Camping Out And Ushering In

It’s an idea that’s been rattling around in my head for quite some time now.  Last night it finally came into fruition.  Perhaps it was fueled by the thirty some Joe Robinet videos I’ve watched this last month.  I do enjoy watching his adventures out in the woods.  Between his various shelters, the Northern boreal forests, and genuine love of the outdoors, I find them engaging.  Or perhaps it’s again linked to my own lifeblood of having grown up in the woods Up North with a connection to nature.  Either way, I pulled the trigger and headed into the snow to camp out.  True, it was our wedding anniversary, but we’ll celebrate on Saturday when the family gathers, so with Cindy’s encouragement, I started packing.

I elected to use my Kelty (Arcadia) tent.  While I would use a tarp underneath the tent as a layer of protection from the snow, I decided to take my two foam backpacking mats (That I would lay down side by side), as well as a self inflating sleeping pad.  Over that I decided to bring a thick and heavy blanket used to protect furniture when you are moving.  Since it was supposed to get down to 18 degrees (colder in the low spot we would be camped), and my newest sleeping bag was only good to 50 degrees, I brought two and would put the newer sleeping bag inside of an older and bigger flannel-lined bag.  On top of this I brought a wool blanket to be the cover for both my dog Kora and me.  Although I planned on clearing away as much of the 8 inches of snow as possible, I didn’t want the cold to creep up and make the night miserable.

For dinner I brought a can of beef stew that I had leftover from a past summer trip with my cousins (two cans remain), a clementine orange, and a slice of bread to mop up any residual gravy.  For breakfast I packed two pouches of instant oatmeal with a small container of raisins that I added for a surprise ingredient, along with two more clementines.  Three packets of hot cocoa were included, to be used as my hand warming drink of choice (picture hands wrapped around a mug).  I put water in three different insulated bottles so I could heat it up for the oatmeal, cocoa, and also add it to Kora’s dog food to give her something warm before we went to bed.

In addition to the clothes I would wear, I brought along my running tights, a polyester shirt, my new fleece lined polyester pullover from school, and a thick pair of wool socks; all fresh, dry gear to sleep in and avoid starting off chilled from what I would be working in as I set up camp.

As extras I threw in my ax, saw, head lamp, and mini-mag light, along with some books and journals.  Ironically I never needed my lights as the reflection off from the snow was more than adequate to see in, and I never read or journaled because it was too cold to venture outside of the nest I created.

CLICK BELOW FOR A VIDEO OF MY GEAR:

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I left at 5:00 last night after organizing my food, cooking gear, and extra clothes within my backpack.  The rest was lashed to a low rimmed sled that I have.  The holes I drilled, along with the rope I added a few years ago, held the gear fast.  Unfortunately I had packed Kora’s leash and collar.  She does listen well, however, so I just had her walk out in front of me and I watched for traffic as we walked down our street and out of our subdivision.  There were no cars, but she was slightly freaked out by the sounds of the sled I was pulling over the black-top.  Visions of the Grinch came to mind with his little dog trying to pull the sleigh piled high with toys.  I allowed myself a slight smile of what we must have looked like.

We made our way down to the strip of woods near our house that hugs a wandering creek.  It’s not the coniferous woods of the North, but it’s not our backyard either.  It would have to do despite the constant roar from the thousands of vehicles traveling a couple of hundred yards over on the inter-state tollway.

I was sweating by the time I had dragged my gear to the designated spot.  It was tough sledding as they say.  To sweat is not a good thing in cold temperatures.  I peeled off my thick flannel & fleece lined coat down to my sweatshirt and went right to work clearing snow from the base of my favorite silver maple tree.  It’s a massive tree that sits on the bank of the creek; a perfect place to camp.  Against the white backdrop of the snow, I could see easily and pitched my tent.  This allowed me to clear off the sled and throw the rest of my gear into the tent for later, and then begin the process of starting a fire.  For several years I’ve collected rocks from the nearby fields, so I used these to make a fire-ring, and then began collecting firewood.  I was able to use dead limbs that were stacked around in brush piles.  With some dried grasses I collected from the creekbank, coupled with dryer lint from home, I quickly got a fire started.  I put my pot of water in the coals to boil and placed my pot of stew on one of the bigger rocks to begin heating.  While I was working I went back and forth, collecting wood, taking pictures, and warming my hands.  I never stopped moving.  Imagine that!

