A certain lack of Ziel

There was a sense of unreality and frustration in the West Marlborough Township hall the evening of Dec. 13.
Richard Hayne, billionaire founder of Urban Outfitters, has applied for permission from the township for two activities at his sprawling Doe Run Farm in Springdell: (1) processing and wholesaling cheese and yogurt at his creamery and (2) processing and wholesaling vegetables at his greenhouse complex.
The hearings were held back to back and, to dot the legal i's and cross the legal t's, Mr. Hayne's representatives covered a great deal of the same ground, producing deja vu in the audience.
Unfortunately, there was also a strong sense of mistrust. Mr. Hayne has already been making cheese for many months now without permission from the township, selling it at his Terrain stores and local farmers' markets. Also, Mr. Hayne has never testified at any township hearing dealing with his property, leaving his representatives to -- presumably -- speak for him. But they are also the ones who famously once said that Mr. Hayne intended to make cheese for his own personal use only.
Also, David Ziel, the rep who was supposed to address most of the issues of interest to the township -- like truck traffic, wastewater management and such -- wasn't even at the hearing. Supervisors and audience members again and again asked exactly what would be going on in the creamery and the "processing shed," only to be told by Mr. Hayne's attorney that Mr. Ziel was the person who could address that. (He is supposed to appear at the continuation of the hearing on Thursday, Jan. 5.)
Springdell resident Joseph Huston told me after the meeting that he was reminded of the old Cheech & Chong comedy routine "Dave's not here!" It was the best line of the night.

Dental woes

This morning I was at the very busy Longwood Starbucks having coffee with a dear friend who is the office manager at a local dental office. I'm not sure what led to a discussion of popcorn -- our conversations are always global in their scope -- but she said it's the number-one cause of dental problems at her office over the holiday. Apparently crunching down on a piece of popcorn, much less an unpopped kernel, can wreak havoc with a tooth that's weakened or that already has a small fracture in it. And patients trying to get those pesky bits of shell out of their gums can actually push them down further, requiring dental tools for removal.

A safe bet

My old newspaper friend Kurt, now at the Oneida Daily Dispatch, wrote an editorial on Dec. 15 criticizing the local hospital for not releasing information to the paper about patients, even if they gave permission.
"Dollars to doughnuts," wrote Kurt, "this is a modern notion to avoid lawsuits."
What a delightful and underused phrase! I looked it up on Wikipedia and found out that it means "a faux bet in which one person agrees to put up the same amount of dollars to another person's donuts in a bet (where a donut is considered to be worth much less than a dollar). Betting someone dollars to donuts is a rhetorical device that indicates that the person is confident in the outcome of an event, but it does not usually involve an actual bet with actual payoffs (either in dollars or in donuts)."
I asked Kurt what the reaction to his piece was: "It's 4 pm and I haven't heard from the hospital yet, but dollars to doughnuts it's coming."

Warning!

A Unionville family had a very scary experience last week when one of their Labrador retrievers "went from normal to incessant seizures to comatose within a half-hour," said the owner. They rushed the poor creature to West Chester Emergency Animal Center, where the vet found a bag's worth of chewing gum in her stomach. It seems that the xylitol sweetener used in some types of gum is toxic to dogs.
"It was a VERY close call and she really was on death's doorstep," reports the owner. Fortunately, the Lab seems to be on the mend and was released in a few days.
Now the owner wants to spread the word that gum with xylitol sweetener should be kept away from dogs: "Glad she is a hefty sort (80 lb) or she would have been done. Two sticks of gum can kill a 20-lb dog."

House tour

Every year I look forward to being a hostess on the Kennett Square Candlelight Home Tour. The borough's Historical Commission always does a great job lining up a variety of houses and taking care of all the details, everything from publishing the brochure to lighting the luminarias. I even heard a compliment about the tasteful gold wristbands!
We lucked out this year in terms of the weather, as the past few years had been wet and dreary. I was stationed at a charming and beautifully decorated Victorian house. As hostess my duties include opening the door (brrrr), greeting people (my favorite part of the job), answering questions (some on the nosy side) and directing traffic flow through the house. This year I also had to keep the fires stoked; the owner had thoughtfully piled plenty of logs next to each fireplace.
One of my co-hostesses looked stunning as always but was under the weather with a sinus infection. At one point, with about an hour still to go, I suggested that she head home early to bed.
Absolutely not, she said, unwrapping another cough drop.
Then I remembered: oh, right, she's a foxhunter! No way is she letting some wimpy, penny-ante, non-life-threatening ailment get the better of her.

Meals on foot

For the past 14 years the neighbors on Huntsman Lane in East Marlborough have celebrated an excellent holiday tradition: one family offers appetizers, another entrees, and so forth, and the residents walk from house to house, getting a little exercise in between courses. I'm told that both the food and the conversation at this year's "dine-around" were terrific.
I happened to drive down the cul-de-sac one recent evening and I have to say, these homeowners do a splendid job with their holiday lights and decorations. I love those little bright blue lights that seem to be so popular these days.

