42:The answer to life, the universe, and everything.

Or something like that.

I’ve waited a lot of years to be able to reference The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy for a birthday post. I’d first read it in my early twenties during college. Now…it is done. I’m officially 42. I don’t know that I know any more of the answers than I did yesterday or the day before that or even a year ago.

But I do know that it’s been a good year so far. A big year, really. So big that I haven’t had the time to sit down and update my blog here with any of my latest adventures.

For starters, I guess it’s time to officially announce that I married Ashley. Technically, we tied the knot on December 31, 2025. And we’ve spent the last four months building our lives and our new home together. So…yep…a busy year thus far.

We started a new orchard and planted new garden beds. We have been discovering native plant species on the property. We even built a chicken yard for our now-growing flock (actually, we just picked up three new pullets today, bringing us up to eight). We have thousands of honeybees, a single dog, and six cats in total.

Yeah, I’d say life is pretty good. The new adventure is just getting started.

I have a few ideas that I want to begin exploring for the young homestead this year that I hope will set us up for the long term. But I’ll save those thoughts for another day.

Otherwise, most of my normal goals are still on track. Health is good. I still have all ten fingers and toes. And I’m still striving to improve every day.

I don’t know that I really sat down today to write anything in particular today. I just wanted to mark the occasion. Another trip around the sun. And, as I told my cousin a few months back: one year closer to wearing velcro shoes.

Previous years: 41, 40, 39, 38, 37, 36, 35