Kora and I inhaled our dinner.  The phrase “scarfing down” came to mind.  Afterwards we stocked the fire with wood and sat for a few minutes staring into the flames; enjoying the heat.  Kora doesn’t particularly like being by the fire, but if I’m close, and between them, she relaxes a bit and doesn’t seem to mind.  Our old dog Kati, on the other hand, would practically lay beside it, because she enjoyed both the heat and the chance at any food offered to her that happened to be cooked over it.  I found it fitting that she was buried in close proximity, on a bend of this creek.  She would have absolutely loved this adventure, and Kora would have enjoyed her company.

CLICK BELOW FOR A VIDEO OF MY WINTER CAMP:

After letting the fire die down, I grabbed the remaining gear and put it under the fly of my tent.  Next, I assembled our bedding in the order I described earlier.  I changed into my dry clothes for sleeping and then we hunkered down.  Kora was a little confused at first; that we weren’t going home, but settled in quickly.  My toes were an issue when we first went to bed.  They always are.  I think I counted out about 500 toe crunches to get my blood circulating.  Once they were warm, I stayed toasty the rest of the night.  I was pleasantly surprised!

Sleeping itself was intermittent.  I woke every hour or two during the night.  I had to be completely under every layer that I had, with the sleeping bags tucked in behind me to prevent any cold drafts.  I slept in a prenatal position (not easy to do within two sleeping bags), and had to wake periodically to change from one side to the other.  In addition, the moon showed through the thin layer of clouds, so it was pretty bright, and the roar from the cars and trucks was pretty loud.  Oh, and each hour leading up to midnight, the local neighborhoods would celebrate and send off fireworks.  Kora was not a fan.  I did get up at midnight to usher in the New Year, and take a picture of the moon through the bare canopy of the silver maple.  It was a reminder that even in the midst of what we may see as our darkest hour, there is always hope!

I woke for good at 6:00, began packing the gear in the tent by 6:30 and was out starting the fire by 7:00.  We ate breakfast and then I started “stowing away the tent.”  This process, along with repacking the sled, took quite a while.  In fact, once I was finished, gulped down my final cup of cocoa, and grabbed onto the rope to begin the trudge back home, several hours had gone by.  I walked into our garage by 10:00.  The gear traveled well all lashed down.  My only complaint was from my ax that I had slipped down through a loop on my pack, as it wore a small hole through the nylon.  It looks cool to hang an ax on the specially designed pocket of a classic, old canvas pack, but apparently not on mine,  I’ll have to figure out how I can patch that.

After another hour of unpacking, laying things out to dry, and starting a load of laundry, I finally took a deep breath and sat down.   Following lunch, I slept for a solid hour, and Kora has hardly moved all day from the tight little ball she’s slept in since we returned.  I suspect she’s feeling content, as am I, after such a cold weather adventure as we had, while looking forward to our next outing.  It was a great camp out while ushering in the New Year.

See you along The Way...

Telltale Signs Down At The Creek

 

Today began with me shoveling off the thin layer of snow from our driveway.  It was then that I saw tracks cutting across the front ditch and our lawn.  I knew at once that it had to be the waddling gait of an opossum; with foot drags and whip marks left by its bare tail.  I’m not sure if I had ever seen an opossum until I was at least in high school; maybe even in college.  We didn’t have them Up North when I was growing up.  We had porcupines but no opossums.  Perhaps that has changed now with milder winters, or the opossum’s ability to crawl into small crevices and accidentally hitchhike their way to new places.  Of this I am unsure, but the telltale signs of an opossum walking near our house upon the new fallen snow was left for those who observed.

An hour later when my wife and I were returning from a morning appointment, I glanced over the guardrail at our nearby creek.  I have a habit of doing this more often than not when we drive by a moving body of water.  It tends to freak my wife out when we start to swerve one way or another from the lane I need to be traveling in, but how else am I supposed to check out the creek’s depth, flow rate, and fishability?  A quick look to my left and right allows me to see if the waterway is navigable and worthy of exploration.  Today I saw tracks running down the snow covered ice of the creek as we passed by, and I knew immediately what it must have been.  In fact, I quickly announced to my wife, while realigning our vehicle into the proper lane, that river otters had been running down upon that ice.  The intermediate slide marks that they left behind were the telltale signs that gave it away.

