The humidity and dampness of the last few weeks was swept away yesterday, leaving a gorgeous, breezy, sunny and warm day today.

H. and i walked the newly built walking trail at the former state mental hospital, now being renovated and reused by the town.

We had the place to ourselves again.









Other than our walk, here's what i did this weekend:

1. Hit Costco, spent $63
2. Hit Shop Rite, stocked up on frozen fruit bars, ice cream, and an 8 lb. pork shoulder (.99/lb), among other things. What's a single gal doing with an 8-pound pork shoulder? Good question. I liked the price, and hadn't ever tried doing it in the slow cooker, so what the heck. I can freeze some of the leftovers.
3. Cooked up the pork in the slow cooker and had yummy shredded pork with homemade barbecue sauce in a roll, plus made some equally yummy potato salad with my own homegrown chives, plus dill, olive oil, a little mayo, apple cider vinegar....
4. Mowed the front and back lawns.
5. Bought 4 small boxwood (on sale at 30% off) for better defining one of my front yard perennial beds. I ripped out a bunch of Virginia Rose which i'd planted years ago, but the stuff spreads underground and pops up everywhere it's not wanted, and by August the roses are all chewed up and look a sorry sight. So it had to go. (I felt bad cus it's a native plant.) Ripped all that out, quite a job. Expanded the bed so i can more easily plant the 4 boxwood. I also plan to divide some of the sedums and will space them out better, then edge it and mulch. (Pix tomorrow.)
6. Used electric trimmer on some spirea, and tomorrow will do foundation plantings, too.
7. Refreshed the hummingbird sugar water.
8. Gassed up the car at the cheap place, for the week ahead.

Picked some black raspberries which i'll enjoy on my breakfast cereal tomorrow. They're just starting to turn ripe. The real treat will be the Japanese wineberries, which for all intents and purposes taste just like raspberries. They ripen a little later and will provide me with oodles of berries. Think berry smoothies, berries on breakfast cereal, frozen berries, berry crisp.

I used to have 6 apple trees on my property when i bought it, but over the years, some have died and some have gotten diseased and stopped producing apples. There's just one now that does start dropping small green apples right around this time, and of course it's a magnet for the neighborhood deer. There's a large doe who's been coming down every day around dusk. Sometimes she catches me still picking slugs off my potato plants in the garden, but perhaps when i'm hunched over like that, i'm less threatening, cus she stands her ground and munches on those little green apples.

More recently, she's been hitting the apple tree during daylight hours; she's really hooked on this treat. Then today, as i walked to the side of the house to pick some blackberries, i heard a rustling in the brush and i realized the doe was bedding down there so her beloved food source was just steps away.

I hope she doesn't linger long tonight. History tells me this neighborhood will sound like An Afghanistan war zone with all the celebratory (umm, illegal) fireworks.