Zero Waste Lifestyle

 Have you heard of this lifestyle?  Bea Johnson who writes at Zero Waste Home and lives in California seems to be at the forefront of the movement but there are many others who have also worked towards the goal of producing Zero (or as close as possible) waste.

     I admit I find this concept quite fascinating. And if you didn't already think I was a little unique or radical you quite likely do now. 😛 I would probably be all in deciding I would never create trash again if I didn't have my family who I am pretty sure would do a lot of feet dragging (and by the way - I'll take my family any day over some concept like that). However I do think that I can work my family into it gradually. 😊 Little by little we can create less and less trash.

   I think this concept resonates so much with me as over the last few years I have become more and more aware of the beautiful way that God designed things to all work together. Joel Salitin's books really left me in awe of our God who created the food chain and just made plants and animals to work together so well and be mutually beneficial to one another. And God made us as part of that wonderful plan. He put us in charge of the animals and gave us plants and animals to eat. Truly He gave us so much. I want to be the best steward of this gift that He has given us that I can. I also realize that my time here on earth is only for a little while and then it will be enjoyed by the generations yet to come. I want to do my best to take care of things so that they can fully enjoy it too.

  So with those thoughts it makes sense to me to create as little as I can of the kind of trash that doesn't decompose and cannot be made easily into something else. Though I am very thankful for plastic and the many wonderful uses it does have I really like the idea of trying to majorly limit my use of it especially with single use items. Plastic doesn't decompose easily and I have heard about a variety of issues that the plastic trash can create in our world. Yet we use it all the time with single use items: straws, plasticware, plastic cups, packaging on new items purchased, grocery bags and the list goes on and on and on.

  I have found this fun to think on and figure out new ideas for dishsoap (without the plastic bottle), Salad dressings (though I have made them myself many times in the past this is something I have gotten "lazy" on and have tended to buy quite a bit recently), buying animal feed without throwaway bags, and simply seeing what I can do without that is going to create trash. It is pretty fun to be able to have the internet at our finger tips and so over and over again I can search for things like: "How to make iced starbucks coffee (something I intend to find out as Ken likes to drink that in the summer), "How to mix your own chicken food", "How to make dishsoap", "How to make toilet bowl cleaner" (I usually use baking soda which works just fine but we recently had some water softener issues and I ended up with orange in my toilets and so I am looking for a way to get rid of that) and many other things. It is so neat!

   This post I actually wrote (but didn't feel like I had finished) earlier this summer. I have been mulling this idea over in my brain for quite a while now. And when I was thinking about joining in to the Write 31 Days in October I knew that I would like to try seeing if I ("we" to an extent) could go Zero Waste for one month and write about it. So that is what we are going to do. It won't be done perfectly, I know that, but I think it is fun to stretch my thinking a little. To make me be a little more creative and think outside the box and I think this will do that.

   Just another thought.... Though I do think it is important to take care of the creation that God has made I don't ever, ever want to get so obsessed with that to the point that I am actually worshiping the creation rather than the creator. Also, I know that I will need to make some exceptions to going fully zero waste out of respect and honor for my husband and his wishes. Honoring my husband is far more important to me than living perfectly zero waste.

   But overall I think this will be fun to try and to blog about. I have not done so hot at blogging regularly/often in the last few years so we will see if I really can write a post for every day in October. Even if you aren't into this idea of zero waste at all I hope you follow along because I plan on sharing a lot of projects, ways you can save money and just tid-bits of life at our homestead.

The Church is the Temple of God

The Church being the Temple of God seems to be something that many have heard at one time but many also don't seem to truly understand that and what it means. Let me explain....

  The background for this figure of speech refers back to the temple that was built in the Old Testament. God gave the pattern for this temple (which was planned in David's day and actually built in Solomon's) see 1 Chronicles 28:10-19 "All this", said David, "the Lord made me understand in writing by His hand upon me, all the details of this pattern." The temple was the place where the service of God was performed.  The temple was also the place of God's symbolic presence. It was God's house.