Newlin update

Newlin Township has a really nice-looking new website, www.newlintownship.org, designed by township secretary Gail Abel. On it you can find information about Newlin's history, government, officials, ordinances, committees, and meetings. Minutes from supervisors' meetings will start to be posted online in 2012.
According to the website, Newlin, which became a township in 1840, comprises 7,700 acres, 3,900 of which are protected from development (including the beautiful ChesLen preserve off Route 162 north of Unionville). There are 1,285 township residents, with a median age of 41.9. Of the 20 miles of roads maintained by the township's road crew, 7 are unpaved.

"The Township owns 16 acres of land where the Township Maintenance Garage is located at 1751 Embreeville Road (Rt. 162). The Garage is where Township residents vote. Future plans are to renovate the house which is on the property to make it suitable for meetings, an office and fireproof record storage."

In a recent "Newlin News" newsletter, Board of Supervisors Chair Janie Baird thanked Ms. Abel for her work on the website and also township resident Wayne Bullaughey "for his help both past and future" with the website, and for his local photographs on the site.

Blow Horn update

I wish I had known this before Christmas, but artist and photographer Lee Schlingmann just told me that her note cards and prints of the pre-October Blow Horn corner (that is, before the "Blow Horn" sign was erased) are on sale at Tender Touch Gifts, the shop next to Triple Fresh in Ercildoun.
Also, I couldn't help but think of the Blow Horn controversy when I came across this verse in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer: "Cursed is he that removeth his neighbour's landmark."

My true love gave to me

Our demon-in-human-form instructor at the Y celebrates Christmas each year by wearing a series of increasingly outlandish hats to class, bringing in little treat bags of healthy snacks for us, and making us do an appalling series of exercises using the "Twelve Days of Christmas" structure. For instance, you start with one pushup; then you do two shoulder presses and one pushup; then three chest presses, two shoulder presses and one pushup ... and up to twelve burpees (squat-thrusts), eleven medicine-ball slams, etc. It takes a full half-hour. For the lower-body version we alternated 12 reps of an exercise (squats against an exercise ball, say) with lunges back and forth across the room while holding 12-pound hand weights (note the elegant echo of the "12" motif).
She told us the sum total of exercises and reps involved but I blocked it out.

Every four years

A woman and her little boy, John, were sitting next to me in a waiting room this morning. The mom told me that although John was 4 years old, he hadn't had his first official birthday party yet because he was born in a Leap Year. She said that a woman she knows, another Feb. 29 baby, was treated to a Sweet 16 birthday by her daughters -- on her 64th birthday.

On the cover

The cover art on the Dec. 12 issue of "The Chronicle of the Horse" is by Unionville artist and horsewoman Susan Tuckerman. Her artwork, "On Course," shows Buck Davidson and Ballynoe Castle RM ("Reggie") competing at the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games.

Grounded

I was at my favorite shipping store today mailing Christmas presents. Not surprisingly for Dec. 19, the place was swamped, with boxes and mailing bags stacked everywhere ready for the UPS and FedEx pickup.

The two young clerks seemed remarkably calm and poised, even though they were both downing large cans of Red Bull, the caffeine-packed "energy drink." When I remarked on their choice of beverage, my clerk read aloud the wording on the back of the can: "Improves performance, especially during times of stress." He said the drink seems to help when he's confronted with difficult customers, and indeed he was very patient with the demanding fellow in front of me. 

Shopping

What a delightful little open house/craft sale at Inverbrook Farm in West Marlborough on Saturday! Claire Murray invited several local artisans and vendors to the Lofting family farm; there were cheeses by Talula's Table, jewelry by Whitney Marsden, adorable hand-made bags and aprons by Bessie, "inspired orchids" by Chansonette, herb rubs by Happy Cat Organics, stoneware by Lyla Kaplan, beeswax candles and even rain barrels. The dining room was full of wonderful quiches, ham, latkes and desserts.

I bought some fancy salami and cheeses for my sister and her family, and a sweet little toiletries bag for my teenage niece. I used a credit card to pay and the woman from Bessie's used her smart phone to swipe it (she had to stand by the window to get a signal). Instead of a receipt I received a text message while I was still standing there: very cool!

Food by Trader Joe's

I've been to two Christmas parties this month where most of the food has come from Trader Joe's. As a frequent party-goer, this is a trend I definitely like. Not only is it much less work for the hosts, but it's also delicious: on Friday night the buffet spread included those yummy little hot dogs wrapped in pastry and chicken satay on skewers as appetizers, and then baked ham for dinner.
At a party postmortem this hostess told me that her guests stayed much later than usual: more than coincidence?