Once I was home, I got dressed in my outdoor gear, put the collar on our dog Kora, and headed out the door.  We made our way down to the creek where a ribbon of trees hugs both sides as it meanders its way through the cornfield.  While walking on the thin layer of snow, we basked in the sun, breathed deep the fresh air, and kept our eyes peeled for tracks.

Kora and I saw many signs left in the snow.  As she sniffed out the various scents, I was able to get pictures of the various tracks.  I identified mice, a raccoon, cotton-tailed rabbits, squirrels, coyotes, a fox, and of course the otters.  Following the trails of the otters, and being able to capture a small glimpse of their story, was really cool.  I could see where they had rested, explored, and wrestled as I tracked them along the creek.  In addition to the five-toed tracks, their heavy, thick tails occasionally left trenches in the snow.  To complete the long slides, they would playfully push off and scoot through the snow on their bellies, letting their hind feet drag behind them.

Under clear skies the sun radiantly reflected from the crystal surface.  It was a great day to track critters that had been out and about.  Thanks to the snow covering, I could easily follow their telltale signs down at the creek.

See you along The Way...

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"Tracking an animal is opening the door to the life of that animal. It is an educational process, like learning how to read. In fact, it is learning how to read. Following an animal's trail may bring you closer to the animal physically, but, more important, it brings you closer to it in perception. The longer you follow the animal, the deeper you enter into a perceptual relationship with its life." (Paul Rezendes. Tracking And The Art Of Seeing. Charlotte, Vermont: Camden House Publishing Inc, 1992.)

The Trail Of The Opossum

White Footed Mouse With Its Tail Drag

Coyote

Meadow Jumping Mouse

Red Fox

A Beaver Chew On A Hackberry Tree

Otter Tracks

Otter Tracks & Their Slides

The Distinct 5-Toed Print Of The Otter

Where The Otters Swam In The Open Water
& Came Up Onto The Ice To Play & Groom

The Short Day In The Long Year

Together With Justin, Scott & Kora

It’s the shortest day of the year; the winter solstice.  It’s also the day when Jupiter and Saturn align to combine powers, and look as bright as any star in our galaxy due to the Sun’s rays reflecting off their surface.  Unfortunately this short day comes within what has arguably felt like the longest year ever (no need to list what’s made it feel this way….we’ve all lived it in our own way).  On top of this it’s cloudy tonight, and has been for the last two weeks, other than a brief glimpse this past Thursday night; so we had to miss the climax of the celestial celebration.  The positioning of the two largest planets in our Solar System hasn’t happened for 800 years.  I’m guessing I’ll probably miss the next go-a-round as well if we have to wait that long for it to occur again.

While the daylight today was technically shorter, I definitely made the most of it.  First, I spent time reflecting on last year’s wedding between our son Todd and daughter-in-law Emeris.  It was exactly a year ago today that we had been blessed with so many fond memories.  In addition, I gathered with my friends Scott and Justin for an adventure in the woods.  As friends they had come with their wives last year and helped my wife and me celebrate the wedding.

Cindy And I With Scott & Kelly

Cindy And I With Justin & Melissa

Around mid-morning today, Scott, Justin, and I drove separately to the woods in order to maintain social-distancing, but then enjoyed hiking through the river bottoms in the great out-of-doors.  Fresh air never felt so good!  It’s been quite a haul for us as educators throughout this school year, and so a break to catch our breath was long overdue.

As you may know, I run long distances and enjoy the training process to prepare, but juggling in-person students and remote learners at the same time every day, in every class period, is easily right up there with running an entire marathon.  I’m in good shape, but I’m often whooped by the end of those six periods I teach back to back.  So although I enjoy running and teaching, the outing today with good friends was a perfect reprieve!

We talked, thrashed through brush (what’s new?), and watched my dog Kora exploring the nooks and crannies within the secret scents of nature.  We even found a spot free of snow and grasses to cook our classic skillet over an open fire; each of us feasting on a healthy helping piled high on our plates.

In conversation we enjoyed each other’s company.  In silence we realized how long the hiatus has been.  Together we overcame the shortest daylight hours of the year, on a cloudy day, in this crazy year.  Will wonders ever cease?  I hope not!

See you along The Way...

My Old, Green, Canvas Tent

I wouldn’t have had to set up my old, green, canvas tent; it’s fairly mild out for being on the doorstep of December.  It’s a classic, however, and I’ve had it since I was a wee lad.  It’s a pup tent for all intents and purposes, but as it rounds the corner towards 50 years old, I decided to break it out, set it up, and use it as my base camp today.

