We packed up Friday morning after a quick trip to the market for some produce and some various favorites. While packing Trooper was looking very confused and was curious about when he was going to get his walk. We loaded him into the car and after about 20 mins driving he finally felt like wherever we were going must be good. He snuggled up in the back seat and went to sleep. After a long scenic drive through PA we arrived at Rickets Glenn. Trooper was super excited to go to the bathroom in the woods at the bottom of the park, so much so he often pulls on the leash. Then we climbed ~1200 ft with the car and everyone suffered from a little bit of altitude sickness. Yah, we were that high up.

We arrived on Friday afternoon and struggled with Trooper, whom didn’t understand what all this “camp set up” was. Then we discovered that just across the street from our campsite was a fantastic view of the lake with our own little private “pet beach”. Then we walked the forested trail/road down the beach of the lake and explored the other parts of the camp. We returned to camp and began to unwind before dinner when Princess and Feather arrived. Trooper struggled to understand what we expect from him vs. other dogs and things to chase in the woods. Eventually he settled down enough for us to eat dinner. We took him into the tent and were able to get him to sleep in there most of the night with us.

Next morning Trooper seemed amazed that we were STILL outside!! Then we began an enlightening, inspirational, physically exhausting, zen like day.  The 4 of us began hiking down a nice little trail on our way to the falls in order to grab a Geocache and when looking for a cache, we found a rock that looked a lot like Noah’s ark. We enjoyed a small picnic on top and then moved on to the falls. Trooper began his true “trial of character” We hiked down some of the hugest falls in the park and had a great time splashing about, taking photos, and enjoying the fantastic weather. Princess and Feather eventually turned around to head back to camp and we continued on the hike. It was a very long long hike with about an 1100 ft. descent and ascension. Very rocky trail with tons of water falls all the way down and all the way up. Total hike = 8 miles (3 miles uphill)

This hike taught me a lot, I learned that when I climb a mountain I feel a strong sense of accomplishment. Trooper learned to stop and let people and dogs pass without incident, he learned to stop on the stairs and wait to see if his people are ok, he learned to walk loose leash even when excited, and he learned that his mommies really can wear him out totally. We learned a lot about Trooper and he learned about us, this was truly a bonding experience.

That evening he lied next to the camp chairs as if he had been camping for years. Then when no one was paying attention or holding his leash he gently stood up, walked to the car & tent area and stared at us to let him in. He didn’t take off, he didn’t try to run away, he just wanted to go to bed. He slept in the car the rest of the night, we didn’t want to push the tent too much. He still struggles with the soft walls at this point. The next day he walked by my side for all the camp breakdown with little adversity. You would have sworn he was a service dog. On the ride back he chewed on his ash covered bone (from the campfire) and snuggled up with the sleeping bags. At home, he ate from his food bowl and passed out immediately on the cool dining room floor. Anytime we come downstairs he is right by our sides, just to see that all is right with us.

We returned feeling rejuvenated and inspired by the Great Mother Earth. We returned with a new dog that is ready for his next campout. We can’t remember the last time we had such a spiritual, rejuvenating, and inspirational weekend. What will we learn next time? 

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Friday I seen a post from someone on Freecycle that had 1.5 dozen of duck eggs available from their pet. I was able to pick them up later that evening and was excited to try them on Saturday morning.

OMG! I had my 4th scrambled egg in my entire lifetime and it was the ONLY one that didn’t make me sick! Duck eggs are a bluish green color, way larger than a chicken egg. But once broken open they look and taste exactly the same. Although I will say that regardless of the animal fresh eggs taste 10x’s better than chicken eggs. Duck eggs are simply a blessing to me! It was absolutely fabulous but of course I will be reliant on the woman from Freecycle to continue to offer the eggs to me. I emailed her and thanked her.

Once again, another priceless item found via Freecycle.

The house that we are living in is great. 3 Bedroom – 2 bathrooms – and frankly way more than what we need, but it’s simple and suits our tastes. The yard is really the best part! We should be able to grow enough food this summer to support us through the winter, or at least we will get close. My food focus will be tomatoes, beans, squash, and herbs. Of course we will grow all sorts of things, but that is my focus, this year. The garden is just gorgeous but also very large than my normal. The last time I had a garden this size to tend it was part of my caretaking job in a mansion. But I love gardening and frankly being outdoors just makes me thrilled.

