It’s About Quantity, Not Quality May 23, 2010

For most outdoors people heading out fishing, they are hoping for either record breaking fish or at least fish big enough to make a good meal. TJ and I have a different objective.

We don’t care how big our fish are, and we really don’t care much what kind they are. We just want to catch fish. Lots and lots of fish. If it can get the end of the hook in its mouth so we can reel it in, we want to catch it and will be excited about it.

This past week we thought a nice calm evening would be the first time to really wet our worms this year. And the fish didn’t disappoint. The lake we were on has probably never produced anything near a state record but that didn’t dampen spirits in the slightest.

From shore with a small pole, a few worms and a bobber we caught about 20 fish in about an hour. I don’t think anyone has ever had a better time fishing. The largest fish we caught was a modest-sized rock bass. We also caught about 15 bluegill and sunfish that would look like bait fish to those that are less thrilled with just catching fish.

The smile on TJ’s face everytime he “turn, turn, turned” to reel in a fish and his enthusiasm for getting outside and being on the water is what matters to me.

Maybe we should create our own records for most fish caught in the shortest amount of time and most species of fish caught in one day because those other records just don’t capture our interest.

Dandelion Removal Service April 26, 2010

I’ve recently realized we are missing out on a great business opportunity with TJ and his cousin Corinne. So you are the first to be offered the services of their dandelion removal services.

As I type this, both kids are in my cousin Denise’s backyard picking every dandelion they can find. And having a great time.

The other day we went to another commercial orchard with my husband and the owners of the orchard wanted to keep TJ for the rest of the afternoon because he was picking so many of the dandelions.

People spend millions of dollars every year on products to remove the dandelions from their yards. I have a green alternative for them. For the modest fee of $25 dollars per afternoon, TJ and Corinne will pick all of the dandelions in your yard. I figure by the end of the summer the kids should have a pretty good start on their college funds.

Hunting for More Than Mushrooms April 23, 2010

We haven’t had the opportunity to hunt for mushrooms for the past few years so I have been trying to make up for it this year. We don’t ever find many but it is good exercise and gets us outdoors.

Earlier this week TJ and I took my cousin Denise and TJ’s cousin Corinne with us mushroom hunting. We found a few mushrooms but that wasn’t the most exciting part.

One of our favorite mushroom hunting places is on a trail  that runs along the Manistee River. The trail is about 3 miles long and has soe favorite party spots for teenagers.

When the kids got tired of unsuccessfully hunting for mushrooms we started hunting for cans. We drove slowly along the trail and would stop when we saw a can. The kid on that side of the car would jump out, grab the can and throw it in the back of the car. The kids thougth this was great fun because they didn’t have to wear their seatbelts (something that never happens in our vehicle) and they were finding things.

We collected almost $2 worth of cans (Michigan has a 10 cent bottle refund) and had a great time while cleaning up one of our favorite trails. What more can you ask for from an outdoor adventure?

Outdoor Activites More Plentiful Than Posts April 16, 2010

I am happy to say that though I haven’t posted in the last couple of months, that doesn’t mean we haven’t been enjoying the out-of-doors here in Michigan. In fact we have been spending lots and lots of time outside enjoying the unusually warm spring. We have been spending the majority of our time on my parents’ and my husband’s family land.

But today we did something different. Since my husband is now and editor on a magazine for commercial fruit growers, we visited a large commercial orchard today. My husband was visiting the orchard to get video, photos and an article for his magazine. TJ and I, along with his 3-year-old cousin Corinne, went just for fun.

Unfortunately the weather wasn’t very cooperative and we weren’t able to play outside at the orchard much. We did however have a good view from the Jeep. We saw big tractors and lots of dirt, two of TJ’s favorite things.

Of course I didn’t pass up the opportunity to make it a learning adenture and explained to the kids that the fruit we buy at the grocery store and from the farm markets comes from farms like the one we visited. And that the farmers have to use tractors and plows to plant and take care of the trees. And that the farmers take care of the trees, they will grow the fruit that we enjoy.

The kids had a great time even though we weren’t able to spend much time out of the Jeep. The owner of the orchard was so impressed with the kids that he gave each of them a Leelanau cherries hat.

Relocating to the Great Lakes State February 14, 2010

After more than three years of calling Wisconsin home, we are relocating to the Great Lakes State. Both my husband and I were born and raised in Michigan and can’t wait to return. TJ shares our enthusiasm.

There are many, many reasons for us to be excited about returning to our home state.

First and foremost is being closer to our families. TJ has two grandmas, a grandpa, two great grandmas, two aunts and a cousin among lots of extended family waiting for him in Michigan.

