Bundle up!

The weather forecast is calling for snow by the end of the week. We have had some wet and cold days as well as some moderately warm days in the past few weeks. I am not one for the cold but I do enjoy the snow. Funny how that can be! What I love is the way that snow absorbs sound and as it softly settles over a landscape it seems all time slows down with it.
I am not for the cold typically because I just find it takes so much more energy to perform typical tasks and for the many memories of being unprepared and freezing in the past. My first winter camp-out was a disaster and even though I can say I ended up having a great time it proved to be very uncomfortable! I feel with years between me and my first snow-filled winter camp-out I can somewhat unabashedly tell you I forgot gloves and ended up wetting the bed (Sleeping bag)!
Not a very comfortable or safe scenario to find yourself in! I have to laugh now at the pitiful situation as I remember how severely cold I got and how my clothes were frozen stiff! I was too embarrassed to ask for help and ended up shivering and shaking through the night and luckily found socks on my hands to be a somewhat viable replacement for gloves! I am amazed I ever went back to winter camping but can usually attribute a difficult or uncomfortable situation with teaching me the most about preparedness and the art of improvisation! I am much better prepared now (Fur suit and all) and have come to look forward to the snow even if that means it has to be cold.

The Important Things. (My yard care thoughts)

I love seeing all the colors and sights of fall! I have to stop and wonder what some of the smells of fall are associated with. Yesterday I smelled a sour smell from a sugar maple's leaves decomposing. Where only a week ago you could only smell the crushed acorns on the road, now the world has changed and the senses tell me a different story. I have been pondering a lot of things and I am not sure if that is because of some of the recent events in my life or merely the change that autumn brings and the innate desire to prepare for the upcoming winter.

I am very inspired by the leaves and the changes in scenery. I guess the whole circle of life is simply manifest more fully right now. I have been busy with some important things and as my poor neighbors can attest I have neglected to keep up on the leaves and winterize my yard and do other (in my opinion) less important things. After all, the leaves keep falling and if I don't fertilize my yard it will still come up green in the spring. (albeit because of dandelions where others insist there should be grass!)

I am starting to learn the value of certain things we do and the priorities we place on things, actions, or habits. I am finding that not keeping up on the yard for example will not be something I regret at the end of my life whereas missing my children's growth or remembering great times are the things that will mean the most. Yes I do feel we should have a house of order and I am not advocating a sloppy or rundown property but I am not convinced I need to spend much time on areas where the fruit does not merit the cost and energy put into it's growing. Basically I am just commenting on the purpose of life and what kind of fruit we will have to show for it and what will be of value and what will have proved to be pointless. As for my yard... it'll be here long after I am gone whether I rake today or not for another week!

Service Projects Galore!

In the past week I have had more opportunity to serve than I might normally have in a month! When I lived up north it seemed every weekend was spent helping someone by stacking wood, doing yard work, clearing land or working on roof. I learned a lot of valuable lessons and skills but most of all learned how good it felt to help another and how good you sleep after a real hard days work. This week I have been able to help move someone, deliver a bowl of soup, landscape and seed a yard, dig out a stump an old man was working on, and load and deliver firewood to a friend. (ALL FOR DIFFERENT PEOPLE!)
To be honest I have been distant from work in the blister and sweat sense. I have also allowed myself to be "TOO BUSY" to help in the past and have missed many great opportunities. My point in blogging about my experiences is to simply express that I have felt like more of a brother and more of a friend to those around me in the last week than I have in the last year. Through service we can find relationships, peace and perspective that is otherwise out of our reach.
In offering this I am in no way reveling in my accomplishments in the service arena, in fact I am feeling pretty humbled and low for letting this part of my life almost slip away by my own neglect and lack of priority. What saddens me is that I am sure last week and the week before that and so on, have all had just as many or more opportunities to serve but I have not either opened my eyes to the need or I have let my personal agenda take precedence.
I challenge everyone to look around them and take the opportunity to do something solely for someone else's benefit and likely you will also rekindle one of the sweetest parts of your life. For those who already serve so well, my hats off to you! I hope I can one day be like you.

I am still alive!

