Build A Fire With an Orange

... so build a fire and roast some marshmallows! I recently took my grandchildren camping and I bought some of those extra large marshmallow to roast. Be careful if you use them. They retain twice the heat. I burned my bottom lip on one and I actually had a blister the next day!

Outdoor Creatures

While camping near the ocean on the Alabama/Florida coast, we had some interesting encounters with nature.

Rattle snake a camper found underneath his RV

A blue crab a teenager captured off the boat docks

Kid's Hiking Sticks

I have been contemplating making hiking sticks for my grandchildren 6 and 3 to use when we go camping. I'm torn between making them or buying them. Finding the right stick to make one from can be difficult sometimes, especially when you are looking for two.

I found someone else had made one HERE.

Then, I found THIS.

I really like the idea of the homemade whistle attached. We could still probably draw the ruler on it. I like that idea too. At this point, I'm undecided, but thought I'd share just in case anyone found it to be beneficial to them.

A Cool Gadget For Outdoors

It's great camping weather! We just got back from camping in the North Georgia Mountains. It was great! I was recently introduced to a cool tool that would make a great gift for some gadget loving guy. Especially, if he's an outdoorsman.





There are different kinds of fire pistons, so research a little. You can buy a basic one here. This is the one I have.

Get the Scout Fire Piston here


Here's one that's a step up and has the vented bottom.

Get the Coco Bolo Piston here

Happy Camping!

A Mildew Mess

I didn't intend for my first post to be quite this way but I've spent the majority of the day on this so it's on my mind.

A few weeks ago my husband and I, my daughter and 2 of my grandchildren went camping. On the last day, it was raining. This meant all of the camping equipment was damp. We decided to leave it in the truck while we painted the camping equipment closet. A few days later, the camping things were unloaded and we had a mildew mess!

I had to find information on killing mildew from fabric. I found a good place to start.

Remove mildew from fabric chairs

I cleaned 2 children and 4 adult chairs, along with a pack and play. The only thing I did different was to spray everything with a light coating of windex before I used the solution and put a little pinesol in the water to disinfect the odor.

I didn't take a picture of the nasty mildew stains beforehand because I hadn't planned to post this (it was awful and it smelled terrible). I did take an after shot. I hope you can see that the stains actually came clean and the chairs smell just fine! My granddaughter's little pink chair still has a few stains but they are not very noticeable.

One article suggested using buttermilk. I decided to pass.