The County eat

My pal Susan and I visited West Chester on a recent Thursday afternoon and had a great time. She introduced me to several absolutely wonderful stores.
First we stopped at an astonishing gourmet food store, Carlino's, at 128 West Market Street. The food looked fresh and scrumptious, the samples were delicious (carrot cake cake-pops!) and the employees were so friendly and helpful.
We then stopped by Pisano & Son, the boot store, 108 West Market Street, to pick up three pairs of beautifully polished and repaired riding boots.
Then we went to Éclat Chocolate at 24 South High Street -- more samples! So delicious!
And finally we called in at A Taste of Olive, at 26 South High Street, which stocks dozens of exotic flavors of vinegars and oils -- garlic olive oil, roasted sesame oil, pomegranate balsamic vinegar, avocado oil, dark chocolate balsamic vinegar, to name just a few -- all stored in shiny metal jugs and available for tasting. (Do you see a theme here?) Once you've made your choice, the owner pours them out for you into labeled bottles and then seals them. Susan found a perfect hostess gift, a wonderfully compatible oil and vinegar for a couple that grills a lot of fish.
West Chester looked terrific and bustling, but we had no problem finding on-street parking. It was a wonderful little adventure for us country folk.
(Here are the websites for the shops mentioned: http://carlinosmarket.com/index.htm; http://ridingbootrepair.com/; http://www.eclatchocolate.com/about; and http://www.atasteofolive.com/)

School days

Retired Unionville Elementary School teacher Don Silknitter is posting on his Facebook page class photos starting from his first year of teaching, the 1973-74 school year. If you haven't already, you might want to "friend" Mr. Silknitter and start identifying and tagging your classmates.
"Hope you enjoy the memories!!!" says "Mr. S."

Heat of the moment

I don't want to sound like a Ford F150 commercial, but hats off to those hard-working, cheerful folks who, no matter how hot it gets, are still out there weed-whacking fence lines, cutting, raking and baling hay, clearing fallen branches, and keeping our country roadsides tidy. They start before dawn and they turn on their headlights to keep on working after dark. Unlike me, they don't need to go to the gym to work out.
Whenever I'm tempted to grumble about a messy project or a vexing client, I think: Yep, it may be dull looking at a computer screen for hours on end, but I'm sitting here in a comfy chair, in shorts, with a fan on me and a glass of iced tea sweating on a coaster.

Not square

In the past two days I've seen two Nissan Cube vehicles around town, both with out-of-state tags. They're futuristic-looking, with an asymmetrical, wrap-around back window. "Consumer Reports" describes the car as"tall and boxy" with "an enormous amount of space and easy access," and an impressive 28 mpg overall. But acceleration is "slow,"  handling is "rather clumsy," steering is "vague," "wind and road noise are pronounced," and reliability is "below average."

New dog park

There's a new "Bark Park" at the Pennsbury Township complex on Route 1 (702 Baltimore Pike) in Chadds Ford. According to the park's Facebook page:
"The Bark Park has two sections, one dedicated to large dogs and one dedicated to small dogs. Both areas have shade trees, benches and incredible scenery of Pennsbury Township. Please bring your own water for your dogs!
"Meet up times are posted at the Bark Park to help encourage people (if they can) to show up at the same time, since the park is so new. The Meet Up times are Saturdays at 9:00 am and Sundays at 10:00 am.
Otherwise the Park is open from dawn to dusk everyday, except Mondays."

Sunflower fields forever

It's still the middle of summer, but I've already received a "save the date" postcard for the Unionville Community Fair's "Denim & Diamonds" fundraiser on Sept. 29.
I think the Fair's sunflower competition might be tougher than usual this year. I've noticed that many gardeners around here (myself included) were inspired by Longwood's spectacular sunflower field from last summer and have planted their sunflowers in big clumps instead of rows. August is going to be a sea of yellow!

Who are they?

A man and a woman were at two separate intersections along Route 1 the afternoon of July 10, holding white buckets and soliciting money from motorists. I've seen them there before. The guy is well dressed, wearing a tie and a traffic safety vest, and he was approaching motorists with great enthusiasm. Their buckets say they are collecting for a religious organization I had never heard of.
I would never give money to anybody without knowing exactly where it was going.
Local fire company? Absolutely, I'll drop in a few bucks.
But an unknown group that might represent something I don't believe in -- or that might be not entirely legit? Get away from my car.

Flowering

I walked around to the garden on the west side of the house to see how badly it needed weeding (very badly) and was astonished to see a beautiful Oriental lily in bloom. I'd completely forgotten that I'd planted bulbs there last fall.
"Oh, my! Nice!" I said.
It was so delightful to be pleasantly surprised, to have my breath taken away by something wholly unexpected and so lovely. It was one of those daily little moments to cherish.

Speaking of flowers, aren't the blue cornflowers along the roadsides lovely this year? I don't remember seeing so many of them last year. This shot was taken along Highland Road the morning of July 17.

It's open

The Walgreens pharmacy has moved to the other side of Avondale. It was on Route 41 at Penn Green Road; now it's on Route 41 at the Baltimore Pike intersection, near where Pyle's hardware store used to be.
Walgreen Co. (yes, the store sign says "Walgreens," but the actual company name is just "Walgreen") is the largest drugstore chain in the United States, with more than 8,000 stores.

Defense Against the Dark Arts

Over pancakes this morning the topic of the new Harry Potter movie came up, and the young friend across the table told me about a former high-school classmate of hers who now attends Brown University with Emma Watson, the actress who played Hermione.
It seems that in class one day, Miss Watson answered a tough question correctly and one of her classmates piped up, "Ten points to Gryffindor!"
By the way, Miss Watson is NOT dropping out of Brown, as some gossips were speculating. She's spending her junior year at Oxford, then she'll come back across the pond to Brown.