  What I get trouble by in our current culture (and probably even more so in times gone by such as the Middle Ages) is that many people seem to confuse Church buildings with the temple and see them as the same thing. They aren't!

  1 Corinthians 3:16 says: "Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?" 2 Corinthians 6:16-17 says: "Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, "I will dwell in them and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate", says the Lord. "And do not touch what is unclean; and I will welcome you."

 The church is the temple of God and that is not talking about any building. It is talking about people. Christians! In 1 Timothy 3:15 the church is also referred to as the house of God: "but in case I am delayed, I write so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth."

 Here are some more verses that refer to the church /Christians being built into a temple of God:

Ephesians 2:19-22 "So the you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God's household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit."

1 Peter 2:5 "You also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ."

Like the temple in the Old Testament this temple also is one in which God dwells. He has sent His Spirit to dwell within every Christian. Acts 2:38 and 39 says: "Peter said to them, "Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to himself."

Let's remember too that Jesus is the builder of this Church (not one made with cold stones but rather living stones - People!). "I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it." Matthew 16:18

Are you a part of God's church?  Have you heard this little children's song before:
"I am the church, you are the church. We are the church together. All who follow Jesus, all around the world. Yes, we're the church together!

The Church is not a building, the church is not a steeple, the church is not a resting place. The church is the people!"

That little song explains much of what I have been writing about today.

Jackpine Retreat 2017

 Last weekend we headed up North to go to the Jackpine Retreat. That is an annual weekend church camp that I have attended since I was a baby (I have missed two years of my life - both times I lived out of state and one of those times I was nearly due to have Mara). It is one of the highlights of our year. We meet up with a bunch of other Christians (and most of them homeschooling families) in the woods of Northern MN to do some rustic camping together for a weekend. We sing praise to God sitting around a campfire and spend some time listening to sermons together as well. It is a blessing to us. We love the relaxed times of fellowshipping with others.

 Most all of my extended (brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews and my parents for one day) go as well. It is always fun to spend more time with them.

 My sister Anna and my Brothers son, my nephew, Buirlen.

 My in-laws got to go for the first time this year as well. It was fun to have them there. They are used to camping but I don't think they normally have gone when it is this cold and wet. But they came prepared.

 Ken and his Dad enjoy playing games together (our family in general enjoys games) and here they and Ken's cousin Christy and Mara and cousins were playing Settlers of Catan.

 We all set up our own little campsites here and there and cook our own meals though some groups tend to cook together. My nephew Ephraim who is one was camping at a different spot but he walked over on Saturday afternoon to say "Hi" and then he and I had fun hanging out together for a little while.

 My brother Luke built a new outhouse for one end of camp while we were up there this weekend. The one that had been on that end was rather old so it got burnt down. Many turned out to watch. :-)

 Rain coats were the jacket of choice this past weekend as it rained off and on sometimes really hard and sometimes really lightly. My niece Molly had been wearing her papa's raincoat around and she thought it was rather big so she and Bea (another niece) decided to share it.

When cleaning up from camping Ken always likes to vigorously shake out the tarps. I guess that was something that he learned from his dad and he remembers fondly doing that with his dad as a child. It was fun to come up on them shaking a tarp together when we were packing up at Jackpine.

A Weekend In Southern Minnesota at a 4-H Shooting Sports Event and then Visiting Plum Creek

 Harvest season is still in full swing around here and I have been trying to get something canned, frozen or dried every day but we still have been able to take the last two weekends and go places. That has been rather fun. On September 8th we headed down to Fairmont which is very close to the Iowa border. I had never been there before and so as we got closer it was rather fun to see new territory that we had never seen before.
     Our whole family except Jonathan went. We had thought that we would all go but Jonathan didn't feel like taking a long trip (6 hours of driving each way - so not that bad but still quite a while in the car) and wanted to be in church here on Sunday to try to connect more with a new young man that had started coming. His staying home meant that he could do the chores and he was able to go help my dad with barn building so it seemed to make sense. While he was home my Sister and Brother-in-law also had him over for supper one night and my father-in-law came over to go kayaking with him so he stayed fairly busy and didn't get to lonely. Jonathan also cleaned the house while we were gone so that was a big plus for him staying home!

