking.