But who's counting?

I love peanut butter, but alas its high fat and calorie content has kept it off my regular pantry inventory. However, after eating a delicious on-the-go PB&J sandwich the other day, I bought a jar full of the chunky goodness. I saw that the serving size, two tablespoons, contained an appalling 200 calories and 16 grams of fat, so I resolved to use only one tablespoon in my sandwich.
I mentioned this to a huge peanut-butter fan.
"One tablespoon!" he scoffed. "That's how much you lick off the knife!"
He laughed when he spied my 18-oz jar of the brown stuff, stating that he wasn't aware that peanut butter came in a sample size. Or perhaps it was a travel size, sufficient for a trip to, say, Philadelphia.

Big string thing

Please don't roll your eyes too violently (yes, I'm talking to you, Cranky Friend) if this household tip is painfully obvious, but it wasn't to me. Birdseed bags, feed bags, potato bags, anything that's sealed shut with a row of sewn string stitches, you can open simply by pulling out the string, in one easy motion. No need to reach for the scissors or a Swiss Army knife or whatever's handy. It makes opening bags really quite fun.

Bakers at Red Lion

I know I'm not the only one who is delighted that the Bakers at Red Lion (aka the Bread Ladies) are back in business! Barbara and Nancy had to shut down their kitchen for several weeks to repair the damage due to an oven fire, depriving the community of their wonderful bread, rolls and brownies -- and their cheerful greetings. They're normally open for business on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays: look for the French flag flying at Doe Run Road and Route 926.

 

Not the real thing

A knowledgeable reader named Nora commented on my post last week about what I mistakenly thought were marsh marigolds along the banks of the Brandywine. She writes:
"This showy little yellow flower is an invasive exotic - common name Lesser Celandine, Botanic name Ranunculis ficaria. The real Marsh Marigold, Caltha palustris, is a wonderful native plant with much bigger leaves and flowers. The lesser celandine has invaded our area in the last 20 years and is outcompeting treasured natives along the Brandywine such as the Virginia Bluebells, Mertensia virginica. It is extremely difficult to get rid off and goes dormant by summer. Its main means of movement is with flooding, though I often see it in areas where no flooding takes place.
"If it appears on my property, I dig it out immediately, removing a large soil ball because there are nodules on the roots and I don't want to leave any of them behind to start new plants.
"I know the plant is attractive, but if one looks at the big picture and tries to understand the complex set of relationships that exist for a healthy ecosystem, then one recognizes how damaging these invasive exotics are to the environment."
I was dismayed to learn this, but it would explain why some early flowers I saw in the White Clay Creek Preserve back in March really didn't match the marsh marigold picture in my wildflower identification book. I was introduced to the original marsh marigold by my junior-high science teacher, Miss Gold, during the wonderful trips to nearby streams she'd take us on.

New store

There's a new health-food store coming to downtown Avondale! A big yellow sign has been installed on Route 41, just north of the intersection with State Street. The store is going to be housed in the former bank, next to the Avondale post office. I did some spying on Saturday and saw a building permit dating from January and some signs of construction work inside. By the way, it's a neat old stone building, with slate roof tiles and a Bonnie-and-Clyde vintage security alarm.

Five-O at London Grove

I was happy to see a state trooper on Route 926 west of Newark Road at lunchtime on Thursday, April 17. He had a white Volvo pulled over. From my experience and that of neighbors, motorists fly through that area. Every time I see her, a friend who lives on Newark Road shares new anecdotes about reckless driving past her house -- including one driver who passed a vehicle while going up a hill. It's a miracle no-one was coming the other way, because there would've been a head-on collision.

Kyoto closes

I was dismayed to see that one of my favorite sushi restaurants, Kyoto, is closing its Kennett branch as of Sunday, April 20. The sign on the door says a lease dispute is the reason. Kyoto's Pike Creek branch, on Linden Hill Road, will remain open.

For the Monarchs

The Kennett Square Beautification Committee wrote to me looking for some ink about its annual plant sale, which will be held Saturday, April 26, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., in the Genesis walkway on State Street. Proceeds from the sale go planting toward the group's lovely barrel planters that you see around downtown Kennett.

Another goal of this year's sale is to draw attention to the plight of Monarch butterflies, which are facing a population decline because of the decrease in habitats on their annual migration route between Mexico and the United States. Gardeners can help the butterflies by planting Asclepias (milkweed), which they like to eat as they migrate. The committee will be selling the perennial milkweed variety, which comes in several colors and reseeds itself.

"Could you please help our cause with some publicity in your column?  We would be most appreciative (and so would the butterflies!)"
Done.

Grace under pressure

The brief electrical outage at the Kennett Giant on April 14 provided a little something out of the ordinary for those of us who spend so much time in the U-Scan line that we know by heart the four-digit PLU codes of all our fruits and vegetables. I was just about to finish scanning my order when the lights went out throughout the store, leaving darkness and beeping noises from all the computers.
One of the management types sprang into action, warning the clerks not to hit any keys on their terminals. After the system powered back on after a few minutes, he started multitasking calmly, answering clerks' questions, keying data in manually and apologizing profusely to customers. One woman had tried to pay with her debit card four times before the payment went through, and he reassured her that she wouldn't be overcharged.
I'm not sure what the power outage was all about: it was a perfectly nice, if windy, day.

De-bannering

Who knows if my little item a few weeks ago had anything to do with it (if I remember my logical fallacies, that would be a classic "post hoc ergo propter hoc" one), but it was gratifying to see a worker finally removing the "Seasons Greetings" banners from the parking lot at the New Garden Giant on April 14, when it was sunny and 72 degrees.

Heads up

A concerned reader shared this alarming story with me on Sunday:
"My daughter and I had a scary incident this a.m. while hacking in Cheslen. We were up on a grassy bank and a bicyclist came silently down the dirt road beside us from behind us causing a violent spook (rear and bolt) from our horse and pony. The bicyclist had been able to see us from quite a long distance but apparently not being a horse person didn't realize the horse's instinct was to flee from attack from something silently and quickly coming up from behind. We stayed on, he stopped and apologized. Can we educate our cycling friends?"
Consider it done. Horses often "spook" at things we humans wouldn't consider threatening. A popular cartoon among horse lovers shows a terrified horse watching what would pass for the ultimate in a horse horror movie, entitled "The Flapping Plastic Bag."

Fabulous Fungi

Fredda Pennock of the Kennett Township Historical Commission was kind enough to alert me to their annual lecture, which will doubtless be of interest to many in our community.  It's called "Fabulous Fungi," and it's about mushroom farming in Kennett Township, past and present. Tina Ellor, technical director of Phillips Mushroom Farms, will be doing a PowerPoint presentation about the history of mushroom farming, and Chris Alonzo, third-generation farmer and president of Pietro Industries, will discuss current farming practices.
The program starts at 7 p.m. Thursday, May 15, at the Kennett Township Building, 801 Burrows Run Rd. You might want to get there a little early: Last year's fascinating program on old barns was standing room only.

Final Four

While upgrading my cellphone the other day, I was asked, twice, for the last four digits of my social security number. Both times I had to recite the whole number to myself before I could tell the sales guy what those four digits were. I supposed I think of my SSN as a whole chunk rather than something "fungible," as the attorneys among us say.
I laughed at myself and asked the sales guy if everyone does the same thing. He nodded. His colleague, who overheard, turned to me and agreed enthusiastically: "Everybody does that," he confirmed. "Everybody!"
(By the way, the newer Android is an excellent phone and it's almost scary how quickly it has customized its texting dictionary to my preferences: When I typed in "poi" it offered me a choice between "poison ivy" and "point-to-point.")