The dog we adopted is sweet and very smart. I needed a well socialized dog to train as my expectations for dog behavior is higher than the average individual. But once I commit to a dog I keep to them. I love dogs dearly but I think they MUST be trained in order for me to love being around them. So the whole “dog scouts” idea for our dog, Trooper, is very attractive. The motto is to have a well trained dog in order to show others that it is possible and that you don’t have to “tolerate” bad behaving dogs. Its like saying you tolerate bad behavior in your 4 year old. No one does that?! So he trains daily, walks daily, and I seem to be constantly reading instructional on how to train your dog. I grew up in a house that always had well behaved and well trained dogs so its a requirement for my dog to be trained. Either way, he is very smart and learns quickly. He lays down on his mat while we eat, although when he got here he was begging constantly. He waits to go outside and has learned to walk on a leash. We have noticed that he is very gentle when taking his treats and have even had him take treats from a small boy. The boy was afraid of dogs and his mother was hoping to adopt one. So Trooper was very gentle with the small boy (about 3 or 4 years old) and let the boy pet him, touch him, and Trooper gently took treats from him. He also didn’t jump. Trooper just has to work on when excited to not jump or play to rough. He’s learning and dog scouts should help.

We have also had some other things land new here like a car, new software, and other various small things. Sounds like spring is here and we are happily enjoying all of the newness in the air. We are looking forward to this summer and the bright future we are looking towards

First, I dug out and put aside the top layer of food and paper. Then I laid out the compost on plastic bags in the grass. I spread out the compost in order to encourage the worms to move towards the plastic bag, as they are allergic to sunlight.

Arial did her part by making a fresh bed of cardboard for the worms in the bottoms of the bins and putting the worms back in their tended and prepared home. She tore up fresh cardboard and used shredded paper for the bottom and than layered it with the food we took out off the top.

Together we bagged ~ 30lbs of pure compost, the best organic compost available to humans. The compost that these worms produce is commonly referred to as “black gold” by many gardeners because it is so fantastic and it is GOOD for the environment. It is a living compost that does not wash away with watering and continues to improve soil each time you add it. If you want to learn more about this gold here is the wikipedia.

If you were to buy this composting it would cost you ~$20/5lbs of worm castings. It cost us $20 to set this up!

As for the worms, well they have reproduced beyond any amount we could have dreamed! There were so many we left 100′s of them within the compost to be planted in the vegetable garden in a few weeks. So about 500+ worms will be sacrificing their life to improve the soil in our vegetable plots this summer. (they will die once it freezes) About 2000+ worms will continue to live and reproduce within their bins with our loving support for more of this GOLD in the fall. Also, if anyone wants to start their own bin for composting just let me know and I will make a package for you. You only need 100 or so to start a bin. Egg shells make them reproduce.

We also have some seedling sprouting up under the plant lights. We plan to have a very vegetable FULL garden this summer, I want to fill my shelves and freezer!

So I volunteered to help with a fundraiser that has been going on for quite a while and I have known some others in college that were passionate enough to participate. Today, I am acting on my passion and taking the time to ask my friends and family for their support. I will be jumping into the Chesapeake Bay on January 27th in the freezing cold. Thank goodness Arial will be standing on the shore waiting with warm dry clothes for me. There will be lots of other crazy folks doing this and I plan to get this on video. So I am acting on my passion, how about you? Do you care what happens to our the Great Mother Earth? Do you want there to be a forest to take a hike in for your grandkids? Wouldn’t it be nice if they could swim in fresh water? Please consider supporting me, even if its just a couple dollars, do what you can.

Support me in my Polar Bear plunge and make a donation online or send a check to them. Directions and more information is here:

Click Here to see my Polar Bear Page or Make a Donation

So this year, instead of just giving up on that longing for a quality holiday at home… I made it up. Yup, that’s right I made my own holiday. I was going to do it Sunday after Thanksgiving, but I got sick. So instead I did it this past Sunday, after we felt better. That’s another great thing about making up your own holiday….you can postpone it if the timing is not right. So we spent the morning baking a pie, preparing the corn bread for the stuffing, and making cranberry sauce. We also played video games in the living room, DDR, Dance Dance Revolution. It felt very much like a holiday. We played our exercise game, which doesn’t feel like exercise at all, and laughed and enjoyed the morning. Once things were baked we enjoyed the day off and hung out with each other online. Than we had a gourmet Thanksgiving dinner that was fantastic! Healthy, low in calories, vegetarian, and traditional. Yup… even traditional.