Second, with family comes family property. Between my family and my husband’s family, we will have access to more than 200 acres of private property to explore on our outdoor adventures.

With all of the opportunities that are waiting for us in Michigan, we are packing up as quickly as we can and will soon be leaving this chapter of our lives behind in Wisconsin.

Whitetails Unlimited Headquarters in Our Own Backyard January 28, 2010

We’ve lived in Wisconsin for a little more than two years now. We’ve lived on the west side of Wisconsin for a few months and just recently did we discover that the national headquarters of Whitetails Unlimited is only about 45 minutes from here.

So yesterday we decided since the weather was cold and windy we might as well visit Whitetails unlimited. My son was especially excited to have a new adventure and see some deer.

We arrived to find a nice building with a LARGE outdoor statue of a whitetail that immediately caught TJ’s attention. Despite the weather TJ insisted on admiring the statue for a few minutes before going inside.

The public areas of the building are small but high-end. There was a nice taxidermy display of two fighting bucks that greeted us upon entry and another taxidermy display in one corner. There were numerous educational plaques with information ranging from the rutting habits to diet of whitetails. Of course TJ made me read every one of them too him, but isn’t what these little adventures are about?

We spent the majority of our time in the gift shop that included logo-ed merchandise and whitetail-themed home decor. We weren’t able to resist and purchase a shirt for TJ and keychains and hats.

I don’t think I would plan my next vacation around the destination but it was a nice way to spend a few minutes on an otherwise boring day.

Our First GeoCaching Adventure January 24, 2010

After reading Joanna’s guest blog last week, I wanted to give geocaching a try for myself, and the little guy was really excited to go treasure hunting. So after digging out our GPS and retraining ourselves how to use it, we got the coordinates of 6 caches and headed out.

We went 0 for 6 on Friday. We got a lot of exercise, and I just know we got really close to some of those caches, but we didn’t locate a single one. We chalked it up to being winter and that the caches must be unlocatable in the snow.

I decided to do some checking this morning to see if the log books showed that anyone had located the caches recently and in snowy conditions. What I found explained a lot more than that. Apparently I hadn’t done my research on geocaching well enough. I found that if you click on the log book you can get a lot more information on what the cache may be (from a 3 qt jar to a 35 mm film canister) and there may be more to finding the cache then simply going to the coordinates. Two of the caches we tried to locate actually have riddles or math equations you have to solve once getting to the coordinates before you can actually find the cache.

Unfortunately the weather isn’t very cooperative today. So I am going to spend a few more minutes researching geocaching more and getting more information on the caches we hunted for already. Tomorrow, if the weather is a little better, we are going to try this again.

Guest Blog: Geocaching January 19, 2010

Guest Blogger: Joanna Willoughby

What you need:

• Computer access to log into www.geocaching.com
• A hand held GPS unit, perferably with a geocache mode
• A pen or pencil
• A collection of small trinkets
• A really cool name

The first few times I heard anything about geocaching, I thought it was kind of nerdy. Using a GPS to find hidden treasure sounded like a science class activity. I didn’t realize it was so popular or that it’s an activity that you can do virtually anywhere. Since starting out, I have discovered that geocaching is a great way to get kids interested in going outside and becoming more observant in the places around them. We’ve been geocaching in nature preserves, city parks, shopping malls and even cemetaries. There are geocaches hidden all over the world.

The first step was to get an account on www.geocaching.com. I logged in and discovered that there are over 500 geocaches hidden within 10 miles of our house. The second step was shopping for a gps unit. We tried to use our Garmin Nuvi 750 from our car the first few times but it didn’t really work for us. It’s not as accurate in walking mode and is definitely not meant for walking in rugged terrain or getting wet. I asked several friends about GPS units specifically meant for geocaching. Everyone had a different opinion, of course. One friend had a bare bones basic model that was under $100 and another had one that cost over $500. I ended up with the
Garmin eTrex Venture HC Handheld GPS Unit with the topo maps package.. I chose this model because it not only has a geocaching mode but it also has a hunting and fishing mode.

Once we were all set with our equipment, I found that it was really easy to upload caches directly into my GPS unit from the geocaching website. You can search by zip code or by Google Maps. Each one has a name, some clues about where it is located and information about the size of the container, how hard it is to find and how rough the terrain is. I uploaded some near my house, some near my parents’ house and some along the way there. I gathered up a collection of small trinkets from around my house, a pencil, and our GPS and put them all in a bag. We decided to call ourselves the Willotrackers. Some people even have laminated calling cards printed to leave in the caches they find. When a geocache is found, we sign the log book and then if there are any prizes in there, we take something and leave something in its place. Once we get home, we go back onto www.geocaching.com and log our visits to all the caches we have found. Now when I check the map, there are smiley faces on all the caches we’ve already found.

