one tree, one year

so i made this.

i hope you like it.

an abomnination

i have no picture of this, because even though it looked delicious, well, reason. i'll get to it later.

but i bought myself a cast iron pan for camping, which is a departure from my usual. in my younger days, i was all about backpacking equipment, and cast iron pan does not fit into that category.

you can get away with one for canoe camping and certainly for car camping or even pulk camping, which i'm now getting into.

a pulk, by the way, is a sled that's outfitted to pull behind you when you hike. winter gear is generally heavier than summer gear and why NOT bring the heavy gear if you can load it in a sled?

anyway, i'd been seeing friends and acquaintances cook things on campfires that would make your toes curl they're so good, plus sometimes i get it in my head to make things in a dutch oven so i decided i could get myself a piece of cast iron to use for camp but then i didn't know: frypan? griddle? dutch oven?

and then lodge made it easy. it turns out they have a 3 liter combo cooker that's two frypans, one shallow and one deep, that fit together so you can use the shallow one as a lid to make them into a dutch oven and it was on sale at REI last week, so how could i not?

i used it camping to roast chestnuts on an open fire and i came home and because my guests didn't eat much of the groceries i'd brought (i don't know. you can't figure some folk) i have a lot of camp things i wouldn't normally eat at home but need to get used up so yesterday i too some packaged biscuit doughs, split and lined the greased pan with them and layered in sliced turkey, tater tots, gravy, cheese, and topped it with the other halves of the biscuit doughs and baked the whole mess until it was golden brown.

not something i'm proud of, and it was kind of an abomination, but yet oddly delicious.

and i was looking at it and realized it would make a nice picture for you and that's when i grabbed the handle of the pan to get a better angle.

yeah, the CAST IRON PAN. because i'm not used to cooking in cast iron, and certainly not indoors so my first time out with indoor cast iron forgot the HANDLE STAYS HOT.

so no picture.

my hand is ok. the burns weren't too bad. it was ouchy for a while and i didn't get any pictures, but lesson cheaply learned.

out in the cold

i keep running into a phenomenon when i am out with people winter camping and the people maybe aren't that experienced camping in winter, because winter makes a big and important difference.

i don't blame them for not understanding, because i didn't really understand how to live in cold weather either.

i tell people not to let themselves get cold.

don't let your hands get cold, don't let your feet get cold. don't let your ass get cold. if you feel chilly, move. get up and do things. do not sit with a blanket near the fire, because that fire is not putting out enough heat to keep you warm.

i tell them this over and over and they act like they understand, but their versions of not getting too cold is very much the not getting cold of people who plan to be indoors having a hot shower and spending the evening with central heat.

because how cold you can get and still have a safe and comfortable night is very different if you go out into the cold and get a little chilly and then you come inside and warm up. you can get WAY COLDER and still end up safe and comfortable.

but if you're staying outside, you absolutely cannot hang around until you feel too cold and then sit with a blanket around you until you warm up because you're not going to warm up.

you have to get your muscles moving. you have to eat hot food with a lot of calories. you have to remember to eat and drink and pee because you NEED your body to be working.

if you go to bed cold, without a hot shower or time inside, you're going to have a cold uncomfortable night while your body catches up, and your body can't afford to catch up like that too often.

if you're out with me and i tell you you need to have a hot beverage, i'm not being polite. i'm thinking of your safety.