SUPERMARKET: What's going in there?

A reader asked me if I've heard anything about a new store at the former Superfresh in the Shoppes at Longwood Village shopping center on Baltimore Pike. No, I haven't heard a word, although I know that a lot of locals wish a Trader Joe's would move in. I looked on Trader Joe's website and they actually have a form you can fill out to request a store in your location. 

PARTY: Warming things up

Things got a little heated at a Christmas party I attended last Tuesday in East Marlborough, and I'm not talking about the discussions of local politics. Everything was going great (even though the hostess had a concussion); the refreshments were tasty and plentiful and the guests were amusing and well informed.
Toward the end of the evening, the juices from a dish of homemade meatballs dripped into the tea light underneath that was keeping them warm. The warmer started smoking, and the hostess' daughter carefully removed the meatballs and deposited the warmer base into the kitchen sink. So far, so good, until the man-of-action host splashed water on the still-burning candle: because of the grease, it flared up all the way to the ceiling with a loud "whoosh." We all thought the kitchen curtains were history!
After that near-calamity, he left it to burn itself out.

SPEAKMAN: A long-awaited project begins

Can you believe it? After years of delay and controversy, repair work has FINALLY started on the Speakman #1 covered bridge on Frog Hollow Road! (It has been closed to traffic for seven years after an oversized truck severely damaged it.)
I drove over there to witness this Christmas miracle and watched as a guy on a scissors lift was dismantling the bridge from the inside while other Eastern Highway Specialists workers were busy clearing trees and brush from around the site. The project should be finished, and the long-closed Frog Hollow Road reopened, by September 2016.
One worker came over to say hello and told me he loves working in such beautiful surroundings. "I could listen to this all day," he said, gesturing toward the babbling Doe Run. (Of course, it was in the 50s and sunny; he may change his tune when it gets chillier.) He said it's hard to believe that such unspoiled areas still exist.
Here are the details of the project, according to the contractor:
"We plan to start on December 14th. The beginning work will be the erosion control, clearing etc. Then, within a couple of weeks, we will begin the removal work on the wooden bridge structure.

 ·        The wood portion of the covered bridge will be dismantled. It will be removed from the site and taken to the warehouse of Lancaster County Timber Frame (LCTF) who will do the rehabilitation work on the timber trusses and associated structural timber. In conjunction with this we have hired Rettew Associates, an experienced engineering firm, to inspect the timber and determine if any additional replacement is necessary.

 ·        During the winter months LCTF will be doing the timber rehabilitation. During this time we (EHS) will remove the remaining structure and the two abutments. We will then begin the reconstruction of the abutments. The new abutments will be modern cast in place and reinforced concrete but will have stone masonry veneer or stone walls on the exterior. In the end, the new structure will be encased in true stone masonry. One of the local masons, Dan Gallagher, will be doing the stone masonry work.

Men at work on the Speakman #1 covered bridge.

 ·        The new covered bridge structure will be supported by new steel beams which will be erected on the new abutments. This work is expected to take place in late spring of 2016. After this the covered  bridge will re-erected on the site."

 

TREE: A Chatham character

As we have for many years, last week my neighbor and I piled into the pickup and headed over to Bob Brooks' place in Chatham to buy a Christmas tree. We always try to dicker with him over the price by pointing out that it's near the end of the season, or the tree I've selected is the smallest on the lot and should really be discounted.
He never, ever budges.
"Thirty-five dollars," he'll state.
Alas, Mr. Brooks was in the hospital this year, so even though I got an excellent, fragrant tree as always, it just wasn't the same. Best wishes for a quick recovery, Mr. B!

FM: A distinctive friend of gardens

Every time I write about my gardening adventures, I think of FM Mooberry, who died on Dec. 11 at age 85. A very smart woman and an immensely talented gardener, for years she wrote an inspiring, informative horticulture column for The Kennett Paper. She was a pioneer in the native plant movement and would often discuss the importance of protecting and propagating them. Phlox "David," which she discovered and named after her husband, is still sold every year at the London Grove Friends Meeting plant sale in May.
FM's memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday, January 23, at the Kendal at Longwood Auditorium, 1109 East Baltimore Pike. Deepest sympathies to her family. She will be missed by many.

MIGRAINE: A young woman's recovery

In the summer of 2013 I wrote about a very pleasant and educational early-morning walk I took with local birder Kelley Nunn. Kelley has been through some rough times since then: she started having mysterious and debilitating symptoms, including extreme dizziness, to the point that she was bedridden through most of 2014. She was finally diagnosed with vestibular migraines (a migraine is not always a headache, it seems), started adhering to a special strict diet and has recovered dramatically.
Kelley has started a website (mymigrainebrain.com) "to help others who are struggling to reach the vestibular migraine diagnosis, seeking more information about vestibular migraine treatment, or coping with chronic illness." It's quite well written and interesting. In a blog post from Dec. 15, she describes a momentous birding trip to Indian River Inlet:
"At the end of the day, I was elated to look down at my pedometer and see that I had taken over 6,000 steps on top of traveling for nearly 4 ¹⁄₂ hours. And to make things even better, I still felt ok! ... On our way home, I started to think about my goals for next year’s recovery big year, and what sort of physical milestones I could accomplish in another year’s time. To go from bedridden to birding over two hours from home in a matter of months is mind-blowing. I feel so lucky and thankful to be improving, and am so endlessly grateful for days like these, spent adventuring outdoors."