   We camped at the fairgrounds in Fairmont where the event was being held. It was a pretty nice place (lots of trees and grass) but unfortunately somebody had very recently spread pig manure on the field right next to the fairgrounds and the place smelled horribly like a hog farm much of the time. We thought about wearing kerchiefs over our nose. I felt very thankful to not live on a hog farm.

 Aaron is the one who is in 4-H shooting sports. They have a very good program here where we live. There are volunteers who train the kids and provide all the guns and equipment for them to use. They have been very successful too. Our county tends to take home a lot of the awards at state shoots such as this one (that was true again this year) and the older kids usually go to Nationals and they also have a team that goes to the Junior Olympics.

 Aaron's first event to shoot in (at 7:45 am on Saturday morning) was shooting the .22 rifle. Aaron came in 5th in this event with a score of 227 (the highest score for the intermediates was 256).

 After they shoot they each take somebody else's target and score it, then the person it belongs to looks at it and checks to make sure it was scored correctly. If they don't think it was then they stand in line to talk to an adult field supervisor and they can contest the score they were given. This happens more often than not and Aaron had to do it every single time. By contesting the scoring on this event he was able to gain 11 points. I heard about one time somebody gained around 100 points from doing this. It would seem like some kids aren't very careful to do a good job when they are scoring for others.

 Aaron shooting 3 position Air Rifle. Aaron was 11th in this one (just out of medal range) with a score of 198.

 We were happy that Ken brought binoculars as we used them regularly to check out the targets while Aaron was shooting. We could actually tell whether he got a bulls-eye or not and just how well he was doing.

 Mara brought books along and had fun reading.

 Megan enjoyed trying out a video game that was available in the display building.

Aaron also shot in Air Pistol and got 10th place (score of 286) , another 10th in Silhouette Rifle (score of 10), and a 7th place in Standard Air Rifle (score of 231). His team (of 4 intermediate shooters from our county) place 1st in 3 of their 4 events and 2nd in the other one. We are pretty happy for them.

 It was a neat time to hang out with others from the 4-H community in our county. They had a area set up where one man (who doesn't even have kids in the program!) volunteered to cook meals for all of us. We brought along side dishes to go with the meals. Dwight is in the background of the picture above working hard at the grill. He and Mike (who trains the kids to shoot) don't want their shooters to eat much sugar at all so they served fairly healthy meals. Mike believes that sugar makes kids jittery and they won't shoot as well so tries to keep them off of it anytime close to either shooting practice or competition. I observed that many of the other counties did not follow that protocol (they had sugary cinnamon rolls and other things of that nature in their tents) and our kids did tend to shoot better than they did.

    Aaron just did one shooting event early Sunday morning and then we drove over to Worthington, MN to go to church. My roommate from college moved their to marry a man a few years ago and I was hoping to surprise her at church. It just so happens that a guy that I grew up with (he is several years younger but his older sister is a great friend of mine and his parents and younger sister still live here and go to church with us) had recently moved there as well to be an associate minister in the church there so I thought it would be fun to see them too. We did see Dan and family but my friend Stacy was out of town though I did get to meet her husband.

  After church we headed up to Walnut Grove, MN because we wanted to see Plum Creek and the area that Laura wrote about in "On the Banks of Plum Creek".

 We went to the gift store by the museum and Megan bought herself a parasol. She is standing on a rock that is on the banks of Plum Creek just down from the dugout site.

 Plum Creek

 At the dug out site.

 Prairie area nearby.

The bridge over plum creek. It was pretty there and we even found plums. We also enjoyed a picnic at by the creek.