I have been so very busy lately! To catch everyone up, I have been studying like a mad man and been involved as a YM president of my local church's youth group. I also decided to compete in a Business pitch competition and somehow won 1st place out of 27 competitors! I have been reluctant to post news about my winning on this site because the nature of the Business pitch was an invention for cleaning. It will be made of plastic and is very useful but also for convenience more than anything, which doesn't really fly with my vision for this site and for me as a caretaker of this world. I can just imagine the invention ending up in a land fill someday and it makes me cringe. I am looking for ways to make the scraper and scrubber out of used or recycled materials to hopefully offset the impact it could have by its eventual discardment. As I get the Patent figured out I can post images and explain more but in the meantime realize I still exist and don't forget to get yourself out and enjoy the beautiful fall colors and sensations!

Wildwood Survival Posting!

I have been posted on the Wildwood Survival website! It is by far the most informative site on primitive skills I have found. Best of all the information is free! I posted a primitive Vision/Eyewear skill. Look it up at www.wildwoodsurvival.com under the "More" link and then look for the Vision Section. (My favorite links to the right will get you there)
I am excited about this and it is an honor for me to have a submission accepted!

Good old Calvin!

I recently saw a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon that reads; "I say, if your knees aren't green by the end of the day, you seriously ought to re-examine your life." It shows Clavin completely dirty and yet smiling at his days accomplishment. Hope we can all get our knees dirty daily.

Update on LAKE MICHIGAN SAND tracks.

These are Fox tracks in sand found at a wildlife site online. They are similar to the suspected Fox tracks I saw at Lake Michigan and they stagger much the same in both pictures. Cat tracks tend to be more consistent as they go at a slower pace and a small dog wolud probably have accompanied a "Master" which i saw no evidence of. I am not sure but I would guess a Red Fox went by that morning within and hour or two of me getting there!

Inquisitive Minds

I have been impressed lately by the way ancient art was a way of studying nature and the human experience. I am sure the need to record and capture our lives experiences has been handed down since the time of Adam. Lately I have been able to learn more about Leonardo Da Vinci and other historical artists who have made art a way to study the world around them. Some might say they used the world around them to inspire art but I am impressed that they were inquisitive and art offered an avenue to explore more thoroughly the questions they had. Da Vinci has many drawn "Studies" of various natural things. If you would like to see some amazing drawings of the world around us I suggest a web search starting with Da Vinci. His Pictures of flowers and plants put most of our modern field guide drawings to shame. Check it out. I guess my point in all this is to challenge everyone to look at something with the intention to learn something new, and to try to capture it in some form for later study and use whether that be to draw or even using digital cameras. It'll probably surprise you what you can learn and how it'll spur you on to new discoveries!

My new Fall layout!

Caity get's all the credit here! She took it upon herself to make my blog a little more original. What do you think? I like it! As fall is coming I am seeing the tips of the trees turning into deep reds and oranges and I find myself amazed that summer is to be gone soon. I have played and learned hard. I feel no big regrets in how I used my time this year so far and have made great progresses towards understanding nature and my place in it. I have thought much about what I hope for in life and I am satisfied that I am where I should be at this point in my life. I have only gratitude to God and the Creator for all their beautiful things. At times in my life I have regretted my place or wished I had taken advantage of a past opportunity to enjoy, but find that as this Summer is fading into Fall I am content. It is enough for me to just enjoy the present. What a wonderful thing!

Lake Michigan Sand!

 

 

 

Lake Michigan beach tracking with my kids! I am trying to figure out the small rounded tracks. I have to do some research but I am guessing a small domestic dog, large domestic cat or a fox. I am hoping it was a fox. You can see the Seagull tracks and how recent some are in comparison to others. I'll give a more detailed analysis after I do some homework!

Fire By Sweat and Friction

While in the great outdoors of Canada I found myself attempting fire by friction with some new materials previously unavailable to me. Not that I couldn't find them in my area , just that I had not come upon easily accessible materials with the time constraints I have. Normally if you have enough time in the woods you can find the right materials without negatively impacting the area.
I don't like to hurt the trees and so unless I find a deadfall or previously cut wood I am resigned to go without.
The area we were had many lumber company access roads in which they had cut many trees or just plowed them over. So I was able to find large Paper Birch that provided pieces of bark for containers, torches and tinder bundles. Cedar which I used for my Fireboard and Spindle and which inner bark provided a great tinder bundle. I had a rock for the handhold and after scrounging up some rope that was about shoelace thick I began.
After a minute of vigorous passes with the bow an lots of wheezes from being out of breath I had the desired coal smoking. I blew with all the air I had left until it reddened and after which started the tinder bundle I had placed it in. After that I imagine was quite a show for any onlooker.
You would have seen me whooping and hollering in excitement while the tinder bundle was aflame in my hand. After adding it to an awaiting pile of sticks and some Birch bark I had my official first fire by friction! ( I had coals before, just no fire)
I Just Kept whooping in excitement and felt like I had just conquered some great feat. What an invigorating feeling to both feel part of the past and be able to be effective at a skill in the present!
I don't know if my dancing and whoops around the fire were received as a Rain Dance but soon after it started raining which only added to the warmth and comfort of the fire. If only you could've been there...

