My son forgot his band equipment the other day. I got a text from him as soon as he was done biking to school. He asked me to drop it off on my way to work. I had the time, so I did. Afterward, I decided to take Harbeson Road to Route 9. Along the way, I passed the Southern Delaware Therapeutic Riding facility.

I immediately noticed the demolition of a building was taking place. When I got to the office, I did some research, but couldn’t find any information about what was going on. I reached out to the organization because demolitions and expansions mean change, and change – big or small – is interesting.

There was no formal announcement of the demolition, but a message was sent to the organization’s internal stakeholders, said Executive Director Jo Allegro-Smith.

“It certainly catches the eye when driving by,” she said.

SDTR has been providing equine-assisted services to children and adults living with cognitive and physical disabilities for more than 30 years. The organization celebrated 10 years at the farm outside Milton late last year.

Allegro-Smith said the building being demolished was the old farmhouse on the property, which was built in 1910. She said it was a wonderful old home and it’s tough to see it being torn down, but it was becoming costly to maintain.

The house served as the home for the facility’s caretaker. Now, she said, the caretaker lives in the neighboring development called Milton Meadows.

“It’s nearly as close. You can see the facility from the house,” she said.

When demolition and cleanup are complete, the lot will be graded and seeded, said Allegro-Smith. For the foreseeable future, it’s going to be a patch of lawn, she said.

Looking to the future, she said something will be built there to allow for an increase in services. However, she said, before that happens, the program’s leaders are going to continue to evaluate what’s needed for this growing area and how it can best serve participants.

“It’s creating space for the next generation,” said Allegro-Smith. “There’s more to come, definitely, but it’s going to be at least a couple of years.”

A few treasures found before demolition

In advance of demolition, Allegro-Smith said Brian Cox, the parent of a program participant, took the opportunity to do some metal detecting around the house.

She provided me the results of his find:

The highlight is probably a sterling silver money clip from B.A. Ballou & Co., out of Providence, R.I., said Cox. He said he could not find more details on the age range of the money clip, but guessed it is from the 1920s or 1930s because, in his opinion, it looks like Art Deco.

Cox believes he found a small collection of tool tags that would have been used to check out tools at a job site. He estimated they are also from the first half of the 1900s, since after then it was less common to see things made of brass.

Also exciting, said Cox, are the gold Great Seal of the USA military buttons he believes are from the Korean War or Vietnam War era because of the button’s construction style and that they still have their gold gilt on them. However, he said, the buttons don’t have back marks, so he’s also struggling to find out the age of them.

Joke of the Week

Saturday, May 23, is International Turtle Day. This is the time of year for our slow-moving, shelled friends to be out and about looking for safe places to lay the next generation of turtles. That means turtles will be crossing roads, so be on the lookout for them. As always, send jokes to cflood@capegazette.com.

A turtle is crossing the road when he’s mugged by two snails. When the police show up, they ask him what happened. The shaken turtle replies, “I don’t know. It all happened so fast.”