Hay fire

Two hay wagons and 250 bales of hay were destroyed in a fire on Route 842 at Byrd Road here in West Marlborough on June 23. When I drove by the next afternoon, all that was left were charred axles (they almost looked like modern sculpture), charred patches of earth and the stench of drenched, burned hay. By Saturday the wreckage had been removed and the burned area was being reseeded.

This informative (and well written!) account of the fire appeared on the Po-Mar-Lin Fire Company's website:
"Po-Mar-Lin Fire Company, Station 36 with Ambulance 23 was dispatched for a Truck fire at the intersection of Byrd Rd./Rt. 842. Ambulance 23 arrived to find two farm trailers with 250 small bales fully involved with a hay rake still attached. The operator had moved the tractor away from the burning trailers. Engine 36 made the response with 6 volunteers and upon arrival utilized the front bumper turret to hold flames back from the hay rake while the crew stretched an 1-3/4" hand line to extinguish the rest of the pile. While crews worked to break up the hay and extinguish the fire, other members of the crew assisted the owner with unhooking the hay rake which was mostly unharmed due the quick work of the Engine crew. PML was assisted by Tanker 24 from the Kennett Fire Company No. 1 and Tanker 23 from the Avondale Fire Company. Avondale Fire Police and West Marlborough Township road crew shut down Rt. 842 while crews worked. 

Thank you to Engine 39 from West Bradford Fire Co. for covering the area while crews were working.
Special thanks to Unionville Lawn Care and Meadow Springs Farms, Hicks Brothers, for the assistance of 2 loaders to break up the hay and move off the road during cleanup."

Collective nouns

I lived in England for a year. Thirty-some years later, I still spout British slang like "half-four" ("four-thirty"), much the annoyance of everyone in the vicinity (eye-rolling in the case of the Young Relative; maniacal rage, in the case of the Cranky Friend). But I can never get used to hearing usage like "Uruguay are fighting back," as I did while watching the World Cup over my grilled cheese and tomato sandwich at Hood's today. It sounded wrong to me back then ("Oliver's army are on their way"), and it still does.

Red Sombrero

There's another Mexican restaurant to try: the Red Sombrero Fresh Mexican Taqueria, next to Starbucks in the Shoppes at Longwood Village (the shopping center on Baltimore Pike with SuperFresh and Staples). We stopped in on Saturday night at 6 p.m., and by the time we left every table was full (they also do take-out orders). You order your food at the counter, pour your own drink, and they bring your meal over to you (very promptly in our case). We picked a chicken burrito ("Pollo Loco") and a steak burrito ("Red Sombrero Burrito"). They were tasty, stuffed full and very fresh--and they didn't stint on the jalapeno peppers! The crunchy chips were very good, too.
The menu is available on the restaurant's website. And yes, it's the same Red Sombrero that's in the Dilworthtown Crossing shopping center on Route 202.

Perspective

There was some discussion in the Tally-ho household recently about whether a certain R-rated movie was suitable for the middle-school Young Relative. My first reaction was that I didn't want him to be exposed to the very questionable material, attitudes and language.
But then I remembered when I was his age, and the book "The Godfather" by Mario Puzo was all the rage in my class.
Did it contain violence? Yes, graphic and extreme. Racism? Yep. Cursing? Bloody well right. Irresponsible drug and alcohol use and other bad choices? For sure. Sex? Oh, my, yes. The one kid who had a paperback copy passed it around surreptitiously and, not surprisingly, it automatically opened right to the dog-eared page 29, the scene in which Sonny Corleone gets friendly with his sister's maid of honor.
So imagine my surprise as a seventh-grader when my mother -- my MOTHER! -- bought me a copy of "The Godfather" at the used-book store. I had horrible images of her discovering some of the naughty material in it and thinking I had tried to pull one over on her by expressing interest in it.
I thought I'd better take the bull by the horns.
"Mom," I said, with considerable embarrassment. "There's some kind of, um, adult stuff in this book."
"I know," she said matter-of-factly. "I thought you were mature enough to handle it."
Forty years later I remember those words with pride. And I still have my copy of the book. "Soon to be a major motion picture from Paramount," it says on the back cover.
(Oh, and the kid who passed around the book in our class? He went on to become a Secretary of Education for Pennsylvania.)

Chicken salad

Just a reminder that Philter serves a very good lunch -- in addition to their coffee and tea offerings. I met a friend there on Wednesday to catch up on Unionville news and gossip and we had their wonderful curried chicken salad with currants. They offer several varieties of chicken salad, and all of them are delicious. Their green iced tea is wonderfully different, too. Philter is at 111 West State Street in downtown Kennett.

Safety first

The perils of running, and attending, a hugely popular but weather-dependent event!
The Chester County Hot Air Balloon Festival was held at Plantation Field, at Route 82 and Green Valley Road, on June 13 and 14. The organizers had to cancel the first day's activities due to bad weather and soft grounds, and then on the second day the scheduled evening launch ("mass ascension") was cancelled at about 6 p.m. because the strong winds posed a safety risk.
Meanwhile, the hordes of people trying to get into the field on Saturday afternoon (admission was $10 per car) created a traffic jam on Route 82 that stretched all the way back to the Unionville roundabout. One woman I spoke to traveled from Lionville to meet friends at the event but got stuck in the gridlock for more than an hour; she and her boyfriend had to cut their losses and turn around because they had another event to attend. She said the person she was supposed to meet is more familiar with Unionville's back roads; wisely, he took Route 162 and then Powell Road, turning on to Green Valley Road from the north. Another friend of hers managed to get to the event but, because of the launch cancellation, she summarized the day as "essentially, a $15 funnel cake."
(I'm told the food vendors at the event had a field day, and some even ran out of food and drink.)
Nobody was second-guessing the decision to cancel the launch, but I did hear some suggestions that maybe the event's traffic management could use some tweaks.
The organizers alerted people to the cancellation on Facebook by saying, "Mother Nature is just not cooperating ... Wanted to get the word out to those waiting in traffic so you can decide if you still want to come. Thank you for your patience. We are as disappointed as you. To those already here. Thank you. Your $10 is going to a good cause!"
(According to the event's website, the beneficiaries are Downingtown West Wrestling, The Garage youth and community programs, and Plantation Field Horse Trials.)

Screening

A friend who is a frequent movie-goer gives two thumbs up to the newly reopened Painters Crossing AMC movie theater. She and her family paid extra to sit in the special lounge-chair section during a screening of "Edge of Tomorrow," the new Tom Cruise action movie. She said the seats were wonderfully comfortable and the in-theater food service greatly enhanced the whole theater experience.