Busy Again!

I have officially begun Fall Semester at College. I am terribly busy again with Organic and General Chemistry as well as a research class. I was eating my lunch outdoors on the edge of the woods when I started to think about if you could study the effects of visiting nature on one's health. ( I have to research something this semester)
That is when I realized that I don't tend to find the woods or my visits to nature very relaxing mentally. I guess I am always noticing things too much for it to be a mental break for me. (The plants, animals, beauty, movements, and sounds.) I do find nature a great clarifier in the sense that it seems to wash away confusion or daily clutter.
I guess I just find this distinction interesting. Previously I would go out to the woods half an hour before a test hoping to just relax but instead finding myself learning new things and seemingly forgetting the test material, for lack of mental space! Maybe I just haven't come to that stage of skill or schedule where I can just Relax AND Clarify through experiencing Nature.

PS. I may be busy but check back because soon I will post about starting a fire by friction! I was able to do this on my Canada trip!

Explanation Of previous picts

The pict of me with foliage on my back and chest are after stalking the boys in my group(who were trying to find me!). The gray sweater matched the rocky area and the backpack under the ferns on my back is bright red. I had my shoes off and snuck to within about 20 ft of the boys before they saw me! The wolf track is not very apparent but if you look you'll see pad marks from the toes. On a wolf the middle two toe pads look larger than the outside toes whereas on a dog all appear the same size. We stayed in a cabin on the lake shown in most picts. We heard loons and saw groups of up to ten of them. We traveled mostly by four wheeler along powerlines and made it out to some remote rivers and ravines. Lake Superior looked so blue and powerful. I will post more on specifics but the picts go far to show the area and the beauty!

Tracking And Stalking

 

 

 

 

Canadian Scenery

 

 

 

 

Canada trip!

 

 

 

 

Groundhog day.

I have no inclination to look up the real date of groudhog day but I thought it interesting to find out that the Groundhog and the Woodchuck ARE THE SAME ANIMAL. I am sure this is not news to many but I always assumed them to be different and never was up close to one to question its identity and habits. At my wife's family reunion, my sister in law Suz, pointed out a large woodchuck running back and forth across the driveway. I was able to investigate and sit out for a while at the rented cottage and see that it lived beneath a woodpile. Fitting for a woodchuck! I was curious however because it's burrow had large holes and a lot of expelled dirt (attributed to groundhogs) just as I had recently been seeing at my university. That is when I associated that the two creatures might be the same. A quick internet search confirmed it. I was able to get a few confused looks from the animal as I sat near it's hole and heard the characteristic whistle of alarm the animals give when it dashed into the safety of it's hole. I was also amazed by how saggy the fur appeared to be as it stood on it's hind legs looking at me. I learned the woodchuck fattens up in the summer so it can hibernate through most of the winter and thus the" If the groundhog comes out of it's den and sees it's shadow..." thing at groundhog day.

Running Waters is finally back!

It's sort of fun to have a name I can use in the third person! I have been quite inaccessible the last month due to many wonderful events. I have been finishing up Physics classes, attending a two week family gathering, leading a high adventure trip to Ontario Canada, plus working and trying to get out to Lake Michigan whenever possible. Needless to say I have sufficient experiences and lessons to keep me babbling for a long time. My only task is to decide where to start. I don't want to write it all in one sitting so I'll probably just keep a steady (if not daily) stream of posts coming your way.
I figure this post is already long enough so I'll just pose a question. Has anyone been able to see or smell the flower of milkweed? I was at lake Michigan early in the summer and as I returned to the van noticed a very sweet fragrance. The flower looked almost as a lilac but positioned differently on the plant. I think if I remember right it was even purplish. I had always liked Milkweed for the butterflies it attracts but now will look forward to its summer blossoms!

A better plan...

I wanted to simply direct any readers who are interested in the Green Building topic to check out Kaleb's comment under the pictures post and follow his links. Very worthwhile.

Strawbale House picts.