 I really love the Little House Series and my family has enjoyed it as well. It was fun to finally see this spot which was the setting of the one book. We have also gone to see the spot where they lived in Little House in the Big Woods. I also was able to see Desmit, ND when I was a teen.

  Exploring new places is fun but it is always lovely to come home! Have you gone traveling this summer? Did you have any favorite places to visit?

BBQ Grill Light {Product Review}

 Each fall we buy a portion of a grass fed (and finished) beef to provide much of our meat for the year. Because we buy our beef in bulk like that we are also able to get steak and such for basically the same price as hamburger. Which is really nice because I have noticed that buying steak at the store is incredibly expensive.

  Anyway, we like to grill steaks or hamburgers from time to time. For most of the summer we have long days and we have plenty of light for our grilling but as fall draws near the days get shorter and if we have a late supper we can be left grilling in the dark.

  Cave Tools offered to let me have their BBQ grill light so that we could try it out and do a review for them. We like lights so that sounded like a nice offer to us.

  The grill light came in a nice padded box along with a little screwdriver that you could use to open the area where you change the batteries. The light seems to be quite sturdy and well made.

 The light it also quite bright. It is easy to turn on and off which is both a positive and negative about this light. It is positive because who really wants things that are hard to turn on a off? Also, if you hands are full all you need to do it just tap the little icon on the top with the back of your hand or whatever and the light will turn on or off. Really simple. The downside to that is that if you wanted to leave it on the grill with a cover over it the cover could quite likely hit it and turn it on and you wouldn't know and it would wear out the battery.

 The light also has a nice clamping device so  you can hook it to something to hold it in place. That is handy but it is a little bit challenging to direct just the way you want it as it wiggles to easily. Also how our grill worked it seemed like the only place available for clamping was on the handle of the lid and then it was in the way when you opened and closed the grill. It was doable but just not real easy.

  But over all it worked fine for grilling and it is a nice light. I did also take it camping this past weekend and it came in handy there. I also think that it would make a nice bike light.

  If you would like to buy one you can find it on Amazon  or at Cave Tools. If you buy it at Cave Tools you can use this coupon code to get it 15% off: BBQLIGHT15 .

 Does your family like to grill? What is your favorite thing to cook on the grill? Also - who runs the grill in your household? I do the strong majority of cooking in this family but when it is time to grill - Ken is in charge.

Disclaimer: I did receive this product free for purposes of reviewing but all opinions expressed are my own.

Changes at Our Place

 Last month brought some changes with it. Jonathan turned 16 years old and shortly thereafter got his drivers' license. Shortly before that he had bought a car from my brother. So, now we have another licensed driver with his own set of wheels.

I knew that it would bring some changes but I didn't realize quite how much. Obviously Ken and I can choose to say "no" to his driving but so far everything he has wanted to do makes sense or is perfectly fine but it is a change.

   So far....

• He has been driving himself to work most of the time rather than riding in with Ken when he goes to work and then hanging out at Ken's office for the extra time. I like this because that means Jonathan is home more. Jonathan thought it was really important because then he could do his school work here at home where I could be around to help when needed. He is able to give Mara rides some too when their schedules work out.
• He has driven to baseball and church some just because it is fun or because he was already in town for work or he thinks he needs to go to the store afterwards. That is really kind of weird to me to be bringing multiple cars and not have my family all together but I think this will tone down a little and it isn't a big deal.
• When the rest of the family went to a 4-H shooting event in southern MN last weekend Jonathan opted to stay home and do chores and was able to drive over to Grandpa and Grandmas to help out, go to church and go over to my sisters' for supper all in his own car.
• He was able to take his siblings on errands.
• He was able to go after work over to help his Granddad out.
• And today he and Aaron headed off on their own to go camping. We do have other family members camping up north too and we are joining them tomorrow but still it is weird to have our boys just leave us and go like that. I think it is cool though too - Ken and I can't go early because of our work, Mara has schooling to work on and Megan actually did go early catching a ride with Granddad and Nana but the boys can go have fun all on their own. It was pretty fun watching them get ready for it as they planned all their food to prepare on their own until we get their tomorrow evening. They also took along tarps and all of our tents so that they can get the whole site set up before we arrive. It is looking rather nice to have a son with his own wheels.