U TURN: A busy stretch of highway

A friend reports that when she and her husband were en route to the Longwood Family Restaurant for dinner the other evening, they made a U-turn on Baltimore Pike at Bayard Road and were promptly pulled over by an East Marlborough Township police officer, who explained to them that U-turns are forbidden at that intersection. My friend's husband said he wasn't aware of the restriction, and the officer let him off with a warning. My friend said that her husband, as a former Navy officer, has a deep respect for "the rules" and now makes turns using the jughandle by the Wawa every single time.

TRAVEL: Garmin, my new best friend

I love my new GPS, but I wish I could somehow fix its jarring mispronunciations. I don't expect it to know that Newark, Del., and Newark, N.J., are pronounced differently, but why does it say "Code-is-ville" for "Coatesville"? It swallows the "double-l" sounds in "Wollaston" and "Powell." It slurs "Clonmell-Upland Road." "Lenape" is truncated into two syllables ("Le-nape"). And "Toughkenamon" (admittedly a doozy for many humans, much less a disembodied voice) is rendered "Tall-ken-a-mon."
The GPS also took some time to get used to our back roads. "Driving on unpaved road!" it alerted me at first when I turned onto a gravel road I often use (like the robot on the old "Lost in Space" TV show: "Warning! Warning!").
I discovered to my dismay that my favorite traveling partner does not like using a GPS. He and I were in Montgomery County on Monday and instead of using the GPS's clear and accurate directions, he said things like "Oh! Butler Pike. I've heard of that; it must be the right road."
It was. Eventually.
By the way, it's so easy to get used to the special beauty of our corner of the world. Spend a day traveling through the endless corporate parks and shopping centers of Montgomery and Bucks counties and you'll get a crash course in how important it is to protect our precious, quiet open space.

NEWLIN: A closed-door discussion about the ordinance

At their Dec. 14 meeting, the Newlin Township supervisors declined to discuss the topic that is on the mind of so many residents: the controversial equestrian ordinance, which was recently criticized in a lengthy letter from the Pennsylvania attorney general's office. (A group of upset township residents forwarded the ordinance to the AG's office.) The AG found that on a number of counts the equestrian ordinance violated the state's ACRE regulations by placing undue restrictions on the owners of horse farms.
Supervisor Janie Baird said at the outset of the meeting that the board members would be discussing the letter with their solicitor in an executive session after the regular meeting and thus would not comment on its contents or "the way forward."
Two township residents in the audience (which was a healthy one for a rainy Monday night) spoke up during the public comment session to express their strong support for the AG's comments.

Some Newlin residents aren't feeling the love from the supervisors.

The next controversial subject in the township might be an open-space tax that the supervisors are proposing to put on in the ballot in November 2016. "The referendum will show your support for our open countryside," the supervisors said in a letter to residents.

NEW YEAR'S: The rise and fall of the Mushroom

Dec. 22 is the first day of winter, which means the days are going to start getting longer!
For the third year in a row, the huge lighted mushroom will descend in downtown Kennett Square to ring in the New Year. This year's "Midnight in the Square" celebration will also feature the raising of the mushroom at 8 p.m. There's also going to be a heated tent in the parking lot on South Union Street, opening at 9 p.m., where food, beer and wine will be served, with a $5 cover charge.
The Funsters band will start playing on South Union Street at 10 p.m. Food vendors will set up at 7 p.m. on State Street.
The event is free but you do have to bring a nonperishable food item for the community food cupboard; last year more than 1.5 tons of food was collected. There are details about parking, sponsors and shuttle buses on the event's website, www.midnightinthesquare.com

CHRISTMAS: Though the weather outside is delightful

Although the spring-like temperatures have made for a certain amount of cognitive dissonance, Christmas events are in full swing. On Friday we went to local balladeer Charlie Zahm's annual Christmas concert at Oxford Friends Meeting, and his loyal fans showed up in droves; the pews were packed.
On Saturday we went to the Hockessin Business Association's audience-participation version of "How The Grinch Stole Christmas" at the Hockessin Library, which was great fun. While the classic Dr. Seuss cartoon played on a screen, there was also a live version being enacted in front of the audience. The evil green Grinch was portrayed by Charles Shattuck of the Wild Birds Unlimited store (casting totally against type; he is a very nice and public-spirited guy and runs a delightful store). This year's show included a seasick crocodile (actually an oversized pool raft) and a thirty-nine-and-a-half-foot pole. The kids in the audience got to sit on the floor up front for a better view.
When I mentioned to a friend that I had spent the afternoon at a Grinch sing-along, she got a nostalgic grin on her face and recalled using the Whos' "Welcome Christmas!" as a drinking song in college, imbibing at each repetition of the word "Who." (Now, she said ruefully, she and her husband can't even finish a bottle of wine between them.)
We spent Wednesday evening driving around looking at Christmas decorations. Some of the developments take their decorating seriously, with yards full of inflatable Santas, lighted deer, and giant snow globes. This year's lighting trend seems to be a sort of "wall of lights." At first I thought it was a net of lights that people attach to the side of their houses, but no: it turns out the lights are actually projected onto the wall.
To my mind, though, the most impressive holiday display is along Church Hill Road in Franklin Township, where an ambitious family has suspended a dozen or more giant lighted stars from the treetops. How on earth did they get them up there?! An industrial-sized cherry-picker or lift must have been involved, and I don't want to think about the extension cords.

WEST MARLBOROUGH: A sighting of a rare deer

Two West Marlborough residents spotted a six-point buck and a four-point piebald deer near their home on Saturday afternoon and were kind enough to share this photograph. One of them did some research on the Pennsylvania Game Commission website and learned that piebalds represent less than 1% of the white-tail deer population.

This piebald white-tailed deer is a sight to behold.