Rainy Days

 A Bonsai that won't die.... aaaah copper.

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In detail as best as I can do with an iphone camera...

3-18-12 Little River, snow and 75 degrees

 It was very unseasonably warm so after Aikido a friend and I went out to Little Rive State Park to hike in the surreal weather.

I though I was going to need to be ready again mud but there was still snow in parts.  Soft grainy snow. And the lake was still completely frozen.

Time constraints had us turn around before reaching the saw mill but still an amazing day with crazy weather.  After a dark winter damn if the sunlight didn't feel great.

3-17-12 St. Paddy Day Fog and Pipe Making

 St. Paddy's Day was a fog filled one.  It seams to be a tradition that the local cement company Ireland does a parade with all their mixers blasting their horns.  It was odd, funny and very loud,

 More fog around the ship at dock.

It was so cool to walk through this, I haven't seen fog like this since California where the marine fog would come in and hide everything.

 Disappearing bike path

 The Echo Center and Lake Champlain

 

 Train Station looming.  About three seconds earlier it was even more menacing

As a side note this is the pipe I carved.  About once every couple of years I get the urge for a single cigar.  This time I decided to make a pipe from a piece of Catlinite (a blood-rd stone used in traditional native american pipes) I bought in Mississippi when I was in middle school and traveling with the folks.  It is soft like soap stone so I carved the stone and the stem with hand tools over two days.  It smoked beautifully.  Welcome Spring!

3-11-12 First Kayak Trip, Shelburne Bay

Warm weather gave me ambition and I decided to head out with my kayak.  Lacking both foam pads and winch straps I just threw it on and tied it down with cord.  I tried buying straps on the way but wisely left it tided with the cord as well.  Good thing too, the cord came loose on the drive to Shelburne Bay

It was around 60 degrees but the water was much colder.  I hug the shoreline the best I could and kept my lifevest on just in case but the main goal was not to get wet.

I actually got to run my kayak on the ice and let the weight break it.  I have been wanting to do that for a long time.  Back on shore I walked out to point as the sun slipped behind the hillside.

 It was a beautiful day and across the way a bald eagle perched in a tree.  A good end to the day.

Oddly in a puddle on the rocks was frozen a shotgun shell. 

3-3-11 CAT trail at Camel's Hump

After weeks of not going out due to weather or other work I finally took Sal out to the CAT trail next to Camel's Hump.  There were wind advisories so no exposed mountain tops today.  On the drive out there were massive menacing cloud banks that worried me but by the time we had started up the trail it had cleared into a stunning day.

It was about 2.5 mile one way and all uphill.  Not many people out which was nice.

 Ran into these markes on the way back down. looks like they were made by a bid ass bird foraging.

 There were a lot of these spread out through the woods

It was a great hike, I ran some of the way back down.  Afterward I wandered into downtown during the mardigras celebration and saw this.  Awesome.

29 Days of Happiness #29

My own bread made with grain from my last brew toasted with peanut butter and honey.

Watching Hugo while still working on my Kukri and also honing and oiling the norman sword (long overdue, need to be more conscious of that ones care)

Writing the 29th one of these, a full month of irregular length from when I started.


I though this might become a chore, and sometimes I was forced to write the next day if I didn't get to it before it was time to crawl into bed but it never felt like a chore.  What it did do is make me look for the good things in my days rather than letting the bad take over.  

And strangely enough it has given me an odd kind of joy to share these moments with an audience, some of which I know and I imagine some I don't.  There is no reason to keep good moments just to yourself.

Even more startling is I feel like I might keep doing this, not necessarily on a daily level but more when I have those enjoyable moments and I can't contain them or feel no reason to.  I set out to change myself and I think I have in a small way, but those are the best changes because they have the tendency to last.



oh and one more moment of happiness:


SNOW!

29 Days of Happiness #28

Taking Sal for a walking in glorious sunshine during a lunch break


Got the Kukri knife today which was cool because I spent several hours sitting talking to my friend and carefully honing the blade to sharpness.

Oddly enough sitting and writing this while AC/DC plays.  Never been a huge fan but it works...