Angling with Bear Bait.

Posted on May 31, 2011 by Ozark Hiker

Bear Bait spent most of Memorial Day weekend on quarantine with his brother, fighting off a case of strep.  Neither one of those boys is what you’d consider an inside boy.  They’re only barely house-trained.   (Still working on teaching Bogie not to chew on the furniture.)

Momma lost a rock-paper-scissors tournament and got to stay home with both of them today.  I called in around nine to check on them and could hear the chaos bubbling around her teeth-clenched, “Fine” when I asked how things were going.   Had her put Bear Bait on the phone & gave him a little pep-talk.  Promised to do something special and outdoors with him soon as I got home.   All he had to do was be good to his momma and be tolerant of his brother.  His only request . . . he wanted to go fishing.

My heart did a little flutter.   No paternity test needed, that boy is definitely mine.  Now, see, I’ve been trying to get that boy fishing ever since he was old enough to chuck rocks into the water.  I’ve learned, through trial and error, a few critical rules:

Rule 1:  Only bring one fishing pole.  His.   You’ll have your hands full with that one, trust me.  If you want some peaceful, doze in the shade fishing, then go by yourself.

Rule 2:  Bring extra bobbers.

Rule 3:  Teach ’em to yell out “cast!” before slinging cork and always, always stand opposite whichever hand he holds the rod.

Rule 4:  Always keep your eye on the cork, especially when it is out of the water.   Stay light on your toes.

Rule 5:  Be prepared to hold his rod while he’s chasing bugs, playing with the worms, digging through the tackle, or chunking rocks.   Be prepared to hand it over immediately when the hook is set.   His pole, his trip = his fish.

Soon as I got home, Momma met me at the door with a smiling review of Bear Bait‘s behavior between the phone-call and my arrival.   And since a daddy that can’t find time to take his boy fishing ain’t no kind of daddy worth having, I had his pole ready before I walked in from the garage. We live about a half-mile from a little creek pond chock full of turtles and bluegill.

The baby bluegills were dancing his cork around as soon as he hit the water, which does amazing things for his attention span.   After feeding them a few worms, I switched him over to a smaller barbed hook and just threaded little pieces of worm onto it.  He landed his first fish today, catching two before dinner.   I’d post pictures, but I couldn’t find the digital camera before we left.  I keep a disposable camera in my tackle, though, just for emergencies like, oh, my son catching his first fish.

He lasted about thirty minutes before he wanted to head home and eat.  He’s still not 100% well and 30 minutes of uninterrupted fishing is a record for him.  Walking back up the hill, he turned to me and asked, “Dad, think we can go fishing tomorrow?”

Yeah, kid.

Yeah, I do.

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Anyone hear any cicadas yet?

Posted on May 6, 2011 by Ozark Hiker

I’m not quite to the point where I have my pack packed and sitting by the door, but I’m close.  Bear Bait has been asking me to take him fishing, so I think this weekend we’re going to try and traumatize some catfish.   But I have one ear to the wind, waiting for that cicada song.

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New addiction

Posted on April 23, 2011 by Ozark Hiker

Smores Goldfish.   Seriously.

Found this on Trail Cooking & The Outdoors (one of the sites I obsessively read.) They are dangerously good.  I have a relatively short list of snack foods that destroy any semblance of self-control I have over gluttony.  It just grew.

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oh . . . the waterfalls

Posted on April 23, 2011 by Ozark Hiker

April, she is a crazy girl.   While staring out the back window hoping that the hail isn’t doing too bad of a number on my gardens, and marveling at how well the greenhouses are standing up against tornadic winds. . . what I’m really thinking about is how amazing the waterfalls look about now.

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2 oz. of utility

Posted on April 20, 2011 by Ozark Hiker

The most useful tool in my kit is the 2 oz. bottle of Purell Hand Sanitizer.

10 from 2:

1.  Sanitizing of hands after taking care of business a good ways off-trail  – especially if you’re the camp chef.  Folks just appreciate that attention to detail.  Also good for after handling raw meat.

2.  Quick antiseptic wash for minor cuts ‘n scrapes.

3.  Fire-starter.  (Just remember that alcohol burns clear.  Don’t go poking it with your finger to see if it caught fire.  Trust me, it did.)

4.  Sploosh a glob on some toilet-paper, grit your teeth, and clear up that bad case of Summer swamp-booty before it turns into a four-alarm firecrack.  It’ll also clear up the latter, but you better chomp down on a stick before you try it otherwise your buddies may come running to help when they hear you scream.

5.  Clean & sterilize the razor or knife-blade before popping a blister.  (Okay, I know you’re not supposed to pop them but I can’t help it.  Your first line of defense is to not get ’em in the first place, so start with that.  Me?  I have to bleed those suckers dry.)

6.  Glasses cleaner.   I usually hike in contacts, but while making camp I’ll wear my glasses.  This helps keep the lenses smudge-free.

