Ridin' herd on things

Do you ever have those days where you feel like you have to ride herd on everything and everybody? That the laundry, the dishes, the vacuuming and the grocery shopping are all about to stampede and you haven't even saddled your horse?

Yep. Been there, been trampled like that.

It's that time of year-

• band concerts
• dishes
• science fair projects
• laundry
• getting close to the end of semester study projects
• getting close to the end of the semester catch upon grading projects
• dishes
• dishes

How can a family who's eating most of their meals standing at the stove have so many dirty dishes? I'll spare you the visuals.

Add to the bawling herd a trip to Kansas for the holiday, a desire to cook some real holiday food, and fighting off the inner elf who wants to start putting up the Christmas decorations, and you have a drove of on-edge bossies who will spook and bolt at the smallest hint of an extra task on their already-too-full plates. I'm speaking metaphorically, of course. This is not a description of people I work with.

The last trip Philoboy and I made to Kansas we ran into this very thing. A herd of cattle, not bossy people I work with.

The disparity between city life and rural life is enough to give you whiplash. I've run into some boss cows in the city, usually on the PTA committees or at youth soccer games, but never a herd of cows.

There were cows coming and going. Cows almost as far as you could see. 

And cowboys riding herd on the cows. Somehow their herd ridin' looked a lot more fun than my city herd ridin'.

And I couldn't pass up the opportunity to show you the dirty windows of the Travelin' Van.  That's adventure miles dirt, ma'am.



"Dang paparazzi- we can never re-locate without one of them hangin' out a vehicle window with their dang camera...."

Ahhh, I'm looking forward to the holiday, going back home to a place where horses are the vehicles, walking is the pace of life, and cows are the most interesting thing around.


    Happy Trails, and may you always find a whole herd of adventures!

Ain't no sand on me!

I try out as much new gear as outdoor gear retailers, manufacturers and Hubby will let me. I like a lot of what I try, but I come across very few items that make me go, “Wow-this is everything it’s advertised to be,” The sand rug from CGear made me jump up and down and go WOW.

The company provided the 6' x 6' sand rug free of charge for my review. It arrived on my doorstep complete with its own small bag of sand and a huge dose of skepticism from my not-so-inner cynic.

Wow. Did I say that already? This thing really works.

The mats were originally developed by the military to create dust-free landing pads for helicopters. I had no helicopter on hand, but I do have a dusty husband and a whirling teenager. Together they can definitely raise a cloud of dust or tear up most any gear, given enough time.

Hubby poured the little bag of sand onto the rug. I would have liked a wheelbarrow load, but there was none to be had. Hubby brushed his hand across the pile of silica and poof! It was gone.

Hubby went Wow. He lifted the rug and there was the sand.

No sand came back up. Wow.

I mounded the pile of sand up under the rug, and had The Whee sit on the rug, on top of the sand pile, and just be herself. In other words, twist, wiggle and squirm. No matter how much she ground the rug into the sand, no sand came back up. Wow. I think I said that already.

Does it matter which side is up for the mat to work? Yes, it does, although even upside down it did a better job of taking away the sand than any beach towel or bamboo mat I’ve ever used. Not all the sand went through, but what fell through did not come back up.

Here's what I think about the sand mat:

I would recommend it to others, especially beach goers. We ain't got a lot of beach in Oklahoma, but this rug is enough to make me want to drive to the coast.

I would buy it for others. At $59.88, the best price I've found for it so far (Amazon), I'll only it buy it for people I really like, but I think it's worth every penny.

I think I'll stop avoiding the beach now.

I’m tickled I had the opportunity to try it!

See the rug and other sand-free products at http://www.cgear-sandfree.com/

Girls Day out

Some of my camping buds and I did a little backpacking at Arrowhead State Park this past weekend. You should go there. It's beautiful and unpopulated. Just don't try to find it by a map search- Yahoo and Google are not familiar with this park.

I want to wake up to something like this for the rest of my life. I need to figure out how to convince my employer to move my desk out here.

Breakfast tastes better out in the open.

uh-oh. if you give a moose a muffin it wants another...

 

After breakfast we packed up,

And headed out.

We walked something like 82 miles that day. Or maybe it was between 8 and 2 miles that day.

Fun and friends make me better able to deal with the frenzy.

B, E, me, 'n V.

I think I shall survive for another week.

      Happy Trails, and may your life be packed with adventure!



Packin' it on

To prepare for a backpacking or camping trip requires that I lay out every single piece of gear I own, strewn all across the garage floor. I have to see it all to choose what I’ll need. Camping gear is all about choices. This latest trip to Arkansas was no different. Will I take the Jetboil™ or the Esbit stove? Maybe both, so I have a back-up? Nope, just the Jetboil and some matches, thank you.

