Today is my 52nd birthday.. the same number of cards in a dec.. the number of weeks in a year..  All in all .. I’m happy to be the age I am.. I look 10 years older.. and feel 10 years younger.. so .. it averages out..

The day was like Vermont weather.. many chages.. some of the unexpected.. by parts bright, then stormy, then calm, then clear..

Diane woke me to a beautiful breakfast including a vegan  pineapple upside down cake  (we’re vegan for at least a couple more weeks.. I love it.. but miss desert !  that’s why tis was such a treat !)

I took gabe off to his school car pool then diane the dogs and I headed up bolton notch for a snowshoe.. e tried to follow the long trail for awhile in the beautiful deep snow.. We were breaking trail.. but the dogs were really struggling. Their legs fell in every few steps and it was cold.. they were not happy.. We did stop to admire the new signage for the climbing cliffs up the trail.. I used the stop to drop a samstone.

The beaver pond was frozen over.. but recent beaver activity was everywhere up there.. many trees in the area looked like this .

In deference to the dogs, we back tracked and drove back to our side of the river and hiked up honey hollow.. At least there was a packed trail for the dogs to follow.. I’m proud to live in a state where a town road is closed for 5 months of the year.. you can’t get much less practical than that !  It was wonderful being out in the woods with Diane.. she’s really so wonderful..

Mid day was hard for me.. I tried working in my lab for a bit… but it was too bright out to see the sparks I was making.. . I took a work call.. even though I was supposed to be on vacation.   By mid afternoon i was getting pretty sad.. It happens every birthday.. even before Sam’s death..  Today I was really missing Sam.. Here’s a picture.. that must have been my birthday 12 or 13 years ago..

I

Tonight i started to feel better.. we headed up to Bolton for Gabe’s night rider competition (he placed 2nd !).. we ran into friends up there..had a few beers.. it was really  nice

We came hoe just before 9.. i got some cool presents.. .. including a new packet camera to replace the one I currently use for this blog.. that’s no longer got a flash.. and the one I lost in the snow last month…. and the two that were eaten by the sands of burningman.. I realized that this is my 5th camera in 4 years.. .. I put a bunch of miles on these cameras.. Here’s picture number one for camera number 5.

last official act of my birthday was to check my Facebook page.. I got over 550 happy birthday messages from all over.. facebook is amazing.. !

ok.. now time to sleep.. thanks for all the good wishes, folks..

good nite all.. good nite sam

-me