Our Outdoor Adventure
We decided to spend our vacation living rough in our backyard for a week.
Sunday Night: After our last indoor dinner we set up our tents in the backyard. We started our setting up 2 six-man tents, but one is missing it's poles and stakes, so... we put those away and got out the 8 man tent and the shade structure. We got it set up and moved in with our sleeping bags and pillows. Our friend Justin slept over int he "boys' room" with Charlie.
Monday: The day started off with a big pink box of doughnuts and juice in the shade tent/eating tent, all set up with table, chairs and camp stove by Bruce who got up early. We played a round of charades while eating breakfast in our sleeping clothes. The weather was very overcast and cold so we all had jackets on. Then hung out the laundry (today is the last day for machine-washed clothes-tomorow begins the washboard) and I worked a bit on the bricks over to the side of the yard to terrace a planting area. Then the sun came out and I was getting too much sun, so I set up the solar water heater and then we decided it was a good time to construct our solar ovens. I started one I'd read about and Erin mane one she'd made with Girl Scouts. Ginger helped me finish mine while Erin moved on the her sundial. It is finished and she will be calibrating it for the next few days. We're testing the ovens to see how they get with a candy thermometer in a jar of water. We will need two ovens, else how will we heat up our chili and cornbread at the same time? That will be tomorow's dinner. We've been invited to a BBQ tonight. Tonight Suzy (Ruth's friend) will sleep over in our tent with us.
Tuesday: Cancel the BBQ last night, we wound up having spaghetti at home in the kitchen. Suzy's mom said 'No" to sleeping over. It turns out that Erin, Esther and Ida really like washing clothes on the washboard. I do too, but it gets a bit tiresome rather quickly. Esther and Ida use too much soap, so it takes a lot of rinsing. I have a new respect for the washerwomen of the Old West-- denim by hand is hard to work with! I only did a size 2T pair of jeans and it was difficult. The clothes take longer to dry, too, because we cannot wring them as dry as the washer spins them. We used our solar ovens today-- for canned chili and cornbread. The chili was adequately warmed, but the cornbread only half cooked before the sun disappeared behind clouds. We finished cooking it in our real oven inside. I'm not sure how to improve the efficiency of our solar ovens; perhaps tipping it so the sun goes in more directly and a better seal on the cover would make a difference. What to try next?
Wednesday: It just barely rained last night. Enough so we could hear it on the tent, but not enough to keep the ground wet in the morning. I expected to exit the tent to a soggy yard, but it was perfectly dry. Washed more laundry by hand today; Erin was so enthusiastic that whe brought down more form upstairs to do outside. Leftover chili and cornbread for lunch. ?? for dinner. Finished my retaining wall (those bricks I've been obsessed about) yesterday and planted my bean sprouts in it today.Pulled out Ginger's peas in the community garden and picked a lot of purple string beans, and few yellow. Oh, we'll have green beans for dinner! My original plan to live off the land has fallen by the asyside -- the lettuce all bolted and all that's ready to eat is a few peas, purple green beans and a couple fo zucchini. A few of the ears of corn will be ready by Friday.
Thursday: We took a field trip to the library today (ur regular library day), then we had to folow the rule and keep the library books inside, so we wound up spending a lot of time in the house today. And we've wound up cooking inside today , too. Not enough recipes for the solar oven, and I dont feel safe using the camp stove with a two-year old running around. We are still doing laundry on the washboard, but not all of it. It is very satisfying to clean your clothes by hand, but time consuming. And we are only whaing everything in cold water. Imagine if we were bining the water, boiling the clothes, using lye soap, etc. We have it easy. We are using a glass washboard (wooden frame, only the scrubbing surface is glass!) (avaliable at our local hardware stire' now I know they have everything!) and old Rubbermaid storage tote (the crack that developed in the bottom corner turned out to not be such a problem, it leaks very slowly) and some unfinished hand soap given to us by a neighbor that he had rescued from a soap factory going out of business. They were just throwing out a large slab of soap (which would have been milled, fragrance added, etc and shaped into pretty bars. He had chopped up the large slab into roughly bar sized chunks and given us a bucket full a few onths ago when he realised that he had hardly made a dent in the othr bucket he still had after several years. It's great stuff. It smells like clean soap, not perfumey, and is not best for washing hands, but is perfect for hand laundry). I may leave the laundry things outside on the back porch and throw a few clothes in now and then just for fun. It is quite pleasant to sit and scrub after dinner, then rinse and hang things up t dry over night (for shame! Never leave things on your clothes line overnight!) and they are dry by the following evening. The dry clothes are stiff, but with a softer feel to them than those done with detergent in a machine and then hung out. Enough about laundry. PS I am glad I don't have to diapers by hand-- then I would have to boil water, etc. I've been wahing diapers in the machine.
