dirt don't hurt

Seasonally speaking, summer is one of my top favorite times of the year.  When the sun first starts shining and the woods and world turn green again, I am at my happiest.  And then comes the second half of summer when I start itching. When you hang out in the out-of-doors as much as I do, there’s a good chance you also have a stock pile of anti-itch creams, gels, and sprays forever within reach.  If it isn’t poison ivy or some other unidentified plant rash, it’s the ever hated and cursed mosquito, which lately seems has taken over as Ohio’s state bird. These little irritating things kind of need us to survive.  Male mosquitos pose no threat to us.  The female mosquito needs blood to lay eggs and reproduce, so it’s only the girls that drive us nuts.  She has to sniff around to find the tastiest of bloods to consume, which is why we so diligently attempt to make ourselves super stinky and unappealing to these blood sucking critters.  There are as ...

Yesterday I took a hike with my children.  We were in search of some of the lesser-known waterfalls that grace our nearest national park, more specifically a certain set of falls that I remember from my teenage years when our idea of a good night out was coming home covered in mud, creek water, and mosquito bites.  (I wasn’t quite your average teen.) The problem was that we had to venture past the sign that said “end of trail,” which now, as a parent, takes on a different meaning then when you’re a wild kid.  “End of trail” as a child fills you with rambunctious spirit.  “End of trail” as a mother fills you with worry and fear that danger and certain death loom just past the sign.  But there are things you learn when you’re on the trail, deep in the sweet old woods of northeastern Ohio.  Life lessons that can’t be found just anywhere.   There is also a totally awesome waterfall, as memory served. And so we pressed on. There are two ways...

I really thought I was doing a part of my civil duty—showing our children a few of the great national parks that speckle our country.  They are jewels of amazement that are, if you think about things in the scope of the world, right in our backyard.  And so we flew out west, rented an RV, and headed out to see the sights. And what sights they were.   My husband and I have never been to the Grand Canyon before, and we wanted to make sure we gave our kids the experience while they were the right age: old enough to remember and young enough not to think we were totally dorky parents.  I think for their sake, we hit it just right.  But for my sake, it was incredible.   They say the Grand Canyon is a fantastic hole in the ground, but I will tell you that upon walking up to it for the very first time, I got a little choked up.  I don’t know that I have ever seen such amazing beauty, so vast and powerful.  Even as a writer, I was without words wh...

According to some silly books that I’ve read, the Canada Goose excretes nearly two pounds of feces every day.  A fairly reliable source states that it poops every 12 minutes.  This may all sound very mathematical, because I know you are sitting there calculating how many times per day and how much per release, but really, that’s not what my story is all about. The street where I live is an add combination of wild and suburbia.  We’ve had our fair share of misplaced critters, and though they seem to be diminishing with development, geese have started setting up camp and becoming our official neighbors. The Canada Goose as it is called, is a rather pesky bird.  It is interesting to research that after the Civil War, the honking bird was all but gone from the state of Ohio and in 1956, a mere 10 nesting pairs were introduced by the Division of Wildlife.  In just a few decades, they multiplied and multiplied and realized that golf courses and subdivisions we...

Even in the aftermath of Halloween, when a few soggy decorations linger and pumpkins begin to rot, I can’t help but think about bats.  And thinking about bats takes me back in time to the most stressful interview of my life. At first I was not asked about myself at all.  I was asked about our flying mammalian friend. There I was, a high school student still trying to learn to like the taste of coffee and trying not to look like a dork, and I sit down to my first interview for a college scholarship, and she asks me about bats. Nothing specific, just something like, “tell me about bats.” Truthfully, I don’t remember how I answered the question.  I was so nervous that probably all that came out were a bunch of “uh’s” and “um’s” and a trickle of drool down my quivering chin.  I think I spent a lot of time questioning in my head what she wanted to hear, if she wanted to hear about bats as they are in the movies, or bats as they are in real life. I could have tol...

