campout

  • Survival Gear

    ByHeather Bailey

    WildernessSurvival-5e
    Isaac and Elijah
    have been at Boy Scouts Camp this week.  Isaac is there to teach
    Wilderness Survival.  Elijah is there to survive.  And have fun.

    WildSurv-7c There isn't much
    budget for outfitting the boys with survival gear, so Isaac has been
    mighty resourceful.  One of the projects the boys are working on is this emergency kit.  It is made from two square pieces of metal flashing. 
    Duct tape covers the sharp edges and creates the spine of the booklet
    design.  The highly-reflective mirror-like tape on the outside is for
    emergency signaling.  On the inside of the kit are fishing hooks,
    weights, fishing line, wire, safety pins, crazy-strong thread, and
    needles.  The kit closes into a compact and is kept shut by
    a strip of hair-band elastic that has been riveted to one side of the flashing.  

    And
    it's orange, so they won't lose it.

    It was my opinion that they
    should close the kits with complete, un-cut hair-band elastics.  That
    way, if a boy is stuck surviving for weeks in the woods, he will have
    something to tie his wild-child hair back with.  But, ah well.

    It's a several-part class he's teaching, so there are other projects
    too, as well as gobs of survival information — Isaac is really into
    this subject — and an overnight survival camp-out where the boys have
    to build their own shelter and whatnot.

    Today I find out whether
    Elijah survived or not.  My campers return this afternoon.

  • |

    Red, White, and Blue All Over

    ByHeather Bailey

    RedWhiteBlue-04 

    June
    has been beautiful this year.  Normally it’s breath-suckingly hot in
    June in Arizona.  We’ve been camping and canoeing, working in the yard,
    and eating outside at every chance. Being outdoors with my family more
    than usual this month has put me in a good place for the Fourth of
    July.  Something about the lush cornfields that surround us, the
    well-groomed campsites we’ve visited, and driving along the Mogollon Rim has me feeling patriotic. 
     
    RedWhiteBlueTrashTies310In
    the last month, I’ve seen a bald eagle nesting on top of a dead pine
    tree, 200 feet up, I’ve picniced in a field of wild strawberries and
    I’ve watched hundreds of Great Blue Herons dive for fish to feed to their hatchlings. 

    If you ever camp in Arizona, make a point to visit the movie-perfect Woods Canyon Lake.  It’s looks almost fake, it’s so beautiful.

    We
    have a few more campouts planned for the summer.  In prep, I’ve been
    working on some fun camping crafts, recipes and whatnot.  We whipped up
    a perfect blackberry grunt in our dutch oven that turned our teeth
    black — as though we didn’t feel mucky enough without black teeth. 
    But it sure was delicious.

    Meadowside470

    I’m
    almost to the crest of the mountain with my design work too.  That
    place where things begin to glide.  Several projects now have enough
    stored, potential energy to self-propel when released.  Like a stretched spring. 

    First, a little more stretching to do.  Burn baby burn.

    It’s looking like a great summer.