How one decorates their Christmas Tree is a very, very, personal thing. More personal than the underthings you have in the drawers. (You DO have some, don't you?!) Asking how someone decorates their tree (or why it's decorated like that) is like the nosy neighbor asking how much money you make. IT IS NOT OK TO ASK PERSONAL QUESTIONS LIKE "WHY IS THERE A SPATULA ON YOUR TREE?"
So this is how much I love you out there in cyber land. I'm opening the drawers. Figuratively, of course. I'm gonna show you what's on my tree.
We actually have two trees, down from past year tree counts of four or even five in the house. I'm slacking and I'm ok with it, alright? One is on Kansas and one is in Oklahoma, because nothing is sadder than walking into a house any day from Thanksgiving to New Years and having no tree!!! (Unless of course, you're Jewish, in which case you would think you'd been assaulted by elves).
The Kansas Tree is our B.O.T. Tree- balls of twine, the idea is taken from the guiding principle of stopping at every Ball of Twine (literal or figurative) in every small town.
It has pictures and mementos of our trips each year. There's moose and motorcycles, clowns and two- headed turtles. I think I may need a larger tree soon. Of course, it's decorated with balls of twine.
Then the Oklahoma Tree. I like my trees to have themes, coordinated colors or concepts. This year, the tree's theme is... ummm, it's, well it's..
Family history, that's it! In other words, horrendously eclectic and unmatched. But I love it. I always love my trees. My good friend and fellow blogger La Historiadora names her Christmas trees. I just found that out and I love the idea so I asked the Whee to name our tree.
Her moniker for our defector from the sylvan life- Spruce Willis, 'cause it's kinda bare on top.
She gets her creativity from her mother, of course.
Oh, yeah- we were talking about decorations. Sometimes I get distracted by shiny objects. So the Oklahoma Tree has past, present and future represented on it.
Past: ornaments crafted by my daughters or with my mom.
Ornaments passed down from my great-grandmother. This little kitty is ancient, like me.
More ornaments collected on our travels: From a glassblower in Branson,
from a shop in Santa Fe,
Present: A celebration of our respective states of residence. An ornament made from Kansas wheat straw.
An acknowledgment of who we are: outdoor folks, thus the pinecones and glass birds,
and a bird made from real feathers.
A whole collection of birds, actually. Some that make me laugh. This guy is asking WHO? Who? because from the look on his face, he is totally clueless.
Ornaments given to us as gifts. Daughter #1 is especially thoughtful in this, bringing baubles from her trips,
She's good at finding trinkets of things I love, such as Norman Rockwell, with significant dates on them. What that date is significant of is right up there with asking about the spatula on the tree.
Future: an ornament representing the earth, just ONE of the planets I still want to visit!
Ok, once again blogging has removed any pretense of privacy, every modicum of modesty, and exposed every particle of personal life. First the dog, then my spouse, then my children, now my Christmas tree. My life is an open book. With small words and a lot of pictures. Maybe someday I'll tell you why there's NOT a spatula on the tree anymore.
Kelly Kettle Company graciously provided a Trekker Kettle, pot stand, and cooking pot set for my review. The review process included critique by my immediate family, and by my “camping family,” some of those women that I hang out with in the woods. If you really want to put a pot to the test, give it to a group of outdoor women. Hyenas on an antelope, man.
The Trekker is the smallest of the Kelly Kettle family. It is an aluminum kettle that holds ½ liter of water in its walls. I was intrigued by the Irish history of both the kettle and Kelly Company when I read through their website at kelly_kettle_history.
The components all get very hot. Don't let young children use this pot, or even older children without supervision. It took a long time for the parts to cool down enough to pack into the bag, especially the pot rack. Use the pot handle!!!
On the flip side-I took the kettle full of hot water (no fire), corked, into my tent and it radiated heat nicely for quite some time. Bonus points for acting as a space heater.
Water inside the kettle heats quickly. I tested the Kettle against the Esbit pocket stove for speed of boiling water. It takes a little more time to prep the kettle for lighting (gather combustible materials) than the Esbit (put a fuel cube on the stove platform), but when lit at the same time, the Kettle beat the Esbit’s time for producing two cups of boiling water. (Water boiled in the Kettle walls. The pot of water on top followed shortly thereafter).
Environmentally low-impact. I really, really like the fact that this does not use chemical fuels. (Although I know there's some purist out there yelping in pain because I released carbon emission into the atmosphere by burning pine cones. Everything is a trade-off). This was the one feature that was universally appealing to those who viewed the Kettle with me (the natural fuel, not the purist in pain.)
Con: the con is only a con if you’re a Leave No Trace zealot. There will be ashes left after making a fire in the base of the Kettle. Bury them. It does get hot enough to scorch the grass underneath, so set it on a rock if you don’t want to leave signs of humanity.
"It has to do more than just heat water." I laughed when someone gave me this line. Doesn't everything we use out here for cooking "just heat" something? The folks with a dozen dutch ovens full of goodies were less impressed, but my backpacking buddies thought this was a cool piece of equipment. The homeless guy who helped with the first test was very appreciative of the kettle's features. I'll tell you more about that adventure later in the week.
