Stories of family, creativity, and diverse distractions.

Category: Outdoors Page 1 of 6

Camping, hiking, backpacking, boating, fishing, snowshoeing, and whatever else we do outside for fun.

It’s Garden Time! Spring at my house

Every year, the first flowers of spring brighten up my days. It’s fun to watch things grow and flowers open. Here’s a glance at spring at our house over the last few weeks.

So you want to hike with your dog – gear

I’ve covered location and safety in previous posts. This post will look at the equipment we take when our dog goes backpacking with us. Jaxon carries some of his own equipment in his pack and we carry the rest.

So you want to hike with your dog – Safety and care on the trail

In the first post in this series, I talked about some of the considerations on whether or not you should take your pet on a trip with you. Today, I plan to discuss some of the health and safety concerns you may want to think about while hiking and camping with your dog.

There’s a (button) hole in my bandana!

It may seem like an odd concept, but I sew a button hole on my bandanas. A bandana is an amazingly useful piece of outdoor kit. It can act as washcloth, towel, strainer, dust mask, handkerchief, bandage, and even, with care, a holder for hot items.

Stop the Shenanigans at Hoosier National Forest!

Hoosier National Forest, which oversees Charles C. Deam Wilderness, is proposing some Draconian new camping rules for the Wilderness. That’s bad, but there’s worse. The change will also allow them to arbitrarily change the rules in the future without any way to prevent it. We have to stop this!

So you want to hike with your dog – Location, Location!

We have taken Jaxon on many hiking and camping trips over the years. He’s an excellent hiker and a slightly nervous camper. We worked with Jaxon for a while before we took him out overnight. If you want to take your dog out hiking out with you, here are some things to consider. Our posts will mostly be about dogs because that is what we know, but much of it applies to any pet.

Glorious autumn color on a grey day

Even a grey day in the woods can be amazing. We had a chance to go out and do a few miles recently down near Lake Monroe in southern Indiana. Despite the clouds and intermittent light rain, we saw some glorious views!

Image shows a scene of trees in a forest. the leaves are green, yellow, orange and red.

Why I love backpacking: Seasons – Fall

Every season brings new beauty to the deciduous forests. Autumn brings a wide array of colors to enjoy. Crisp days and cool nights make for good hiking and sleeping. Fall pictures are glorious to look at.

Image shows oak leaves, green in the centers and shading towards red at the outer edges.
A close up shot of oak leaves turning taken in October 2013.

Look Out! Danger Noodles Ahead! A Hike With Baby Snakes

We recently hiked with a friend at Strawtown Koteewi Park. It’s a nice, nearby place to get a quick nature fix. We saw a bunch of lovely sights which I utterly failed to capture for posterity. But I did whip out the phone when we saw the baby snakes!

Taking care of your camping gear: Part 4 – Drawstrings

We’ve written a couple of posts about taking care of your camping and hiking gear (here, here and here). Today I thought I would talk about a fairly common part of gear and clothing that can cause issue. Drawstrings can be found on clothing, packs, stuff sacks and sleeping bags. It’s easy to have a drawstring pull out of the casing if you aren’t careful.

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