Friday: Ginger and Erin will gone tonight at a sleepover, and Bruce will able to sleep out inthe tent tonight with us. He only slept out the first night, then he had to go back to wrok, so he's been sleeping inthe house so his alarm can wake him up! I had to kick everyone out of the house this morning after they all flowed in and plunked down in front of the television and computer games. I shoo'ed them all out, picked up the living room and vacuumed. OUr friends the Millwards dropped by for a little while on their way back to Idaho. They moved away from here about 4 years ago. OUr Esther had just been born and they had never seen Ida. We had never seen their Eowyn who is just over an year. Ethan is Charlie's age and Sammy is between Charlie and Eshter. We didn't even go in the house; the kids ran around on the grass in front and the Moms sat and yakked on the front porch. We miss each other! Tonight e had sandwiches inside with leuuuce from the garden. We'll have eggs, pancakes, and suasage tomorow for breakfast. Corn not quite ready, tomorow for corn.
Saturday: We must break camp. The grass needs to unsquish and get some sunlight and we don't want to wear out the tent either. Esther is very sad. So will Ginger and Erin be when they get home form their sleepover. I am sad, too, but maintianing two households (indoors and out) is too much work. We had one clear night for stargazing, thanks to Ginger who insisted we get up and look outside at 11:00pm. Ida did not sleep well in the tent, but did want to sleep in the tent, so I had to carry her in and tuck her in her crib after she'd fall asleep. She also did not like waking u in the house before I woke up outside. We did not find a happy medium for Ida. Everyone else loved sleeping in the tent, though. We were not able to spend as much time outdoors as I had wanted. And our corn was not very tasty when we finally ate it. But overall it was a good experience.
Sunday Night: After our last indoor dinner we set up our tents in the backyard. We started our setting up 2 six-man tents, but one is missing it's poles and stakes, so... we put those away and got out the 8 man tent and the shade structure. We got it set up and moved in with our sleeping bags and pillows. Our friend Justin slept over int he "boys' room" with Charlie.
Monday: The day started off with a big pink box of doughnuts and juice in the shade tent/eating tent, all set up with table, chairs and camp stove by Bruce who got up early. We played a round of charades while eating breakfast in our sleeping clothes. The weather was very overcast and cold so we all had jackets on. Then hung out the laundry (today is the last day for machine-washed clothes-tomorow begins the washboard) and I worked a bit on the bricks over to the side of the yard to terrace a planting area. Then the sun came out and I was getting too much sun, so I set up the solar water heater and then we decided it was a good time to construct our solar ovens. I started one I'd read about and Erin mane one she'd made with Girl Scouts. Ginger helped me finish mine while Erin moved on the her sundial. It is finished and she will be calibrating it for the next few days. We're testing the ovens to see how they get with a candy thermometer in a jar of water. We will need two ovens, else how will we heat up our chili and cornbread at the same time? That will be tomorow's dinner. We've been invited to a BBQ tonight. Tonight Suzy (Ruth's friend) will sleep over in our tent with us.
Tuesday: Cancel the BBQ last night, we wound up having spaghetti at home in the kitchen. Suzy's mom said 'No" to sleeping over. It turns out that Erin, Esther and Ida really like washing clothes on the washboard. I do too, but it gets a bit tiresome rather quickly. Esther and Ida use too much soap, so it takes a lot of rinsing. I have a new respect for the washerwomen of the Old West-- denim by hand is hard to work with! I only did a size 2T pair of jeans and it was difficult. The clothes take longer to dry, too, because we cannot wring them as dry as the washer spins them. We used our solar ovens today-- for canned chili and cornbread. The chili was adequately warmed, but the cornbread only half cooked before the sun disappeared behind clouds. We finished cooking it in our real oven inside. I'm not sure how to improve the efficiency of our solar ovens; perhaps tipping it so the sun goes in more directly and a better seal on the cover would make a difference. What to try next?