This experience is also a good opportunity for Jonathan to learn about budgeting and managing money wisely. He worked and saved up to pay for his own car. He is also the one who pays for his insurance (under our plan so that he saves money but he pays for his part) and for his gas and any repairs that are needed. Ken had him work out a budget before he ever got the car to figure out how he would pay for everything. For us having the kids pay for things like this themselves makes sense as we think it makes them appreciate it a little more and to start realizing what they are going to be facing as adults and to prepare for that.

 Do you have children that drive? Did that change things a lot at your place? I am curious what your take is on having children paying for things like their own car and insurance - do you do it that way or do you prefer to pay for it for them?

Seeking to Simplify - Our Simple Homeschool

Well, another school year has begun! I meant to write this Tuesday which was our first day of school but that didn't end up happening. Septembers always seem to be a very busy time! :-)

I have been having fun continuing to go through things and get rid of excess. On Monday evening (just in time for school to start!) I cleaned out our school cupboard where we keep many of the books we are actively using that year. It was fun to get that organized again.

 Above your can see the mess left over from last year and then stuffing in that happened during the summer.

 So much better now! I was able to get rid of a lot of old papers and found a couple of books to move along as well.

This past week was successful in that I got rid of 25 plus things and went through 5 different areas. Hooray!

I was excited to start school again and though the youngest two denied it I think all the kids were kind of excited to start school too.

We keep our homeschooling pretty simple. I don't do any elaborate lesson planning. We don't buy tons of books at the beginning of our school year (that isn't really in the budget nor do we find the need for it). My kids for the most part are using Math books that I used when I was a child being homeschooled. It is Saxon math and it still works well and they have been used by many children now. For writing they do copywork out of the Bible into a notebook and also write letters and essays when I give them that direction. They are using some English books and Spelling books that we had gotten others years or had been given to us. The younger two are also going through some geography books that were given to us.

 For Bible we prefer to read and memorize straight scripture and we make that a big part of our school day. We do also read other edifying books together from time to time. Music is important to us but we don't use any elaborate program. We just do a lot of playing and singing together.

  We love History and read it thought living books just as much as we can. I read it aloud to them often and they read it on their own as well. Science we learn through various books and generally ones that I read aloud to them. Government/Constitution/Civics is learned together through books and discussions.

Mara is doing online college again this year and I didn't end up getting a picture of her first day. This is her senior year in our homeschool. Time does fly quickly.

How is your school year going? How do you make it simple for you?
I do realize when I write about our ways that others might find that overwhelming but it is what works for us. I do think that homeschooling methods though we can truly learn from each other they are highly personal. We each have our different styles and we need to figure out what is the best fit for us.

The Beginning of the Church

  What is the church? It is simply God's people here on earth. His church is made up of all Christians - it does not refer to a specific denomination but rather all people who are true Christians.

  The church is spoken of in the Bible using various figures of speech. Let's look at some of those:

"Kingdom" - Colossians 1:13 "For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son," Check out also: Matthew 16:18 & 19, Acts 28:31 and Acts 19:8

"The Flock" - "Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood." Acts 20:28

"The Body of Christ" -Ephesians 1:22 & 23 "And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all." See also: 1 Corinthians 12:27, Romans 12:4 & 5, Colossians 1:24

How did this church begin?
To begin with the church/the Kingdom was prophesied about in the book of Daniel. You can look at the whole story in chapter 2. King Nebuchadnezzar had a dream which Daniel with God's help interpreted. It spoke of quite a few kingdoms that were strong and then destroyed and then it talks about the Church/kingdom in verse 44: "In the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed, and that kingdom will not be left for another people; it will crush and put an end to all thses kingdoms, but it will itself endure forever." If you look at Daniel chapter 2 along with history you can understand this prophesy more fully.

