sneak preview

i went up to this year's thanksgiving campsite to have a look at it and plan my tarpage and such, and someone had left a roll of toilet paper on top of the shavings bucket.

apparently that makes a cozy nest for mice.

sorry, mice. it's gone now.

leaves

everything is under snow now, but a month ago, we had this:

tour of camp 27

lazy morning, camp 27

sometimes it doesn't pay you to get out of bed.

on camping mornings my agenda is often to get out of bed and sit in the sun and read for a while.

on this particular morning it was wet and windy, so what's the use?

in plane sight

i am sorry about the quality of this video, but i had barely enough time to grab my camera.

i have seen this guy fly low over the reservoir and then pull up because boaters or whatnot, but finally i did see him land.

my ranger friend tells me that there are four bodies of water in vermont where it is legal to land a float plane.

the res is one of them.

sure. that's it.

the twleve-year-old in me loves this picture.



i found this in the water outside camp 27.

old-school thanksgiving

i am writing these posts out ahead of time because by the time you read this i will have been installed quite firmly on a remote campsite on waterbury reservoir.

i am having an old-school thanksgiving.

by "old-school", i mean i will arrive by boat and set up my shelter on land that does not belong to me and i will dine in open air while trying to lay in enough supplies and firewood for the duration.

oh.

and it's snowing. there is a half a foot of snow on the ground, so yay.

i hope you guys are warm and well fed.

librarian lottery

i have menu fatigue.

it's hard for me to decide what to have for dinner and also what to read from the library.

so i like to play librarian lottery, which is a totally awesome game if your librarian doesn't mind.

the rules are simple:

1) go to your library and ask the librarian to choose a book or two for you to read. if you have any special needs (like no scary stories about murders that happen on camping trips because i'm going to read this in the dark while camping) you should state them NOW.

2) you have to be happy with whatever they give you. this doesn't mean you have to love or even like every book, but you have to give them an open-minded try and you don't get to feel grumpy about the choices. you have EYES. you can read flyleaf blurbs. you're asking your librarian to surprise you, so you have abdicated your right to be fussy.

3) read the books. then when you return them, remember to tell the librarian how much you liked the game, even if you did not love the books.

this year while playing librarian lottery i read some books i loved completely and that i never would have found on my own, some of which led me to other books i also loved.

i also read some books that i enjoyed but didn't love.

the one book i couldn't finish, i couldn't finish simply because i needed something funnier and easier to read. i would probably like the book at another, easier time.

later on i will be reporting back to you about some of the big winners.

arrival

this is what camp 27 looked like when i arrived there on 7 october.

pretty, yes?

more camp food

while we're on the page of experimental eating, i decided to investigate whether or not some of these prepared foods could be heated on a campfire and not in the microwave as intended.

the rice ones, not so much, but pasta in sauce works just fine if you heat it in a water bath. it takes longer than just boiling water, but if you have a fire going anyway, you have hot food with no hassle.





bon appetit.

random scenes from camp 13

yeah, i know it was one camp and three months ago. it's still pretty.

crossculturalism

here is a thing i have recently discovered:

frozen falafel from your grocery store is completely delicious if you put it in TOASTER NAAN.

i know. this is not at all authentic, but it is delicious.

FALAFELNAAN.

you should spread some hummus in there, too.

and now because it sounds fun, i want a wafflefalafelnaan.

tuna surprise

while camping, i made some tuna surprise.

what makes it a surprise is that it tastes good.

i made several experimental tuna surprises, all with good result.

tuna surprise 1: parboiled potato, sliced halfways and baked foilwrapped in fire with some carrots, some seasonings (i had non hand honey, cider vinegar, and soy sauce,  so i used all three. don't judge.), and a packet of tuna on the top.

delicious.

tuna surprise 2: instant cornbread stuffing prepared with boiling water from camp stove, with tuna and melted cheese. also delicious. this also works with mashed potatoes.



tuna surprise 3: i made this at home just for giggles. because science. it turns out that instant mashed potatoes panfried with cheese and tuna is pretty good, but would be improved in taste by leaving out the tuna.

pottery bar

ok, so i have to run an errand for my mom at the other end of the res and i paddled down there and there was a nice square chunk of clay that had fallen in the water from one of the clay banks.


so i picked it up and put it on my bow and then i went up to a sand bank and got the finest sand i could find to wedge it with.

and then i spent a week making some little primitive pots. they are not fancy, but once again, i am learning skills.

and i spent some time stone burnishing them, and i let them dry out on the rock, bringing them in under tarps at night.

and while i waited, i cut and piled firewood. you need a lot of firewood to fire pots in a pit kiln.