“People!” she said with a sawdusty sneeze, “I’m not the Lorax. But I speak for the trees. I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues. And I’m asking you, people, at the top if my lungs”- she was very upset as she did shout and yell, “Don’t you have a tree that you once knew so well?” Perhaps it was in your yard’s back or the side, Maybe the trunk was thin or quite wide, Was it the kind that had leaves that turn in the fall? Or needles so green that they don’t change at all? Did you play underneath it, climb to its top? Take a big leap that ended in flop? Did you once find a nest hidden safely so high And watch as the birds had their first chance to fly? Did you take the branches that fell to the ground And turn them into swords for the enemies you found? Did you take the leaves red or orange in their looks And press them between paper, stacked between books? Did you sit in its branches and contemplate life? Did you carve in initials with...

God made dirt, and dirt don’t hurt. I can’t take credit for this phrase that I use so often.  I first heard it somewhere lost in the wilderness of New Mexico from a friend on a backpacking trip while discussing living in our own filth for the past five days. “God made dirt, and dirt don’t hurt,” she said, and then we scooped up a handful and wrote empowering words all over our selves with the dark brown mud from the forest floor and went on our way.  Filthy, stinky, and quite happy. As it turns out, we were really doing ourselves some serious good by using the natural body paint, and even more, my friend’s phrase seems to be truer than we accepted. Researchers from Oregon State University have concluded that dirt does more than just not hurt.  It may actually be healthy for you!  (Feel free to go outside, dig up a good mushy bit, and slather in all over your face right now.  I don’t, however, suggest eating it.) The basis of the article is nothing ne...

It is said that there is power in numbers, but nothing can compare to the numbers of the massive swarms of birds that swirl around us when the weather starts to turn colder.   If you’ve seen them, you’ve stopped and stared.  Chances are you may have even counted one-Mississippi, two-Mississippi, etc to see how long the train of blackbirds lasted, and most definitely you’ve marveled at how fluid and graceful such a group could be.  (Until they land in your yard, that is.) Such an impressive act of nature deserves a moment of your time, I think, and what makes it even better is to know a little bit about what you’re looking at. As it turns out, they aren’t all blackbirds.  Well, they’re all black birds, but in fact a few species are usually involved in the dark streaks of night moving through the early winter sky.  Brown-headed cowbirds, common grackles, European starlings, and even red-winged blackbirds all join together while making their migratory...

Pre-pupate It’s a typical scene around this place. I’ve got a to-do list a mile long.   I’m sure one of my kids is going to be low on underwear for lack of clean laundry, and twice this week we’ve eaten hotdogs and frozen vegetables.   I don’t even need to mention that there is homework to check and columns to write. But they all have been pushed aside for the good, because this week my life has been centered around one thing: a caterpillar.   And I don’t even mind it’s poo that stained a piece of furniture. A few days ago while practicing the fine art of being children, my kids were playing in the yard.   Footballs were thrown, someone made a craft from some tall grasses, and I was busy cleaning the kitchen and missing it all.   (Motherhood: if ever there was a time for maid or a clone…)   Suddenly my son came in, yelling.   “Mom!   We found an awesome caterpillar!”   Being a self-proclaimed nature nut, I dropp...

I’m always telling children to protect nature. They always look at me with the same puzzled look, because they don’t quite grasp the concept of conservation. They do, however, get the point when I say, “don’t hurt Mother Nature, or else it’ll rain on your birthday.” This is of course something I concocted. It’s not scientifically true, and it’s not even an old wives tale. Instead it’s just me, trying to scare kids into packing out litter and not karate chopping trees or throwing rocks at bunnies. And though it’s not technically confirmed, I will say that this year it more than proved itself for me. I spent my birthday, where I miraculously again turned twenty-nine, in a touch of wilderness. Mostly surrounded by friends and family, we ate a heavy breakfast and opened a few gifts before the afternoon sunshine was too much to handle. My dear husband sent me out the door with my book and a bottle of lemonade and told me to head to the raft on the pond. And by pond, I me...