Pro: I can double the capacity of water I’m heating by using a pot on top while the water inside the Kettle heats, or I can cook on top while water heats inside. The pot rack also held my heavier, larger set of backpacking cook pots. So yeah, it could do more than "just heat water."
With very little fuel I could make a fire that sent flames out the top of the chimney for marshmallow roasting. The kids loved this.
After we heated water, we removed the Kettle and placed the tiny grill pieces over the base and made toast. You could cook an egg, or keep something warm in this way. (Grill shown before the fire was lit for ease of viewing).
C'mon, Kettle, light my fire. Fill the base with pine needles, pine cones, leaves, dead grass, and twigs, set the filled kettle on top of the base, and light your fire through the air holes in the base. I found that it worked much better when I did it this way than trying to light the fire in the base and then put the Kettle on it. The draw through the base and up the chimney helps the fire get started. You can continue to feed the fire through the holes in the base.
Use caution when pouring. Con: Both the website and the instructions with the Kettle tell you to lift the Kettle holding the handle at a 90° angle. This was easy when the pot was empty, not so much when it was full of water. I found that if I squeezed the sides of the handle together slightly it would hold a full pot at 90°. You definitely don’t want the handle to be over the top of the pot’s chimney, it is extremely hot even if there’s no flame.
Components pack together. Pro: The pot rack comes in two pieces that slide together for use, and when taken apart, fit flat together.
The cook pot and lid, pot handle, and grill pieces all fit nicely into the bottom of the kettle. Slide it all into the carry sack, and throw it in the boat!
Recommended Uses:
I admit I was a little skeptical when I first received the Kettle from Kelly. I looked at it for several minutes, tossing out ideas, based on the fact that it ‘only heats water’. After the first trial run I decided I might use this for a day hike, but not an overnight backpack trip. It is light for its size, but it’s no match for my Esbit stove in either weight or size when I’m carrying everything in a pack.
HOWEVER-
I took it on a kayak camping trip, and loved, loved, loved it!! I could throw the tough aluminum pot in the bow of the boat and not worry about damaging it. It’s my new “gotta-have-it” for kayak camping. At campsites I grabbed one bag (the Kettle with cook pots) and one water bottle to start dinner. The small size worked fine for two of us, for four or more people I would go up to the medium or large size Kettles. I would (and will) take this on car camping trips. The medium and large size kettles would be excellent for car camping as well.
I think Scout troops would absolutely love this in the larger sizes. Again, caution about the hot metal parts.
This would also be an excellent addition to emergency kits, to keep in your trunk or at home, in case you are stranded or without power. I could see purchasing it just for that, if nothing else.
Pricing is reasonable, especially when you consider this is an aluminum product, which will last forever if used correctly. The cork stopper might have to be replaced eventually if the Kettle receives a lot of use, but corks are easy to find. The medium kettle holds 1 liter, and the large hold 1.5 liters. I think ‘handy’ describes it perfectly. For more information or to order your own Kettle, see kellykettleusa.com/
It still looks like Christmas. I'm playing Christmas music on my computer. I want, no, I need more things to wrap. Maybe I'll start wrapping the pots and pans. Or the bath soap. Pens? Boxes of cereal? If I only had a cat...
Besides the calendar pages used for wrapping paper that I showed you yesterday, I also like to use pages from National Geographic (sacrilege, I know), magazines, maps, and newsprint.
Newsprint is one of my favorites. Plain vanilla, it can go a lot of different ways in the decoration department. It's inexpensive (the local newspaper sells ends from their rolls by the pound), it has no dyes, and is often recycled paper. All good.
So let's decorate. The creamy color and slightly rough texture of newsprint lends itself to woodsy embellishments. Pine cones and acorns. Nothing shouts Christmas more than pine cones and acorns. Well, maybe weird guys in red suits and endless phone calls for donations.
Raffia and wooden beads are nice to maintain the neutral color scheme and natural materials theme.
How about twine? Twine's kinda rustic and natural.
Naaa, twine's kinda boring. Too plain. Let's add some color.
Better. Still missing some ooomph.
A little ornament. There!! That's good!
The coarse appearance of the paper also makes a nice foil for more glitzy trims. Shiny, glittery, elastic ribbon. Elastic ribbon and I are BFF's.
A nearly all-natural Christmas. Mother Nature has it all wrapped up. And I didn't get trampled in the crowds. Now to find some empty boxes to wrap...
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...
...all around my house! I can't stop singing it! I tolerate Halloween, try to give Thanksgiving its due, but oh, I long for, I live for, the most wonderful time of the year...Christmas!
Before you give in to visions of me frantically shoving down old ladies in the mall to get to the good buys (it hasn't happened yet, but I'm just saying...), I want to wrap this up.