We had a meat substitute that is popular in Europe called Quorn, which is a fantastic food that has the almost the same texture and taste as meat, but isn’t. Its made of a microprotein, which apparently is some sort of fungus. Anyway, we know we LOVED the chickenless nuggets from them and all the reviews for the “Turkeyless Roast” were good, so we gave it a try. We also had some very gourmet type recipes that I found online for Cornbread stuffing, Walnut Yams, and Mushroom gravy.

The stuffing was fantastic, it was cornbread with cashews and cranberries. Then the Walnut Yams were lightly sweetened with Maple Syrup and mixed with raisins and walnuts. Arial mastered the mushroom gravy and made it perfectly, from scratch. Then of course we enjoyed a homemade, from scratch, Pumpkin pie. Arial also made cranberry sauce from a recipe her sister shared with us at Thanksgiving in York. Of course the cranberry sauce was the best I ever had, hands down. This Thanksgiving dinner at my house was the best I ever had, and I had NO GUILT!!

My plate was ~500 calories and my desert was about 200 calories. All of it was organic and absolutely delightful. These days I prefer to eat very good food. I get to eat very little calories each day and I like them to count, as far as vitamins and taste. Each bite was like heaven… Arial took some pictures, as we really enjoyed our day! Maybe we will do something similar around Xmas.

Ohh yeah and I did the unthinkable for Thanksgiving, I lost 3 MORE pounds!

We eat 6 very small meals a day that are high in protein, low in fat and calories. Most of them consist of things like tempeh or other dairy products. Since Arial can’t eat milk we have been experimenting with goats milk that she tolerates well. This plan is interesting in that your eating every 2 to 3 hours. I like it but its certainly something to get used to. It is supposed to raise your metabolism.

We exercise 6 days a week, 3 days of Power Yoga and 3 days of Circuit training. We are using the Biggest Loser videos and are mostly enjoying it. We both really love the Yoga days and the circuit days are growing on me.

We are logging our food intake and our exercise minutes on Sparkpeople where others can see what we are eating and how much we are exercising. This also balances current weight with goal weight, calories burned, and calories eaten so that you don’t have to do the math. So far I have lost 12lbs and Arial has lost 6lbs. We hope that by next summer we will reach out goal weights. Here are links to our weightloss pages if your interested.

Hollis’ Diet Page

Arial’s Diet Page

The Global Warming Mug – I can’t tell you how many times I am looking for this map online. I always am trying to imagine where places are as I watch the news about flooding and so forth. I am making my own scientific predictions… This would make that so much easier because I could just get a cup of tea. The extra benefit? I would also be able to educate anyone who came across the mug… very interesting and fun for a green geek like me…

This expression – is all over the place and frankly Arial and I both love the expression! We are always laughing at it and talking about how much it just fits our personality. Although it looks like the only top Arial would wear (since she doesn’t like clothes that are tight around her neck) is the tank tops, this is still a great expression. We both love this! They even have it in women’s and men’s shirts! When did they start separating the genders on t-shirts? I see the difference but why?

Now this organized list at TreeHugger is packed full of small and large things we were very interested in learn about. I know Arial would love one of those Alpaca Hats for winter. We both loved the recycled backpack but the one that you can charge your cell phone from the solar panels on the back is fantastic. OR the stuff in the Green geek section like the iRex reader are amazing, not that we could afford any of the expensive stuff anytime soon. But we can dream!

I am always amused at the solar powered and green items they come up with. The recycled backpack is great but the one that charges 4 watts of to your cell phone or ipod while you walk is amazing and totally unusual, although its price tag certainly shows it. I love gizmos and with all the solar power items I am so excited! With all the new and interesting items out there I just can’t wait till the recession lifts. Also, maybe next year will be better after we have moved from this cursed city.

Anyway, all else is good with us. Recently we have been working on exercising every day, we been doing this video and just bought ourselves some weights to make our workouts an even higher priority.

Check out this newest “team” that Harrison Ford started. Team Earth seems to be a way to learn which companies are teaming up to save the earth AND educate those who need to. Its nice to see some very influential individuals pushing for the cleanse of the earth. I hope it works!! I joined the team, maybe you should?

Mostly we are working real hard with the hopes of moving this winter. So if you don’t hear from us often… its simply that we are busy. I will try to write more. Here are some random photos from recent small events.

First we geocached all the way up to the area. We did a lot of Mt. Airy, MD and then headed up to Cunninham Falls State Park and camped in the Manor area.

