black bear – The Salem Garden

Okay, so here’s the thing; I have a really hard time blogging about gardening when I have other things on my mind, things like my vacation. So I have to write this post and fill you in so I can move on with my life sometime tomorrow, maybe after the ten loads of laundry are folded and this post is published. If your bored please feel free to stop now, click off, come back next week, whatever works for you. I completely understand. If you can just bear with me we’ll be all set and back to the tomatoes before you know it.

It started with a quick plane ride (all by myself), then real Philly cheesesteaks with some of my bffs and my college roomies’ beautiful new yard..This is peace and tranquility. There are no children living in this house or in this yard. They are all grown up and it was very, very quiet here. I took a nice walk in the garden, out past the Willow tree. A little while later Room’s (do you call your college roommate Room? Room and I do) husband showed us a photo of a five foot long black snake that he had removed from their deck a few minutes earlier. I took a few photos from the deck. Mr Snake was probably watching me do that. You know how I love snakes. I was watching for them too. Sorry, I can’t help it, moving back to the vacation…

We completely surprised another roommate for her birthday (a gift from her amazing husband) and enjoyed a Cape May weekend full of relaxing beach time and the kind of conversation that you only have with your college roommates who have known you forever and beyond. It was a really, really, really (really) … fun weekend. I love those ladies, there’s no one else like them!
Cape May is known worldwide for it’s awesome gingerbread trim. I absolutely love awesome gingerbread trim.
Then I went back to Philadelphia where I had even more fun, this time with my wonderful sister and my niece.
She very kindly took me all the way up to the Pocono Mountains to meet up with my family and this big bear that traipsed through my mom’s yard. I looked out the kitchen window and he looked back at me. The photo credit goes to my quick thinking littlest girl who grabbed her Dad’s phone and took this picture.

This one was taken by my little guy with his ipod.
He hopped up on the big rock to the left then walked through the spot where I grew my very first garden, right where that white grass grows now. This happened on my little guy’s eleventh birthday. Needless to say it made his day!
We all enjoyed a visit with the Callie’s Pretzel Factory guy…
and a mother hen and her chicks, and some school shopping. No photo needed for that, you all know what school shopping looks like.
We made a quick stop at the the Culinary Institute on our way home to Salem. This just might be my oldest daughter’s next educational environment.
The view from this school is spectacular and the gardens are beautiful too. Stay tuned for more about that next week.