One afternoon this fall, my 9 year old daughter Zoe and I went geocaching with my niece Erin. Our first stop was a park about a mile from our house. There were two caches hidden there. We looked and looked for the first one but couldn’t find it. The girls were getting discouraged. We decided to leave that one for another time and move on. The second one was much easier to find. We got to the place where the GPS said we were 0 feet from the cache. I stood in the spot and the girls started looking around. Under a pile of sticks was a plastic box! The girls were so excited. We signed the log book, chose a prize and left a prize. They were feeling empowered so we hopped in the car to head to the next park. This one was tougher because it was next to a duck pond. This one turned out to be a plastic bottle hanging from a hook on branch of a really thick pine tree. It didn’t have prizes but it had a log book that we signed. The next one said it was at a strip mall by a store we go to all the time. On top of the light next to the door was a small box with a geocache label on it. I couldn’t believe that I had never noticed it before. The last one for that day was another bottle hanging from a tree behind a large grocery store. From the time we got out of the car, the girls were running and laughing, wondering what we were going to find next. Again, I was shocked at how many times I had driven right past that area and never noticed anything. It’s like there are hidden secrets all around us.

Since getting started, I’ve realized how useful geocaching can be. We’re planning a trip from Michigan to Colorado this summer and I’ve already got plans to upload geocaches to entertain the kids along the way. It’s a good way to get out of the car, stretch our legs and explore a new area.

A Winter Nature Walk January 17, 2010

I don’t know about you guys but I’m not very excited to go outside when the wind speed is higher than the temperature. And for a week or two that is exactly what mother nature handed us here in Wisconsin.

But the later part of last week was actually pretty nice. So TJ and I decided to go for a walk. There is a nice path that goes around the exterior of the local zoo, and we made that our route.

In the summer it only takes us about 10 minutes to walk the path if there isn’t anything new and exciting to look at; this has only happened about twice. But with the path not plowed and having not walked it in a couple of months, I knew this walk was going to take a lot longer than 10 minutes but that was fine with me.

So TJ and I set off. The first obstacle we encountered were snow covered steps from the parking lot to the path. And I’m not talking about a dusting of snow. You could not tell where one step left off and the next began. But we weren’t about to let a little snow get in our way. Using the hand rail and some careful placement of our boots, we pulled ourselves up the steps. Once on top we could see that someone and more than a couple of somethings had been using the trail.

Before we stepped in any of the tracks, I stopped TJ and asked him if he knew what had made any of the tracks. He quickly pointed out the footprints made by a pair of boots. And pretty quickly determined that there were a lot of deer tracks. But there were two kinds of tracks that had him stumped to I told him we should look for clues to help us figure it out.

We walked for only about 20 yards before we started finding clues. As we neared the fence that made up one side of the deer/goose/duck/peacock enclosure, we saw that there were branches knocked down and leaning up against the fence both inside and out. Stuck to the branches were feathers. And one set of tracks we were following stopped right at those branches.

After pointing out a few of these details to TJ, he quickly decided the tracks were from the peacocks. Apparently the peacocks had been very opportunistic and were using the branches to climb in and out of the enclosure as they pleased.

So we continued on still trying to figure out what one of the tracks was from. Nearing the end of our path we encountered the only hill on the route. Going down the hill the tracks changed dramatically. Up to this point the tracks had just been two parallel lines in the snow. Now the parallel lines formed a series of Vs down the hill with little circles between them.

Since TJ has never seen anyone cross-country skiing I had to give him a little help with this one. It took a little explaining and some internet pictures when we got home but now TJ knows what cross-country skiing is and told me that when he gets a little bigger he thinks he should try it.

Winter Wonderland January 1, 2010

This week TJ really discovered the joys of playing outside. He has of course played outside before but this week he fell in love with snow and all of the activities it provides. Twice so far he has played outside with his 3-year-old cousin Corinne.

There really is nothing like the sound of children laughing, and they both did plenty of laughing while sledding, throwing snow, and generally having a good time outside the past few days.

The bad part is that Michigan is receiving a little storm today. TJ just doesn’t want to accept that he cannot play outside right now. There are some pretty cold temperatures, gusty winds and inches of snow. Hopefully the weather will be warmer and less windy tomorrow because TJ only has two more days to play outside with his cousin before we return to Wisconsin.

But of course there is plenty of snow in Wisconsin and you know he will spend his fair share of time in it.