Children's garden

Well done, Carol Krawczyk!
The Kennett resident, who is principal of Research-Based Design, reports that "my article on my post-occupancy evaluation for Longwood Gardens' Indoor Children's Garden was published by the American Society of Landscape Architects yesterday! Doing this form of evaluation for public gardens, public and private spaces is one of the interesting things I do as a landscape architect and researcher."
Carol's analysis of the children's garden found that it "engages people, especially children, for a number of reasons: 1) Water is a powerful element that engages people of all ages. 2) While people are attracted to things through sight, they tend to engage with the environment when they can touch it. 3) The configuration of space considers both activities and the “scale” of the users. 4) The climate of the indoor children’s garden provides a stable environment regardless of weather. These characteristics provide opportunities that are not always found in traditional children’s gardens – but should be!"

Full of beans

I was grocery-shopping with a pal the other day and it struck her how dramatically meal preparation changes when you get married. When she was single, if she made a big pot of chili, she'd have leftovers the next day, and she'd freeze the rest. Now that she has a husband with a hearty appetite, that same pot of chili disappears immediately. Leftovers? What leftovers?

Weather alert

That was some storm last night (Thursday, July 26)! I was driving home from dinner at the Stottsville Inn at 7 and there were ominous clouds covering the sky to the north and the wind was bending trees and whipping up clouds of dust. I just wanted to get home and hunker down.

As soon as I pulled in the driveway I saw that one of the big pines had been snapped off by the wind (the tree was weakened by a previous lightning strike). Yard cleanup time today, though I'm very much afraid my usually enthusiastic branch-hauling is going to be hampered by my still-tender incision. The storm brought with it two rounds of rain, VERY much needed.
By the way, I've heard that during a couple recent road closures due to downed trees, on Route 82 and on Route 41, the state police have been very vigilant about ticketing impatient motorists who try to bypass the "Road Closed" signs. Heads up.

Runners at Runnymede

The first-ever Chasin' for Chalfin 10K run on July 21 brought 165 athletes to the magnificent Runnymede estate west of Unionville.
The beneficiary is Jake Chalfin, who suffered a spinal cord injury when he came off his horse while competing in a steeplechase last year. Jake told me he was very pleased with the turnout and said the weather "couldn't have been more perfect," as it was 65 degrees when the runners set out at 8:30 a.m.
The cross-country course took them through hay fields and woods and over fences, and they had to make six creek crossings. On Saturday evening I saw a family who ran in the race and asked them how they were feeling. "Exhausted!" they chorused.
The money raised, a net of $3,000, will go toward Jake's daily caregiving expenses. He has helpers looking after him three or four hours a day now, down from the 24/7 care he needed when he first returned home. He's also having the kitchen in his Springdell home renovated so he can do his own cooking, and he'll be participating in a new therapy program called Project Walk (www.projectwalk.org).
A pregnant friend of mine (so exciting!) posted a photo of herself at the run, revealing her distinctly "showing" belly: "Afterward, I declared myself the unofficial winner of the 1.5-person division." 

Threats

Yesterday evening my long-time tennis partner and I were out playing, and two teenaged boys were on the court next to ours.
They were not taking their game very seriously, and they hit one ball onto our court, making us replay a point. Then another one.
The third time they did it, I said sternly, "Boys. Do that ONE MORE TIME and you are going to be our ball boys."

They looked scared to death. It did the trick.

Online feed

Coursera, a company founded by two Stanford professors, is going to be offering free online courses, open to anyone with Internet access, reports the July 18 "Wall Street Journal." Among the initial courses being offered that might interest some locals: Equine Nutrition.
Online education is apparently a controversial topic in higher education, with proponents saying it provides broader distribution of knowledge in a more convenient format, while others say it lacks the advantages of the traditional classroom experience.

Kleptoplants

A standard theme of horror movies is a peevish Mother Nature venting her wrath upon callous humanity. Think M. Night Shyamalan's "The Happening" (which was filmed partly in Unionville!).
Better yet, think Tilda's garden this summer.
In the past month I have lost a pair of gym shorts and a checkbook. Both resulted in dervish-like but unsuccessful searches of my home and car and some unladylike language. I gave them up for lost and called the bank to cancel the few remaining checks (a $15 fee, which I deserved for my carelessness).
I have since found both items. The gym shorts were buried in the fast-growing lamium under my clothesline, and as far as their condition goes, let's just say we don't need to worry about discarded gym shorts piling up in landfills like we do about plastic bottles.
Obviously, I dropped the shorts while bringing in my clothes from the line in a hurry. But how the checkbook ended up underneath some ferns in an obscure spot near my deck steps remains a mystery. It was dirty and soaking wet, but I managed to salvage the check register.

Out, out ...

I know some of you were worried about me after reading my item about skin cancer last week, and for that I apologize. I had my Mohs surgery on July 24 and it couldn't have gone better. I left Unionville at 6:30 a.m. and got to the Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine at Penn at 7:45 (I didn't stop ONCE from Coatesville to South Street, 30 miles without a check!). They numbed me up, took it out, looked at the sample under the microscope to make sure it was all clear and then sewed me back up (and beautifully). I was out of there by 11 a.m. and home by 12:30.

Thanks to all of my friends who kept me -- and the medical staff -- amused with your emails, texts and Facebook postings to me throughout the morning. Here's the view I had, looking east toward Center City. I will spare you photographs of the surgical action, though I have some great ones!
The surgeon who did my procedure, Dr. Christopher Miller, is a total rock star: expert, focused, calm, matter-of-fact, gentle, in control. And the nurses and staff are top-notch; they made things as easy and pleasant for me as they could possibly be, physically and mentally, even asking what music I wanted to listen to (alas, Pandora was on the fritz, playing two channels at once and commingling "Hang on Sloopy" and "Call Me Maybe"). And they kept thanking ME for being "such a good sport"!
What does this have to do with Unionville? I know that many of you spend a lot of time outdoors, and a significant number of skin cancers are sun-related (though mine wasn't). Keep an eye on any iffy spots and bumps, anywhere on your body, and "have a low threshold" (in Dr. Miller's phrase) for getting them checked out. I was sure mine was just a skin tag.