The kingdom/church was spoken of before Jesus died for us on the cross. John the Baptist ("Now in those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying, Repent, for the kingdom of haven is at hand." Matthew 3:1 & 2), Jesus ("From that time Jesus began to preach and say, "Repent, for the kingdom of heave is at hand." Mt. 4:17), The Apostles ("And as you go, preach, saying, "The kingdom of heaven is at hand." Mt. 10:7) and the seventy ("and heal those in it who are sick, and say to them, "The kingdom of God has come near to you." Luke 10:9) all preached that God's Kingdom was coming very soon.

In Mark 9:1 Jesus told the apostles "Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power."  Assuredly they have all now died and the kingdom has indeed come. Jesus when he taught the disciples to pray taught them to pray for the kingdom to come.

Here are some scriptural predictions which were given concerning the coming kingdom/church:
"I also say that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven." Matthew 16:18 & 19
So Peter was going to be instrumental to the beginning of the church.

"Now it will come about that In the last days the mountain of the house of the Lord will be established as the chief of the mountains, and will be raised above the hills; and all the nations will stream to it. And many peoples will come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; That He may teach us concerning His ways and that we may walk in His paths." Isaiah 2:2-3
This time it wouldn't be just for the Jews - it would be for all nations!

"And that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem." Luke 24:47
Again - it was for all nations and here were find another clue - it would start in Jerusalem.

When did this kingdom, the church, actually begin?
You can find this story in Acts chapter 2. There were people from many nations in the city of Jerusalem at the time. The apostles and other followers of Jesus were altogether. The Holy Spirit came upon them. They were all able to talk to all the people assembled there in each of the listeners own language.  Peter then started to preach. He told them all about God's plan and how He had sent Jesus but how godless men (and they were among them) nailed Him to the cross but how He rose again. He proclaimed Jesus as Lord.
"Now when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Brethren, what shall we do?" Peter said to them, "Repent, and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself." And with many other words he solemnly testified and kept on exhorting them, saying, "Be saved from this perverse generation!" So then, those who had received his word were baptized; and that day there were added about three thousand souls. They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer." Acts 2:37-42  In verse 47 it talks about the Lord adding to their number (in some versions it says the church) day by day those who were being saved.

What a blessing it is to be a member of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, the Church and to follow King Jesus! Do you have that blessing in your life?

Big Fork River Canoe Trip

 Our main adventure this year was to go on a canoe trip on the Bigfork River. It was nice because we didn't have to travel very far for this adventure. Only around an 1 1/2 hours of driving time. Still with being that close to home it was fun to see the difference in the plants in that location and we got to see new and lovely scenery. I actually had been on that stretch of river before - 21 years ago - but that was at a different time of year and the water was higher so that made it different a bit too.

Our first adventure for the trip was to have a rock (we think) fly up just before we got to our starting spot and shatter the back window of our van. Though of course that wasn't ideal we still found many reasons to be thankful in that situation: 1. Nobody was hurt. 2. I am so thankful for the person who designed car windows to break in such a safe way where people and tires don't get hurt by sharp glass particles. Also even though it was completely shattered it still held together for the week (during loading up when we got back it did fall out). 3. That we had tape along. 4. That I had happened to grab what I thought was an emergency blanket and brought it along. It wasn't an emergency blanket but rather this silver tube thing but I had a pair of scissors in the van and we cut it to size and used it to cover the window. 5. Ken's parents to help us out with vehicle moving and covering up the window.

God is truly good! He knew what was going to happen even if we didn't and made sure we were prepared.

 My in-laws drove up with us (in their own car) and then moved our van to the ending spot so that it would be ready for us. We were a little concerned about security with leaving it in a parking lot for days but all was well when we got back.

 Ready to go (my Mother in law is also in the picture but she didn't actually go with us).

