A Hike up Patriarch Hill

 Saturday, May 5th, was a beautiful day.  In the morning we had lunch with Senior Missionary Couples from our mission and in the afternoon we hiked the trail to Pariarch Hill.  We had driven the road in one of the 4X4 Gators but I had never hiked the trail. It was a beautiful hike.  It was fall when we went before. It looks quite different in the spring.  There are a few HUGE trees.  This one I am standing by is a maple tree over 200 years old.  The middle of the tree that is hollow, but it is still very much alive at the top.

Mike is standing beside the same tree in this picture.  He is in pretty good shape to have made that hike to the top and back.  I didn't know before coming to Vermont is that if you don't mow an area it will become a maple tree forest.  There are thousands and thousands of little maple trees coming up everywhere on the grounds.  We pull them up out of the rocks, and weed them from the flower gardens, and mow them in the lawns.  Everywhere you see a meadow it is because someone is keeping it mowed.  If they don't mow, it becomes a forest. 

It turned out to be a busy week so I didn't get this finished until it was time to write again.  We are happy when we are busy.  Hope you are all busy with happy things too.  Love to all!