When we arrived we unpacked, went for a hike up a hill, found a couple Geocaches, and hung out at the Aviary. We enjoyed an Indian Dinner back at the campsite. We are always so happy to eat so well while camping. That evening we enjoyed a quiet evening in the tent.

Then on Saturday we were up bright and early in order to go visit the Aviary again. They had all sorts of great birds including a HUGE Bald Eagle, a vulture, several owls of all sorts. We really enjoyed the birds and then moved up to the Cliff Trail. The Cliff Trail was steep and long but full of deep forest, wildlife and pure beauty in the mountains. It was also quieter then the lower trail, which was easier and used by many tourons. We followed the Cliff trail deep into the woods and finally after about 1.5 hours we found ourselves at the falls. We hiked to the top of the falls, took pictures, and then took our time down the rocks at the falls. We grabbed another Geocache and then headed out the touron trail to parking. There we jumped in the car and headed over to the Lake.

At the lake we enjoyed lunch on the beach, a refreshing swim, and some relaxation after a very full 24 hours. After an hour or so we headed out to the forest for another geocache and then an animal show at the State park. The show was fantastic and included a turtle, yellow rat snake, a barred owl, and a red tail hawk. I learned a lot including that I might want to be park ranger in the very near future. After the show it was dark and time to head back to camp for a fullfilling bowl of seventeen bean soup and fresh baked bread. Delicious dinner!

Then Sunday morning we packed up and took a little drive out to Hagerstown in order to explore possibly living in the area. We also caught a movie, G-Force, and then also explored and Geocached in Thurmont, MD. We are sure we want to move there and plan to as soon as possible.

Overall we had a fantastic time and we can’t wait to return to the area for more camping… since it seems we didn’t do everything that was available. We will return soon. We love State and National Forests, they are just gorgeous!!!

So we chose to camp at a place I have camped a couple of times and I used to spend a lot of time at with my son’s boy scout troop and Equestrian club. Tuckahoe State Park is one of the most wild, natural, well protected, and well placed parks in Maryland. I love government parks because they are usually well tended with the environment in mind rather than human attendance! Anyway, we had reservations for a small tent site in the non electric camping area, simply because neither of us are interested in being around a bunch of pop up trailers.

We left the house Friday just after noon and made MANY MANY stops for Geocaches on the way. We arrived at Tuckahoe that night after managing 10 caches on our route. We explored Kent Island and Wye Mills, MD. Kent Island is known for its waterman and its mostly surrounded by the bay, its one of the first places you drive through when you head over the Bay Bridge from Baltimore. Wye Mills, MD is a small town that is known for the massive tree that was struck down in 2002.

It was a quick camp set up of about 15 minutes and we had dinner served within 30 mins. We took a shower at the facilities… which were fantastic, and then spent a cozy night in our little tent. We loved the quiet campsite and the peaceful forest. There are no alcoholic beverages aloud in State Park campsites so this prevents us from having to tolerate loud drunks around the campfire. Plus the rangers patrol from 11pm (quiet time) till 6am.

Saturday Morning we got up very early and hit the trails for Geocaching. We had a slow start with two “Did Not Finds” but then hit the jackpot when we explored the Arboretum in Tuckahoe. We learned a lot about trees since we took the audio tour while geocaching the huge area. We spent 4 hours hiking that morning!!

Since our legs and feet were tired we headed out to the small town of Chestertown, MD. We hit a special geocahe on our way, ate lunch in a park in the small town, and then searched for some more caches. We explored the small town and then decided to catch an afternoon movie. We watched Transformers, which the time together was more valued than the movie. Then we headed out to do the multi cache and listen to the music in the center of town. We finished just before sundown with my hand up a girls skirt. I swear there was a cache up there!!

Then we made it back to camp, cooked our dinner in the dark… which was fantastic and just made us both smile the whole time. We were exhuasted by the time we hit the air mattress.

Sunday morning we packed up the car and headed to the Chesapeake Bay Environmental Center where we got around 11 caches. We spent the day hiking around and exploring the beautiful landscape and protected area. The rabbits were everywhere and we were able to get really close. We had a fantastic time here.

The biggest complaint?? Mosquitoes and ticks… but this is no surprise with all the rain. We both had a fantastic time regardless and enjoyed our vacation. I hope to do another in August. Ohhh where will we go this time?

You can find the pictures here!!