There are times as a parent when you wonder if all of the things you’ve said and all of the influences you’ve given have ever really gotten through the thick skulls of your children. You wonder if the bargaining you’ve done and the words you’ve yelled repeatedly and the slight hinting towards liking things that are good and decent actually got absorbed. Sometimes, you fully doubt yourself. But then there are those moments, those sweet parenting moments, when they catch you totally off guard and all you can do is smile. I’m pretty sure the majority of readers don’t care about what we did on a Sunday afternoon in mid-Summer, but I would be remiss if I didn’t file this memory deep in my soul to pull out on one-of-those-days. With a husband swinging around a golf course, I chose to take our kids to one of my favorite places in the world. Virginia Kendall Ledges , located in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park , is an outstanding bit of Earth. Even in the heat of summer, the coo...

I have a new found love of canning jars. They hold the summer sun all year long in the form of canned garden goodnesses. They also store my dried goods, my bulk foods, and numerous things all over my house because they're so darn handy. We've done pop bottle (yes, I'm from Ohio, where soda don't grow) terrariums, but I thought it might be kind of neat to try something on a small scale in, what else, a canning jar. And so, here's what you need: -Large canning jar -gravel -activated charcoal (buy this at a pet store with the fish filters) -moss -dirt -small plant (leaves of three? no thanks.) -chopsticks or thin tongs to help position things in the jar -water Starting at the bottom, but a small amount of gravel . This is to allow drainage of water. After gravel, put an even smaller layer of charcoal. The purpose of the charcoal is to clean the air and water as it circulates through the closed system. (Did you see the lid?) After charcoal comes moss , which acts...

It can start from something as a tiny spark caused by two sticks being rubbed together, but if I’m being less poetic and more realistic, there is probably a good squirting of charcoal lighter fluid and a wadded up piece of newspaper. Maybe even this very piece. But it all ends up in one, glorious finale of flames. The campfire. The same random dancing orange and red flickers that arise out of a mere pile of sticks and logs. For centuries, these same images have brought people together and been a source of warmth, food, poetry and song. The same warm figure in the evening light has made cavemen scream, cowboys eat, and certainly have toasted a few gazillion marshmallows. Surely something so ancient has wisdom in its midst, right? The campfire has a lot to teach us, if only we’d put down our weenie roasting sticks and listen. What a better world this would be if we all took a few tips from the fire pit. 1. Warmth will bring people together. Whether it’s the d...

I am proud to say I was interviewed for a wonderful podcast program by The Wilderness Center. Click HERE to listen!

First of all, I will not reveal where I find my mushrooms, so don't even bother asking. But I will reveal this yummy recipe which is an adaptation on a tiny little blurb that showed up on the bottom of a page in an issue of Cooking Light. Asparagus with morels, bacon, and garlic mustard 2 slices good bacon 1 Tbl butter ~6 oz morel mushrooms, quartered 1 pound asparagus, cut into 1" pieces salt and pepper handful of garlic mustard leaves (or chives, ramps, other oniony-garlicy plant) Cook bacon in skillet. Remove when done and set aside. Add butter to pan and saute mushrooms for around 4 minutes. Add asparagus, salt and pepper. Saute 5 minutes or until asparagus is crisp tender. Remove from heat and sprinkle with bacon and chopped up garlic mustard. I added a bit of olive oil to make it saucier. I also added a splash of balsamic vinegar because I like that flavor with asparagus. I also ate most of it myself because my family is anti-mushroom. :)

Of all places, this recipe came to us in a Smucker's cookbook we got at the local Bunny Trail. I was surprised to find something as "odd" as dandelion fritters, but even more shocked to find a full recipe for acorn pancakes. (We'll have to tackle those later. When we move to an oak forest.) When your son says he wants to cook, you say YES no matter the recipe, and so we gave this one a whirl to make the most interesting after school snack of the week. He ate the whole plate. You will need: 1 cup biscuit mix 1 cup milk 1 Tbl honey + More for dipping Oil for frying Fresh dandelion flowers with no stems/leaves- rinsed and dried. ****MAKE SURE YOU ARE PICKING FROM A SPRAY-FREE ZONE!!***** 1. Mix biscuit mix, milk, and honey in a large bowl. 2. Heat oil (about 1/2 inch) in a skillet until water sizzles when dropped in. 3. Batter the dandelion flowers a few at a time and drop them into the oil, flower side first. 4. Fry until golden brown, drain on paper towels. 5. ...