i rebuilt the fireplace on site 13. i laid in a base of wood on the bottom. i covered it with a bucket load of an invasive water plant i had pulled up. i packed my little pots with it and with pine needles and such. i buried and packed them and laid my fire on top of them.

and then i lit that fire and kept it hot all day.

the hard part was letting the pit cool down the next day, and the day after.

because you can't take those pots out of there until they're cool.

the pottery bar

first day fire

second day coals

pots!

stay tuned for the exciting denoument

here is a video i started recording, but then ran out of battery.

it's not well focused, but you get an idea of what morning light was that day.

also, it's a teaser.

don't  you want to know why i had lit a bigass fire first thing in the morning?

the world is not your ashtray.

about half the time when i see people smoking in public, i see those same people toss their butt onto the ground.

sometimes they do this without even bothering to put it out first.

i have known a few smokers who field strip their butts and pocket the filters. mostly, you get this:



no points for arranging them neatly. none.

the breakfast room

sometimes when i live on a campsite, parts of it begin to feel like different rooms of a house.

on sire 13, i had the breakfast room.

the spit of rock down at the boat landing was reasonably flat and level and it got the morning sun well ahead of the rest of camp, so in the mornings it was very pleasant to go down there and have breakfast in my chair with a book.




here is the view from the breakfast room that same morning.




and here is the food prep / work  / tool storage area.

baggery

ever since i got it into my head to make a hammock out of paracord last year,  i have also been making some other paracord projects because why not?


chain sinnet is my knot of the year, apparently,  and i have bade a few bags with it. they're not lightweight bags, because a standard water bottle will take somewhere around 70 feet of paracord. i like it for smaller pouches the kind you might use to carry something that needs a little padding, like a charge box or such. and in an emercency, you have 70 feet of paracord.

i used this guy's method.

adventures in grocery shopping

i have an addiction to bolthouse farms mocha cappucino beverage.

i am not proud of this for a lot of reasons, but also my day sucks if i don't drink half a 32 -ounce bottle to start it every morning.

so every week i but 3 to 6 bottles, depending on sale price and how many i actually have on hand. lately the supply has been wonky so yesterday i decided to call ahead before i made a special trip into town just to buy this ONE THING.

hello, my name is (name) and i'm calling to see if you have bolthouse farms mocha cappuccino in the 32 oz. bottle.
what were you looking for?
bolthouse farms mocha cappuccino in the 32 ounce size.
hang on a moment.

i am put on hold, and another person answers the phone.

hello.
hi, i'm calling to see if you have the 32 oz. size of bolthouse farms mocha cappuccino.
what?
the 32 oz size of bolthouse farms mocha cappuccino.
oh, mocha coffeemate? i'm sure we have that.
no, bolthouse farms mocha cappuccino. in the 32 ounce bottle.
yeah, we have mocha.
bolthouse farms mocha cappuccino? in the 32 ounce bottle? in the produce section?
oh. this is grocery.

i am put on hold again.

this is (name), in produce.
hi, my name is (name) and i'm calling to ask if you have bolthouse farms mocha cappuccino in the 32 ounce size.
hold on and i'll go check.

...waiting...

i have three bottles. when you get here just knock on the door. (this is the door at the back of the produce department. it is understood that i have done this before.)


so i get in my car and drive twenty-some-odd minutes to the grocery store and i go knock on the door and the nice lady says brightly oh, you're here for the protein plus.

no, i'm here for mocha cappuccino.
oh, well last week somebody called for the protein plus.
i called about the mocha cappuccino.
let's go look.

we get there and there are no 32 ounce bottles of bolthouse farms mocha cappuccino, but there are a lot of 15 oz bottles.

this is a problem to me because the 15 ounce bottles are very much more expensive per ounce than the 32 ounce bottle. i say that this right here is why i called the store from home before driving twenty minutes over here for this one thing and she says she'll ask her manager if she can sell me two 15 ounce bottles for the same price as the 32 ounce bottle.

i tell her that i need that price to be the same as if i'm buying fifteen ounces at that price, or else i am buying 30 ounces for the price of 32, and the woman just looks confused.

she comes back some minutes later with the very good news that her manager has approved for me to buy two fifteen ounce bottles for the same price as the 32 ounce bottle and she has no idea why i don't want to pay the same price for 30 ounces as i would pay for 32. she does not understand why i think this is not a good deal, and she keeps repeating that i'm getting TWO.

and i keep saying yes, but the two together are still SMALLER than the one big one and this is why i called from home. because i wanted the 32 ounce bottle.

and she said you could order a case.

and i said i wanted them TODAY. that's why i called from home ahead of time and got in my car and drove twenty minutes to get them.

and she said you could order some and they would be here by sunday.


...

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