7.  Helps knock the greasy sheen off of cooking/eating utensils when a hot water wash just didn’t cut it.

8.  When you bust the crown off your front tooth out on the trail then glue it back together with superglue, but that makes it not fit right and fly out every time you say a word that starts with /d/, then if it lands on a particularly muddy part of the horse trail you’ll be glad you have a little sanitizer before you wedge it back in your mouth.

9.  Rub a little onto a tick bite for an antiseptic after removing the tick.  Don’t put it on the tick for removal, though.  It could make the nasty little bloodsucker vomit and potentially increase the risk of infection!?!

10.  Poison Ivy.  I’ve read conflicting reports about whether or not using hand sanitizer after exposure to poison ivy helps remove the oil and prevent a reaction.  I can’t say for sure if it works or not, but I’ve never had a reaction to poison ivy . . . and I know I’ve tangled with it more than once.   Still, I need a nice 10th use to round out the list and this one works good enough.

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Planning for the next hike

Posted on April 19, 2011 by Ozark Hiker

Okay, so when am I ever not planning for the next hike?

But there’s one on the horizon, after Easter for sure.  Maybe early May.  Mostly I am waiting for the cicada hatch.  Bear Bait has been messing around in my bin of backpacking gear.  He asked if he could use the Light My Fire utensil to eat dinner with the other night.  He’s worn the headlamp to bed so many times this week that the batteries need replacing.  He even chose to wear his hiking pants, shirt, and sandals to school last week.

Of course I let him.

Because I maybe, just maybe have been drinking coffee out of my metal pack mug.   And I maybe, just maybe have been wearing my favorite pair of wool hiking socks after I wake up in the morning.  And I maybe, just maybe have been missing the faint taste of iodine in my water.

Those bugs better hurry up.   I don’t care if they have been waiting thirteen years already.

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Swinging in the breeze

Posted on April 13, 2011 by Ozark Hiker

As far as I’m concerned, the most important part of my kit is my cook gear.  It won’t win any ultra-light awards, but it does allow me to scratch up some trail-side meals that folks talk about years after the fact.

But since I’m not actively planning another hike I will feed the addiction by talking about the rest of my gear (though, as soon as I hear cicadas singing, me and Bear Bait will be heading back out into the green).

My first overnight backpacking trip was on the Wedington Trail.  It isn’t the prettiest trail I’ve ever seen, nor was it particularly noteworthy for anything other than being my first.  It was early May with overnight lows in the 30’s.  I slept on the ground, in a cheap 40-degree bag under a borrowed ultralight tent.   Well, I didn’t really sleep.  I sort of spent the night trying to huddle deeper into the bag while grinding rocks into my back and side.  Kat was laid out on a sliver of foam under a tarp and snoring like a middle-manager’s Harley.   Not thirty feet away was a 4′-long timber rattler curled up under a rock and all I could think about (between cursing cold, stones, and backpacking in general) was how nice and warm I must be in comparison to that rock.

Before the next hike, I ended up buying a cheap parachute hammock.  The seams started unraveling on the first night.  So I took that back.  My next attempt, still trying to be frugal, was to buy an Army surplus jungle hammock.   I swear those things weigh about 80 lbs. and have a sleeping area approximately the width of a teacup chihuahua.  Once you find the sweet spot for balance, as long as you sleep stone-still, you’ll be okay.  Me, I just learned to sling it low to the ground.  That way, all I had to do was stick out a hand and flip it back over.  I did what I could to minimize the weight – mainly replacing the thick hanging ropes with paracord – but after three or four hikes, I gave up trying to get a good night’s sleep out of that thing.

Now Kat is my guide and mentor in everything but food (and maybe water procurement), and most of the crew had been having a good time trail-snobbing my tendency to buy and then modify mil-surplus gear.  Reluctant as I was to rob them of such a fine source of amusement, I decided that it was time to stop being so cheap about my sleeping gear.  I saved my pennies and went straight for the best thing I could find.

The Clark North American.

This is hands-down the most expensive piece of equipment I have for backpacking.   But, oh . . . it is so worth it.  The first time I used it was in mid-December (2009) on the Buffalo River Trail.  Overnight low was around 18 degrees and both mornings we woke up dusted with snow.  I was so warm each night that I had to unzip the outer wall to let some cool air in.  That first morning, after the veterans endured the muffled farts and asynchronous snoring of a shared tent, they crawled and huddled on a snow-covered log to make their coffee.  I was humming softly, kicking my feet while swaying gently under the silnylon tarp.  Sipping coffee while huddled in my sleeping bag.   I’d love to say I had the grace not to gloat.

They’ve since mothballed the tents and bought hammocks of their own.

I’ve stayed bone dry in thunderstorms, warm in winter, and mosquito-free in summer.  In a few years, if he’s still serious about hiking with me Bear Bait will have one of his own.  That hammock sleeps better than my own bed.