 Megan was my partner the first day. We rode in the Bonnie Mae - my canoe that I had with me on this river 21 years ago as well.

 Ken and Aaron were together the first day. Ken used Mara's canoe (the "Abbigail A") for the trip. It is a comfortable and sturdy canoe which also takes more work to make it go fast. Ken likes it though. In the picture above Ken's partner had gotten out on a rock.

Jonathan and Mara were in my parents' aluminum canoe which is Jonathan's favorite canoe so he stayed in that one for the trip. We rotated around to have different combinations of canoeing companions each day.

 The first night we camped at Little American Falls. It is nothing like a mountain waterfall (which my Mountain Man-Ken, who grew up around Mountains- noticed) but it is still pretty.

 There were Bottle Gentian there. A flower we don't often see around our place.

 It rained the first evening. I had brought an extra raincoat along for Megan and it was handy so Mara wore it. :-) Mara cooked steaks over the fire which turned out very good. I made instant potatoes with other dried veggies in it.

 The next morning there was a mist over the water.

 It was really pretty and I couldn't truly capture the look.

 Hot cocoa along with fried apple biscuits and eggs for breakfast.

Throughout the trip we would hit shallow water at time and end up getting stuck on a rock. The result was that generally somebody would get out of the canoe and pull us off. The above picture is showing that. :-)

  We did also get to go through little rapids here and there through out the trip. Because of the time of year the water was lower and going slower so some of the rapids simply caused us to have to slow down a lot, others did speed us up and were pretty fun to maneuver through. Various parts of the trip seemed like an obstacle course and that added a lot of interest.

 Aaron was my partner for most of the second day (He and Jonathan did trade places for a while). That was our longest day going around 24 miles.

 Megan and Mara found a mossy place in the trees to put their tent that night. This was at the Half-way campsite.

 It was next to a patch of wild ginger. We harvested some for tea.

 Ken out in the woods.

 On the third day Megan was with Ken, Mara with me and the boys together.

 Jonathan sometimes took a rather relaxed posture while paddling. Other times he liked to paddle standing up.

 We would generally all get together and hold on to each other to eat our lunch while still floating down stream. Floatilla is the long ago term that was coined for that action.

 Mara made a pasta dish for supper that night at our Johnson Landing campsite. It was pretty yummy!

 Our day of canoeing had been shorter (only 14 miles) and so we had time to get flowers for our table and enjoy the campsite a little more.

 Lovely to have all this family time!

 Family, cups of tea (that night our tea was from wild mint that Mara had collected), chocolate (a gift from a friend) and flowers - What more could you ask for?

 This campground (all of them were free to camp at along our way - what a blessing!) had a big area that seemed perfect for playing croquet or frisbee. We hadn't brought either along but a bucket lid was able to take the place of a frisbee. They played "monkey in the middle" while I washed supper dishes. I don't mind doing most of the dishes while out camping as it gives me opportunities to actually get my hands clean. I spend plenty of the day with pretty dirty feeling hands - washing dishes is nice.

 There was a lot of Sneezeweed along the banks. That is not a flower we have around here so it was fun to see. I think it is rather cute. We also saw a LOT of wild asparagus fern on the banks. I wish we could go back at asparagus season.

 Saturday it rained much of the day.

 Jonathan was very ready to get to our warm and dry home that evening. I guess we all were. However we did have a lot of fun and I am thankful for the sunshine and the rain.

I found some pictures of our trip on this same river 21 years ago. Here are a couple:

 My friend Becky and I and my canoe which we used then and I also used this year. That trip was the first time Becky or I had gone on rapids and it was quite an adventure for us. I believe Becky and I did a lot of the cooking on that trip as well (I know we did on a later one but I am not 100% sure about this one).

Some (but not all) of the canoes on that trip in 1996. It must have been lunch time and we were having a floatilla. :-)

 Have you gone on a canoe trip before? I would love to hear your stories.  Where did you go? What was it like? We are always on the lookout for new places to explore.