Wednesday: It just barely rained last night. Enough so we could hear it on the tent, but not enough to keep the ground wet in the morning. I expected to exit the tent to a soggy yard, but it was perfectly dry. Washed more laundry by hand today; Erin was so enthusiastic that whe brought down more form upstairs to do outside. Leftover chili and cornbread for lunch. ?? for dinner. Finished my retaining wall (those bricks I've been obsessed about) yesterday and planted my bean sprouts in it today.Pulled out Ginger's peas in the community garden and picked a lot of purple string beans, and few yellow. Oh, we'll have green beans for dinner! My original plan to live off the land has fallen by the asyside -- the lettuce all bolted and all that's ready to eat is a few peas, purple green beans and a couple fo zucchini. A few of the ears of corn will be ready by Friday.
Thursday: We took a field trip to the library today (ur regular library day), then we had to folow the rule and keep the library books inside, so we wound up spending a lot of time in the house today. And we've wound up cooking inside today , too. Not enough recipes for the solar oven, and I dont feel safe using the camp stove with a two-year old running around. We are still doing laundry on the washboard, but not all of it. It is very satisfying to clean your clothes by hand, but time consuming. And we are only whaing everything in cold water. Imagine if we were bining the water, boiling the clothes, using lye soap, etc. We have it easy. We are using a glass washboard (wooden frame, only the scrubbing surface is glass!) (avaliable at our local hardware stire' now I know they have everything!) and old Rubbermaid storage tote (the crack that developed in the bottom corner turned out to not be such a problem, it leaks very slowly) and some unfinished hand soap given to us by a neighbor that he had rescued from a soap factory going out of business. They were just throwing out a large slab of soap (which would have been milled, fragrance added, etc and shaped into pretty bars. He had chopped up the large slab into roughly bar sized chunks and given us a bucket full a few onths ago when he realised that he had hardly made a dent in the othr bucket he still had after several years. It's great stuff. It smells like clean soap, not perfumey, and is not best for washing hands, but is perfect for hand laundry). I may leave the laundry things outside on the back porch and throw a few clothes in now and then just for fun. It is quite pleasant to sit and scrub after dinner, then rinse and hang things up t dry over night (for shame! Never leave things on your clothes line overnight!) and they are dry by the following evening. The dry clothes are stiff, but with a softer feel to them than those done with detergent in a machine and then hung out. Enough about laundry. PS I am glad I don't have to diapers by hand-- then I would have to boil water, etc. I've been wahing diapers in the machine.
Friday: Ginger and Erin will gone tonight at a sleepover, and Bruce will able to sleep out inthe tent tonight with us. He only slept out the first night, then he had to go back to wrok, so he's been sleeping inthe house so his alarm can wake him up! I had to kick everyone out of the house this morning after they all flowed in and plunked down in front of the television and computer games. I shoo'ed them all out, picked up the living room and vacuumed. OUr friends the Millwards dropped by for a little while on their way back to Idaho. They moved away from here about 4 years ago. OUr Esther had just been born and they had never seen Ida. We had never seen their Eowyn who is just over an year. Ethan is Charlie's age and Sammy is between Charlie and Eshter. We didn't even go in the house; the kids ran around on the grass in front and the Moms sat and yakked on the front porch. We miss each other! Tonight e had sandwiches inside with leuuuce from the garden. We'll have eggs, pancakes, and suasage tomorow for breakfast. Corn not quite ready, tomorow for corn.
Saturday: We must break camp. The grass needs to unsquish and get some sunlight and we don't want to wear out the tent either. Esther is very sad. So will Ginger and Erin be when they get home form their sleepover. I am sad, too, but maintianing two households (indoors and out) is too much work. We had one clear night for stargazing, thanks to Ginger who insisted we get up and look outside at 11:00pm. Ida did not sleep well in the tent, but did want to sleep in the tent, so I had to carry her in and tuck her in her crib after she'd fall asleep. She also did not like waking u in the house before I woke up outside. We did not find a happy medium for Ida. Everyone else loved sleeping in the tent, though. We were not able to spend as much time outdoors as I had wanted. And our corn was not very tasty when we finally ate it. But overall it was a good experience.
posted by amphvivian at
5:39 PM
|
2 comments
