Stories of family, creativity, and diverse distractions.

Category: Outdoors Page 4 of 7

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

What Is Your Favorite Outdoor Place, and Why?

As some of you may know, I work at the local REI store, selling camping equipment. When you hire on at REI, they ask you to name your favorite outdoor place, and they have it engraved on your name tag, below your name. The other people in my hire group were naming off all the big-name, big-deal destinations. You had Yellowstone, The Grand Canyon, The Smokies, and so on.

When it came my turn, I didn’t have a good answer. I’d never been to the places the other folks mentioned, though I wanted to see them all.

Critters on the home front

We love to spend time in the woods and see all the amazing things but we are very fortunate to live in an area where there is a fairly good population of wildlife. Here are some of the animals we see at home. Check out our post about backpacking critters here.

One of our water burglars!

Leftovers again? Making candles from scraps

We have some of those giant citronella candles to use in the back yard. They work very well to reduce the mosquitos, but they produce a lot of scraps. So, of course, I wanted to use them up. I’ve talked about using leftover fabric and food, but here’s another type of leftover.

After a couple of evenings, we had all these chunks of wax left from the candles.

Happy Gotcha Day, Jaxon! When a pet joins the family!

The day your furry friend comes into your life is often called gotcha day. Jaxon came into our life 8 years ago today. He was a scared rescue dog, afraid of any sort of stick, broom, or newspaper. It was clear Jaxon had not been treated the best. He had been given up for destructive behavior. We were happy to adopt him.

Why I love backpacking, Part 8: Butterflies and Moths

We’ve covered a number of different things you see when out in the woods. Today I thought I would post some of my favorite pictures of butterflies and moths from our trips in southern Indiana.

A Difference of Nine Days

Springtime utterly transforms the forest. The colors shift from browns to greens, and the silence is shattered by the sounds of birds, insects, and frogs. The air is redolent with the scents of a hundred species of flower. It’s an amazing change, and it happens quite rapidly.

This spring I was fortunate enough to do two backpacking trips, nine days apart. I had taken some pictures on the first trip, and I though it would be fun to take a new set of the same shots on the second trip, just to compare.

A springtime backpack in Hoosier National Forest

When you spend time backpacking, you get close to nature. We’ve shown you some of the wonderful things we’ve seen out in the woods in other posts. Here’s a look at the variety of critters and plants we saw over a few days this spring.

Early spring brings new green growth with the trees leafing out. These pictures were taken from the top of Frank Grubb Ridge in Deam Wilderness in southern Indiana. It was a grey, misty morning, but you can see the green just starting to show.

More about hungry hikers – a table full of food!

I’ve discussed cooking in camp in several different posts (you can see them by searching with the camp cooking tag). When it comes to packing food for a backpacking trip, you have to balance the weight, bulk, and calories to suit your needs.

Why I love backpacking Part 7: Fungus

One of the more varied things you can see while hiking in the woods is fungus. If you are going mushroom hunting – be sure to consult with an expert before eating any you find!

Breakfast of champions – or maybe just hungry hikers

When you are on the trail, food is important. You want to have energy for the hiking, but you don’t want the food to be too heavy (you have to carry it after all!) or elaborate to prepare. I’m a slow starter in the morning anyway, so one of my favorite trail breakfasts is Logan bread with coffee and a bacon bar. It can be eaten cold and munched while packing up the camp.

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