My sleep kit includes:

* seasonal sleeping bag (though my 0-degree is my most comfortable)

* hammock & tree straps

* 1/2 of a fleece blanket (serves as a liner on really cold nights)

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Spring harvest

Posted on April 12, 2011 by Ozark Hiker

That last 20-degree low did a number on my seedlings in the greenhouse.   That’s April for you.  I ain’t mad at her.  She’s too pretty to stay mad at for long.   I salvaged what I could, started a few more seeds to make up for the ones lost.

The leaf lettuce has come in thick and strong enough that I got an entire bowl full of greens just thinning it out.  A little rinse and a few rounds in the spinner, a little olive oil and balsamic vinegar.  I’m amazed each year at how much better things taste fresh out of the soil.  This year I mixed several packages of leaf lettuce mixes so that I don’t even know what all is growing.   Hell, I could be munching on a little fescue in that mix for all I know.  (I did find out my compost pile didn’t kill off all the grass seeds.  Gotta keep an eye on that.)

My mint has finally come up thick enough that I can start making tea.  Either I’m out of practice with that or I just didn’t cut enough.  The first pot of Spring was a little weak and grassy tasting (and I know I didn’t get the fescue in that).  Next one will be better.

I put six corn seedlings in the ground because they just weren’t doing well in the greenhouse.  Not sure if it is the container or not, but they seemed to be drying out too quickly.   I side-filled them with compost and spread a layer of straw over the top.  I’ll see how that takes them through April.  Once May comes around, I’ll see how well they survived.  I’m going to try the three sisters this year and I need the corn to get a good head start on the beans.

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13-year hike

Posted on April 11, 2011 by Ozark Hiker

We’re  a couple of weeks away from a big cicada hatch, something that won’t happen again until 2024.  I have to take Bear Bait out for an overnight while they’re out and singing.  First the supermoon and now this . . . six is looking like it is going to be a cool age for that little boy.

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Mattdaddy’s Wilderness Bistro – the kitchen

Posted on April 1, 2011 by Ozark Hiker

Between hikes I tend to think a lot about backpacking.  Guess that’s what makes it an obsession.   In fact, this blog is just therapy for my addiction.  When I can’t hike, I try to corner someone and talk about hiking.  When all my non-backpacking friends run away from me, then I have to write about it.

I’ve already posted a few recipes bragging on some of my trail-side culinary challenges, and there’s more to come.  Today I want to write a bit about my cook kit and its continuous evolution.

When I started backpacking, I used a solid-fuel pellet stove.  One of those little Coghlan’s foldable metal deals.  Problem was that the fuel pellets were hard to find and, when I did have them, they left a sticky black residue on the bottom of my pots.  I saved up a little and bought a MSR PocketRocket ultralight backpacking stove.  This baby is wonderful.  Can boil 1 liter of water in 3.5 minutes.  You can adjust the flame a little and, with practice, I can bring something to a brisk simmer.  The specs say that you can get 60 minutes of burn time out of a single 8 oz. fuel canister.  I’ve never timed it that exact, but I find that I need new fuel canister about every fourth or fifth hike.  Depends a little on how complex my meals tend to be.  If all I have to do is bring water to a boil then seems like that one can will last me forever.

It does emit just enough of a sound to spook horses.  While I do tend to get annoyed at the Howdy Doodys riding them, I actually like horses.  So, turn it off if a group rides near where you’re cooking.

My pots are the MSR Titan 2 set.  They’re lightweight and nest with enough room to hold the lifting clamp, fuel canister, lighter, and scrubbing pad.  The mesh carrying bag for the pots has just enough room for me to slip in the 4″ griddle.  I snagged that from Walmart in the housewares section.  It is light, probably aluminum, with a no-stick surface.  The plastic handle was held on just with a screw, so I took that off.  The clamp for the pots easily lifts the griddle where the handle used to be.

I have a Light My Fire utensil and then a couple of forks and spoons that I picked up at Wendy’s.  Their plastic utensils are much more durable than most you’ll find.  Not shown in the picture is my Leatherman Blast multi-tool.  I’d like to upgrade to one of their skeletools eventually, but I’m happy with the one I have.   Missing from the kit is a spatula, but all I need to do for that is remember to grab one of my plastic ones out of the kitchen.  Doesn’t have to be big, just something to use other than my fingers for flipping steaks and grilled cheese sandwiches.

For water purification, I rely on Polar Pure water disinfectant.  (Well, that and never sending Kat uphill to look for water.  He’ll dredge a muddy hoof-print through a handkerchief just to prove that you can find something to drink anywhere.)  I admit that I was a little wary at first, but after several years and countless miles it has made a believer out of me.

Last item in my pack kitchen is a travel-size tube of hand sanitizer.  This is the P-38 of my kit.   I’ll have to devote {Here is} a post to all the amazing uses of a 2 oz bottle of sanitizer.  For the kitchen, though, it is simply good culinary manners for the camp chef to have clean hands while prepping the food.

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