Maria’s birth is Tuesday (not Monday as I reported below..oops!), she is rounding the big 50, a half-century of good life. We are heading off to Vermont Monday to our favorite inn, the placed we went on our one-day honeymoon, the place we always go to mark some of the events in our life, or just to rest. We stay in a big old room, hundreds of years old, that was Paul Newman’s favorite room when he came to Vermont, which he often did.

There is nothing for us to do but sleep, eat, talk, talk some more. Maria and I are going to Bellows Falls, Vt., she is getting a new tattoo, I am getting some work done on an old one. We might run down to Brattleboro to get the Korean restaurant lunch we missed last Sunday. I am still dealing with the stomach virus that has been wreaking havoc with my insides, I am getting it under control, illness wreaks havoc with diabetes and I’m getting that back under control as well.

This morning, a vigorous round of farm chores in preparation for the trip: cleaning out the water buckets, stacking hay up for Deb Foster in the barn, and shoveling out mounds of manure frozen to the barn floor this cold week. Today some sunshine, maybe some photos. We leave early Monday. I’m not bringing my computer, just the camera and the Ipad.