Last Saturday was the 21st Birthday of Josiah Thomas Sauve! The youngest in the family is all grown up!
At 6 foot 7, he definitely is the tallest in the house, and has so many talents and interests: Farming, woodcraft, species of plants, American history, science, the list goes on and on.
Currently he is working on clearing our property line and planning on building a board walk of some sort, to be able access our back woods for Maple Season and beyond. He is one hard worker!
Due to schedules, we ended up having his birthday dinner on Friday. The main highlights were having our very own Ham from our healthily raised pigs, and cheese made from Miss Rosie's milk this summer, and ripened to the perfect sharp cheddar flavor!
One of Josiah's long held traditions is going for a walk on his birthday. One of his stipulations is it has to be a walk on water (it's a long story.. ask him) and the other thing he tries is finding a place we haven't been before!
This year it was the Murphy Lake State Game area. New one to us!
One terrific unexpected discovery on our walk was a hill covered with wintergreen berries! It's that time of year, but I don't think we've ever found them so thick!
Made it to the lake!
Once you brushed off the snow... it was quite slippery and made for lots of fun!
Squishy's little legs got tired on the hike (though he is quite the trooper and loves walking and hiking!) But there was no shortage of people to carry him! ;)
The landscape around was breathtaking! Lots of Birch Trees and some magnificent Pines as well!
Squishy's favorite though wasn't one of his Aunts, but rather Sadie Rose (he loves "doggies," it was actually his first word) who came with us. She loves going on walks, and we generally let her just run free, but we met up with an Ice fisher so the leash went on.. thus the look of shame on her face. :)
We returned home invigorated by our walk in the fresh air, and hungry enough to eat wood!
Ok, not really. Josiah's cake this year was a snowy log ready to be split, for our ax man! :)
It was a tasty little log.
We had some extra visitors in the afternoon. Aunt Carmen, Uncle Tim, and their 3 grandchildren stopped by. Rufus was very happy to get out and say Hi!
This year though.. one walk wasn't enough for Josiah. It just happened that the full moon fell on his birthday and it was relatively clear, so he wanted to go on a "midnight" walk (it wasn't quite that late.. but close).
We went to the Wadhams to Avoca trail, and got to walk across this magnificent trestle bridge!
The moon truly was marvelous! And it was amazing how bright everything was.
We made it home right at midnight, finishing off a wonderful day celebrating an incredibly young man!
Here's to an exciting and full year ahead for him!
~Chs
