71  bar steady 29.64 0mph SE  dew-point 51  Beltane, Sunny and warm

                  First Quarter of the Flower Moon

Ah, Costco.  A vast and cavernous market, as much a temple to the American obsession with stuff as store.  Two 40 pound bags of mature dog dogfood, Kirkland, and a box of dog biscuits plus $100 on the Costco gas card, a sort of futures market in which I bet that Costco prices will be under those of the competitor gas stations.  After a trip in which each tankfull of 11 gallons or so cost over $44 in my compact Toyota Celica, it seems like a good wager.  Through the lines with others and their carts, as American as fast food and credit cards, I spent $161 dollars on dog nourishment and car nourishment.

Back home I put the dogfood in the container we use for it, then went out to the shed that Jon built.  It houses the chainsaw.  When I found it needed gas, I had to schlep out to the further shed where I store the sharp and mechanical tools as well as gas and oil. 

Filled up I hiked out to the front yard and began pruning branches off Amur maples.  The first one to go was the one I mentioned yesterday, broken in some storm or another.  Then a couple that had long impinged on a spruce and a Norway pine.  At another clump of Amur’s I pruned some large dead branches, small trunks really all of these, and a few low hanging live ones.

While Kate mowed, I moved these cumbersome items down the hill and into the huge storm water drainage depression we share with our neighbor.  This wise feature is as far across as our lot and goes back about three hundred feet.  It slopes on all four sides down to a level bottom.  This ensures that the run off our roofs and yards soak into the soil, rather than into nearby wetlands or Roundlake.  Since it has no other purpose and is large, it can hide many branches, even tree trunks with no impairment of our view.

Kate’s finished mowing and I’m taking her out to lunch.  Bye.