“Guess what”, mom says. “Snow day today. No school”. I remember looking out of the living room window at a snowy wonderland and feeling a deep inner joy. A day off. Snow play. Maybe even ice-skating at the rink down the block IF the city plows the side streets. Hot chocolate, warm soup. A snow…
I started camping with cast iron pans a few years ago, knowing only that cowboy cooks used cast iron pots on the range. I remembered photos of Dutch oven pots hanging from a tripod so that is where I began. From there, I tried cooking directly over coals or in a skillet on a grate.…
Bang….that is the sound of my imaginary starting gun. The race to Christmas begins. My track does not involve Black Friday – I live too far from stores and malls. However, Small Business Saturday is big in a small town, and I will walk to the local stores tomorrow. The sound I hear calls me…
I am sitting in my spot–the favorite chair next to my faux woodstove, the enormous picture window that overlooks trees that play host to a succession of birds, footstool, dog at my feet, mug of hot coffee. I ponder the issue that we are a people who take things for granted. We are a people…
Jane@janesjournals loves the letter J. So, when I read the following (from Mental Floss), I had to post. Tomorrow I shall return with more janglery and jargoogle. “The letter j first came about as a variation of the letter i, originally used to clarify the last in a sequence of Roman numerals—so iii, for…
The air turns chilly as I unpack in the late afternoon. I manage to ignite a small fire in the wood stove and turn on the small heater. I set up my newest camping gadget, a CO2 detector. At one point in my life I became paranoid about CO2 poisoning but only recently figured out…
The above photo, taken at Arches National Park, Utah, brings joy.The sight of a snowy terrain triggers a call to be outside, kicking up powdery snow and catching snowflakes on my tongue. I think about the time I snowshoed in Yellowstone after a heavy snowfall and a few years later in the Colorado mountains. I recall…
Weekends are my busiest days, but starting Monday I will be staying in a yurt for a week. When I counted up my vacation days, I discovered I had some leftover–the first time. Worried about snow and cold, I decided to leave the camper in the garage and splurge on a wilderness yurt. The yurt…
I love to collect bones, feathers, and junk while hiking. In other ecosystems, I find small bits of bone, and an occasional feather. Human detritus along my trails includes sunglasses, a flip-flop, and shotgun shells. In ND, bones litter the prairies and I can spot them easily. Here are my prizes from this summer. Snake…
Yesterday I filled all the winter bird feeders. Among the offerings: peanuts, apple slices, black sunflower seed, dried meal worms, grape jelly, suet and thistle seed. I threw out a box of old barley, too. Cardinal food arrives this week. I researched how to get Cardinals into the yard and am working hard to lure…