As a kid, I always took care of my toys and what I was given.  I didn’t have a lot in the way of toys growing up.  I didn’t need a lot.  The farm, the animals, and the surrounding woods and land that I grew up on in the hills surrounding Sparr valley were enough.  But as I stated, the things that I had as a young boy still exist because I treated them with respect, and knew how to store them away when I was finished playing and using them.  Over the years some of those things my parents or I have let go through garage sales, but the fact remains that they made it through the test of time.  Items such as the “Game Bag” that I’m sitting on now in my tent, I received for Christmas when I was in Junior High.  It’s made like a mini sleeping bag to cover you when you sit in the stands of an outdoor athletic event, but it works and fits perfectly as a pad on the floor of this tent for my dog Kora and me.

The tent was originally purchased from Montgomery Wards if I remember correctly, because I think it used to have a label patch on one of the corners.  It was probably given for one of my birthdays early on in my years.  In those days, our town had a Wards storefront where you could order items from their catalog and pick them up at the little building across from the fairgrounds in our town  

At one point the tent was sadly stolen by a neighbor, but my Dad tracked down the culprit by following the footprints he had left in the dew covered grass.  Thankfully it was returned.  In my boyhood I would set it up quite often in various places around the woods surrounding our house and would lay in it to read or eat a lunch lovingly made by my mom.  It was like a portable fort in the forest.

One of the best memories I have in the tent is when my Dad and I slept in it together on top of a hill at the property we had recently purchased.  I’m not sure how he did it, but somehow we shared the space with his legs sticking out the flaps of the entrance.  Although our family camped on a regular basis, that outing was adventurous and is forever etched in my mind.  A few years later we had a house built on that land, and I would often hike up on that hill, sit down, and look out over the surrounding valleys and trees.  The rocks from the fire-ring we had made during our camp-out were still there.  It was a great view from that point of the hill.  In fact, my sister Becky eventually planted a red pine and spruce that she had received for Arbor Day on top of that hill.  Both trees are still there.  Imagine camping there now, 40 years later, with the sound of wind in their towering, needled boughs.  They are a crowning monument to that sacred spot.

My Daughter Jodi Next To My Sister's Trees-2009

When my own kids were small, I had the loops for the tent stakes repaired by a local awning maker who had the sewing machines big enough to stitch through the thick canvas.  I’d periodically set it up for Todd and Jodi to play in.  Typically they’d haul all of their blankets and stuffed animals out into it and then lay in it to read.  Sometimes I’ve even set it up for the children of friends who are visiting so they could have the opportunity to play in it too; capturing the strong smells of the old canvas and sunlight filtering through its worn top.

Jodi & Todd - 2007

Hiking into the woods alongside a river today with my dog, Kora, I’ve seen two bald eagles, one that flew overhead and perched in a nearby tree to have a good view of the water below.  I was also surprised to see a red-headed woodpecker with its distinctive black upper-wings; bigger than the hairy and downy woodpeckers.  Prior to setting up the tent, we also had a herd of deer come close within range of us.  Kora and I could see them coming before they could smell us and bound away.  They are so ghost-like in the way they can appear and disappear between the trees and through the grasses.  Later we heard half of the herd splash and swim across the river.  The other half stayed on our side but seemed to spread out in different directions.

Kora & I Watching A Herd Of Deer

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Kora lays beside me, but she has been tense and alert the whole time I’ve been writing today, as she watches anything that moves outside and sniffs the light breeze for scents.  I purposely placed the back of the tent towards the wind so that the sunlight shone in on the entrance and kept the confines a bit warmer, but still allowing Kora to capture smells beyond my reckoning.

I will cook a meal for us this early afternoon, and although I probably won’t have time to use my fishing pole to cast for that elusive river pike, I remind myself that today has mostly been about setting up my tent.  I duct taped together some old plastic dog food bags to make a simple ground cover and then figured out how to lash the tent to the top of my backpack before I came out to the bottomlands today.  It was the care and attention my tent deserved.  Welcome back my old, green, canvas tent.  Welcome back!  We’ve endured quite a journey these long years, and I’ll venture to guess that we’ll still have some more adventures ahead of us.  I can only hope!

See you along The Way...

Base Camp

Flocks Of Sandhill Cranes Head South

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