Sunday, July 29, 2012

Take the Way More Climbing

Take the Fun Way by virithos
Take the Fun Way, a photo by virithos on Flickr.
We visited Backbone State Park in Iowa this weekend. And while we were hiking the 2-mile Backbone Trail, we noticed that, while Lee or I would take the path between the rocks, Boo always chose the path that involved more climbing.

The other children we saw also seemed to follow this philosophy.

Do you walk around the rocks, or detour to climb over them?

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Hot hike

Turkey Feather by virithos
Turkey Feather, a photo by virithos on Flickr.
Boo and I went for a short hike this morning. 90 degrees is feeling too comfortable in the shade. Her half liter bottle warms up a lot faster than my 2 liter, so I let her drink my water when she started complaining. (Otherwise she just doesn't drink.) And hers was still almost empty at the end of our hour plus stroll. The one liter bottle is on its way, and I'm going to see how big a deal it is to shorten her tube...

How do you keep your bladder water cool on hot days.

Via Flickr:
There are a lot of little turkey feathers around.

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Hiking Skills


Disclaimer: any specific kid on a specific day may be capable of a wide range of things. Or not capable of things they could do last week. Your knowledge and observations about your kid are a better guide than any number of bloggers or experts.
Kids are sponges for new information. Especially little kids don’t know what’s normal outside what your family does. If you hike and camp, they will think it’s normal. Teach them outdoor skills as you teach them indoor table manners, how to answer the phone, etc. Kids want to be with you, they want to act like adults, they want to help.
While she is not expected to navigate at all, we do expose her to the basics. Like reading a map.

Or using a compass

Plant identification can start fairly young. The first one I pushed her to recognize was poison ivy. Then the more common flowers. She quickly started asking beyond my knowledge, so we got her a laminated pamphlet of common local flowers. This not only teaches her the flowers, but how to find that information. We occasionally hike where there are edible berries. We often hike where there are non-edible things. When she gets bored, or just points out berries, we ask “should you eat it?”
And then there are the times when you actually can pick and eat things…

Boo often talks, sings, or just shouts with joy while we hike. So we don’t see a lot of wildlife. But to a little kid, a squirrel is just as exciting as a moose. But tracks are always exciting. We see deer tracks frequently. Even when we don’t, we can find people tracks, and decide who may have made them (You? Me? Mommy? Someone else?). One of our favorite parks has turkey and coyote tracks with reasonable frequency. In the winter, rabbits and squirrels leave tracks. She frequently references her guidebook. When we do see critters, we teach her how to respect their space.

Scat is almost infinitely interesting to Boo. Especially while she was potty training. And when you are very small, it’s not easy to tell scat from some sticks. So instead of her poking the potential scat with her fingers, I taught her to pull it apart with a stick. This easily segued into checking what the animal has been eating, and using that information to guess at what the animal may be. (Turns out I can’t identify a lot of scat. I know a lot more now than 2 years ago.) We have been known to “collect” a picture of unknown scat to compare to our books when we get home.

Something that isn’t usually an issue for us is climbing safety. Illinois just isn’t that rugged, and we don’t seek out especially tricky hiking. But then we went to San Diego for a week to visit my sister. And the hiking there is a little… rockier. We had a little catching up to do on safe rock hiking.

We always carried drink and a snack for her. She caught on fairly quickly, and before we leave for a hike now she makes sure her pack has water and a snack.
Around 4, she started getting so comfortable on trails we frequent that she felt perfectly fine running far ahead of us. Going wherever she felt was best. Now she knows that she has to stay where she can see us (because a 4-year-old can’t judge where you can see her), and not pass any intersections.

I'm sure I'm missing a lot of things we teach her just by being outside where a kid should be.
What outdoor skills were you taught as a kid? Which ones were most useful?


Sunday, July 8, 2012

Thanksgiving Dinner

Lee found this recipe at backpacker.com. We first tried it on a weekend trip to Backbone State Park in Iowa (a very nice trip). I ended up with a bad migraine and ate like 2 bites, but those 2 bites were so tasty…. So tasty in fact that it’s the same dinner we took this June on the Superior Hiking Trail.