Ha! Thought you were done with this nonsense? Not that easy, you don't! I want to talk about wrapping paper for gifts. Philo and I try to live a life that impacts the planet as little as possible, and upcycling is one way to do that. (If you want to know the difference between upcycling and recycling, check out TerraCycle . You can also learn how to earn money for your school by recycling!)
Wrapping paper is a problem. If it's not made from recycled paper, it kills innocent trees. Trees that might have been decorated for the holidays. It contains inks and dyes, and so on and so forth. It costs money for something we use for a very short time and then throw away, along with the ugly knitted sweater from Great Aunt Gertha.
As Elf Incognito, I have found a solution. I don't spend any money on it. It's beautiful. It's readily available. It's... a calendar. Martha- take note!!
Philoboy's uncle always, every year without fail, gives everyone in the family these calendars with the most gorgeous pictures. The calendars are heavy weight paper, and made of large 15" sheets.
I use last year's calendar as wrapping paper. The pictures of wildlife convey my message about loving the outdoors and the beauty of nature, and each package ends up looking like a little piece of art.
The artist in this particular calendar is Michael Sieve. You can see more of his work here. If the page is not quite big enough to cover the box, I use two or even three! That way, there's a scene no matter which way you turn the box.
An added bonus, as I tear out the pages we talk about the notes we made, and the things we did that year. We laugh and cry over past experiences as we're working on sharing the joy of the present (sorry, I think I have that bad pun disease, witzelsucht).
People actually slow down and look at the pictures covering their gifts, which adds to the appreciation of the gift, and derails some of the hysteria of ripping through a pile of presents.
When it's over, I save any still-intact pictures, or cut them into smaller pieces to use as cards or gift tags. We cycle them as many times as we can before they go to the trash.
Beautiful holiday gift wraps that engender an appreciation for nature, and save a little piece of the planet. Now that's something Mother Nature can howl about!
Did you gobble till you wobble? Did you nosh, by gosh? Gorged? Stuffed? In pain from "just one taste of everything?"
I had two helpings of this. I was very thankful.
Doesn't everyone use their electric fish filleting knife to carve the turkey?
I had one helping of each of these, (and maybe a few others as well), I was VERY, Very thankful.
Not having a TV is a good thing- people get outdoors instead. Who's the backyard quarterback? I'm thankful for the backyard.
Taking pictures of people playing football is a lot like playing football, right? I get to count this as exercise? Go long!! I'm very thankful they didn't ask me to play.
Ugh, I think I ate too much. I need a couch. If I time this just right, the dishes will be all done. Which would make me VERY VERY thankful again.
The only thing better than a Thanksgiving feast is the leftovers. And the leftover leftovers. I'm thankful for leftovers.
I'm thankful for Internet streaming Christmas music while I sort through ornaments. I love the internet. I had no life before the internet. Let's not talk about how much of a life I have now...
Yes, as I settle my newly wider self into the couch with my computer, I am very, very thankful for leftovers. And the internet.
Two days of hanging out with the women of B.O.W. (Becoming an Outdoors Woman) has made me live longer. I've been told that if you laugh out loud, it extends your life. If that's the case, I'm going to live to 107 because of this past weekend.
After the late afternoon feeding frenzy of our big feast, we did what outdoor women do-and it did NOT include napping on the couch, screaming at the TV while watching football, or belching. Well, two out of three anyway.
Nope, after everything was cleaned up, the cast iron washed and oiled, and recipes exchanged, we were off to experience the rest of the great day.
Some of the more energetic souls set off for a sunset cruise in the kayaks.
The wind had finally settled, and fish were working the surface of lake, well into the cove on which we were camped. Who can resist the Dance of the Fishes? Unless, of course, you suffer from Ichthyophobia....
Ahhh, our den mother gets everything ready for paddling off into the sunset. What would we do without her to take care of us? I know I need her! She rescued my camera when I absentmindedly left it sitting out.
Elaine was thankful for an opportunity to wear her new kayak boots. Sexy!! I needed some of those puppies when my feetsies were freezing in the Buffalo...
The flotilla prepares to launch as the sun melts into the water.
Bye Wendy! It looks like she's waving water wings.
There they go! Say hello to the fish for me!
They got some gorgeous pictures while out on the lake. Check out Oklahoma B.O.W. on Facebook if you'd like to see them.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch...
Others had taken a hike to walk off the dressing, a fire was built up, chairs gathered. Someone put the coffee on, someone else put a pot of mulled wine on the fire, as people settled in to ward off the evening chill by warming up with hot drinks, side-splitting laughs, and bellying up to the fire.
The group talked into the night-the giggles, squeals, and laughs shooting up to join the sparks rising from the fire. I heard stories about Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Mexico, and other fantastic places that made my travel bug rise and whimper to be set free. Telling travel stories to a woman with wanderlust is like waving a drink in front of an alcoholic. It's just cruel.
Good night tents.
Good night kayaks.
Good night moon.
I eventually crept off to my tent, to fall asleep to a chorus of the Coyote Lullaby. I've decided that BOW really stands for Being Outside is Wonderful!
