DUMP: Taking out the trash

I was taking my recycling over to the SECCRA landfill on New Year's Eve day and three members of an Amish family were there as well. They had brought their trash to the dump on a large, metal-wheeled wooden cart pulled by a handsome team of two large Belgian horses. Not something that I see every day.

TEMPS: A low-tech answer

In last week's column I asked for suggestions about how I could see at a glance the temperature expressed in both Celsius and Fahrenheit units so that I could learn to associate the two.
My readers came through.
Several suggested that I buy a good old C/F window thermometer (a few of you even sent photographs of yours in operation). I was so busy looking for a hi-tech solution, that hadn't even occurred to me!
One reader sent me a conversion chart from a reference manual. Another said a simple way to obtain a ballpark C from F is "take away 30 and divide by 2." And another reader suggested using the Google search bar to translate the number. 
Thank you, readers!
After spending way too much time on this, I actually did figure out how to install two weather widgets next to each other on my phone, one expressed in C and one in F. And the weather has certainly been cooperative this past week, going from 14 to 63 F (-10 to 17 C)!

EAST FALLOWFIELD: Route 82 closure

Of course, everyone is talking about the imminent closure of the heavily traveled Route 926 bridge over the Brandywine (the project is expected to start in February), but there's another repair project you should know about as well. Starting Jan. 17 and extending until June, a two-mile stretch of Route 82 is going to be shut down between Valley and Strasburg Roads so that PennDOT can fix a bridge over a tiny tributary to Sucker Run.

Honestly, I didn't know there even was a bridge there until I noticed the sign warning about a road closure and the port-a-potty.

Through traffic on Route 82 will be detoured onto

Strasburg Road, Youngsburg Road, First Avenue, and Business Route 30.

ROUNDABOUT: Filling the empty spaces

Back in September a reader, Janet, wrote to say that she felt the Route 82 roundabout in Unionville could stand to benefit from some of the gardening talent in the area. Well, she just contacted me again with the happy news that "the Longwood Rotary Club has committed to planting and maintaining the Unionville Roundabout beginning this spring. I'm sure everyone will be pleased to see this improvement."
Well done, volunteers! Another reason to look forward to spring!

CAR WASH: I told you so!

Everyone is flocking to the car wash to get the corrosive salt and unsightly crud removed from their vehicles. Noticing that the driver ahead of him had neglected to slide a plastic sleeve onto his rear wiper, a friend of mine recommended that he do so. The guy said no, he didn't think it was necessary.
And of course, on the other side of the car wash tunnel, he ended up minus a rear wiper.
My friend was amused, but he confessed that he had wised up only after losing a wiper under the exact same circumstances.
The motorist in front of me at the car wash the other day was even more careful: he even removed the little magnetic signs from the back of his car.

MOVING: A brisk sale

A couple we know in the Avon Grove School District is moving to Chicago and put their house on the market over the holidays. Within a few days, much to their surprise and delight, there was a bidding war under way, and they signed an agreement for above the asking price.
The owners' heads are spinning.
"I wanted it to sell," said the wife, "but not this fast!"

TEMPS: Going metric

I know that many of my readers are fairly sophisticated folks, so I'm hoping you'll be able to help me. I've been struck by a desire to become conversant in the Celsius temperature system. For instance, on Sunday I wanted to tell a British friend how cold it was here, but saying "17 degrees" would signify nothing to him. What I want is to become familiar enough with the other system that I can translate easily, without doing a tiresome calculation. 
Unfortunately, all the weather apps I've found give the user a choice between C and F, but they don't display both, which is what I want so that I can start associating them. And toggling back and forth is cumbersome. I think I may have to prepare an old-fashioned chart and post it around the house.
Does anyone have a better idea?

WEST CHESTER: Hello, Staples?

Over the holiday, a friend stopped by the Chester County Courthouse to get some estate paperwork done. When he asked the clerk for a copy of a document, she apologized and said that they had run out of legal-sized copy paper; did he mind standard-size paper instead? He was amused at the irony of a courthouse office not having legal-size paper.

WEST MARLBOROUGH: A mishap at London Grove

Why are there some missing traffic signs at the intersection of Route 926 and Newark Road? Because the evening of Jan. 2, around 6:45 p.m., one of those extra-long tractor-trailers was westbound on 926 and didn't take the little jog to the right around the triangle with the old blacksmith shop. Instead, the driver went all the way to Newark Road and then tried to make the 90-degree turn. His right wheels went onto the triangle (the ruts are still there) and he took out a couple of signs; one of them lodged underneath his trailer. 
When we happened upon the scene just seconds later, the driver had stopped and gotten out of the cab to inspect the damage. He gestured for us to pass him on the shoulder. He didn't look very happy at this start to 2017.