J liked all the tastes separately, but didn’t care for the cranberries mixed in with the chicken and stuffing. For me, that’s the best part – savory stuff then a burst of sour fruity cranberry.

Dinner Cooking

Ingredients:

Bag-o-chicken - we find these in the tuna aisle

Box of sage stuffing (sage being the only flavor we found that has no milk and no MSG)

1 c Dried cranberries - a cup-ish depending on how much you like cranberries

Small package Almond slivers – for crunch and extra protein

Gravy packet – read the ingredients, many gravy packets have milk, MSG, or both. This actually made the meal saltier than we preferred. It’s fine without.

Directions:

Heat water - enough for stuffing (directions on box) and cranberries

Put everything together with hot water. Wait. Devour.

Feeds 2 adults and 1 kid

We’ve made this in a plastic bag (in the pics) or heated in the pot. Either is fine.

Through Hiker's Thanksgiving Dinner in August

Do you prefer to buy pre-made, use store-bought ingredients, or make from scratch?

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Learning Camp Skills

Disclaimer: any specific kid on a specific day may be capable of a wide range of things. Or not capable of things they could do last week. Your knowledge and observations about your kid are a better guide than any number of bloggers or experts.

Kids are sponges for new information. Especially little kids don’t know what’s normal outside what your family does. If you hike and camp, they will think it’s normal. Teach them outdoor skills as you teach them indoor table manners, how to answer the phone, etc. Kids want to be with you, they want to act like adults, they want to help.

Something even the smallest toddlers can do is clear a spot for the tent. Encourage them to help you pick up sticks, pinecones etc. and make a pile. Depending on the kid’s mood, you may get the whole campground cleared. Even if they pick up one stick and play with it while you set up, they’re not making more work for you. If your kid hasn’t slept in a tent in their memory (which for a baby can be last week), have them “unpack” in the tent and get used to it. Boo’s first night in a tent she was awake far too late exploring.

So. This is a 'tent'.

Walkers love to take trips. Trips to the bathrooms, trips to refill water, trips to pay the campground host. I once had 3 kids vying to hold the cap to the water cooler.

As kids get older (and I’m still talking pretty small here) they can help unroll the tent, carry the sleeping pads, bags, and other small things that go into the tent. At some point they’ll be able to put tent poles together, Velcro and clip the rainfly, thread or clip the poles… Boo loves taking the tent down; we chant “Roll it tight! Roll it tight!”

Helper

Kitchen help has to start with kitchen safety. I keep the sharp knife in my hand or pocket. We use an alcohol stove, so I started with “Is it lit?” Of course she thought not. I showed her how to feel for heat with the back of her hand*, slowly. We felt by the stove. We felt by the fire ring. We felt by the neighboring fire ring (that I had seen smoking when we were setting up camp). She understood enough that she couldn’t trust her eyes. At three, she stayed as far away as I liked from the stove, and needed to be convinced to get close enough to the fire to cook marshmallows.

*I learned that trick from a blacksmith. The back of your hand, being less calloused, is somewhat more sensitive to heat than the front. And if you do touch something hot, you clench your fist away from the hot thing instead of around it. And the working surface of your hand isn’t damaged.

Boo’s still not much help in the camp kitchen. If there’s a table, she can set it. She loves the color-coded mess sets we have. She puts garbage in the garbage bag. She sometimes hands the cook the next ingredient. She’s awesome at handing around dessert.

Squishy Placesettings

We use a Steripen for water, and she can push the button and hold the pen in the water until it makes a smiley face. She takes this duty very seriously.

Cleaning Water

All the kids love tying knots. Boo and J spent a good hour putting up clotheslines once. Then fishing lines, then a bow and arrow. J practices knots from his survival guide. Boo works on “Cross, then through the loop.”

What outdoor skills have you taught your kids? What do you want to teach them? What do you wish you had taught them?