Will I take the light sleeping bag and freeze to death, or the heavy one that keeps me warm but takes up too much space and spills out of the bag like a polyester lava flow? If you grew up on a farm, you would know what I mean when I say “prolapsed uterus”. There’s only so much room in my pack, so lightweight one it is, even if I get cold. I'll put on my fleece at night.

My most recent adventure was a solo trip, so the food choices were easy. No one to please but me, which meant K bars and chai tea for breakfast, spaghetti for lunch and spaghetti for dinner. For all five days. With extra spaghetti for snacks. I firmly believe that freeze-dried spaghetti is the super food of backpacking.

Clothing choices are pretty easy- rain gear, one change of wool base layer to offset the lack of deodorant, a warm layer. It’s a solo trip, who needs deodorant? Socks. Done.

Tent. Will I take the ripped-up, duct-taped Eureka two man, or.. or.. or…. The choices are a little limited. Santa, I want a new Kelty Mesa for Christmas. Santa? Santa! Turn off the football game and pay attention!! I need a new tent!

Hiking shoes or boots? Maybe if wear the new boots- the unbroken-in, still smells-like-new- leather boots- the raw blisters will take my mind off the bug bites, thorn scratches and poison ivy. Naw. The old comfy Merrells it is.

Headlamp. Check.

Trail map. Check.

First aid kit. Check.

Water bottles and purifier. Check.

Sunscreen, bug spray, hat. Check, check, check.

Compass. Works great as a coaster. Might make a nice belt buckle. Declination is such an ugly word. Leave compass at home.

Now, cram all that gear into my Osprey pack. The folks over at the local Backwoods store routinely give me a hard time for hauling more than 25 pounds. As in “don’t carry more than 25% of your bodyweight, stupid.” Well, that’s a problem, you see. For me to carry everything I need, (or think I need) my pack is going to weigh 25-30 pounds. Every time. Which is 25 to 30 percent of my body weight.

I could ditch the tent and just use a tarp, but I have a dislike of slithery things sleeping with me. My sleeping bag only weighs a pound and half. It stays. The spaghetti definitely stays. Throw out the first aid kit and one water bottle. Saves me 13 ounces in weight. The bug spray doesn’t keep me from being eaten alive. Toss it. That saved me 6 ounces. Total weight lost- 19 ounces.  Uh, one pound plus.

The other solution is for me to gain more weight, so that my pack would be a smaller percentage of my body weight. That’s my current strategy. Three Gigi’s cupcakes a day to pack on some heft. Give that pack hip belt someplace solid to rest.

Alright, weight problem solved. Buckle on that pack, girl, we’re off to the cupcake shop! More choices, you say? No problem, gimme one of each!

Packin' up

Lunches. Lunches are the bain of my existence. Hubby's working-man lunch. Must be filling and contain no tofu.

Whee's daily school lunch.  Preferably contains tofu.  Must survive being stuffed in a already stuffy locker till noon, yet be cool and delicious when it's 106 outside. Oh no problem there.

(For some great lunch and food ideas check out Lisa Leake's blog at 100 days of real food. I really like the story about taking on the school's "approved" snack food list!!)

My lunch, which starts around 9:22 a.m. and ends at 2:46 p.m. (It wouldn't end then, except I have to start getting ready for dinner). May contain anything in the fridge or pantry.

Here's our lunch boxes. Can you tell who's is who's?

yep, mine is not the grungy one in the back. We all have criteria for our lunch containers.

Philoboy's lunch transport must:

• Be large enough he can find it when he leaves it lying in the back of the truck, in the garage, in the yard, at the shop, etc. etc., etc.
• Hold enough for breaks and lunch
• Be manly enough the other guys won't ridicule him
• Be grungy enough the other guys won't ridicule him
• Be tough enough the other guys won't ridicule him
• Be heavy enough to hurt the other guys when they ridicule him

Score 10 points for durability and re-usability. No style points are awarded in the men category.


The Whee's lunchbox must be:

• allow ample time for bonding with her friends. Thus, no foods requiring cooking, assembling, etc.
• disposable. After buying 37 lunchboxes last year, I ain't doin' that no more. Hence, the ulra-lightweight, disposable lunch sack. Customizable with cool artwork from Mom. At this point, if her cohorts make fun, it's the price you pay for being in junior high.

I just ooze sympathy, don't I?

Score: -5 for environmental irresponsibility.  +55 for saving Mom's sanity. Overall score: 50 points


My lunch box. The ultra-cool stainless steel model with spiffy magnet decor. Personalizable. Reusable. Durable. Works great except sometimes the latch comes open and my peanut butter nutella sandwich falls in the dirt. That hurts. And yes, it is perfectly OK to put peanut better and nutella on the same sandwich.  I save calories by not using any bread...

Score: minus 1 on style points for the rubber band I now put around it so I don't lose my nutella.  +10 for eco-greatness in every way. Overall score: 9.

Well, I'm off. If you try to call, I'm probably out to lunch...