Hiking, Baby!

 I have caught the hiking bug! A while back, mostly out of curiosity, I joined a Facebook group called Women Who Hike Minnesota. Women Who Hike is a national group, and each state has their own local Facebook group. So.. I watched various women from Minnesota hike around the state in all kinds of weather. They exchanged ideas on good places to go, information about equipment, how to dress for cold weather, and lots of cool photos.

My husband had my extra shirt on his head, because he had no hat,

and this trail was VERY buggy.

After a long time of watching, I noticed someone posting that she wishes someone would start a small group she could go hiking with. "Self," I thought, "you could easily do that!" So I posted a note asking for out-of-shape hikers to join me, a hiking newbie, at a local state park. I even drove there a few days ahead of time to take pictures of exactly where we should meet and what the place looks like.

To my utter surprise, 15 women showed up! Wow! It was so cool! We had a beautiful day and a lot of fun. In Minnesota, one can participate in a Hiking Club through the state park system. I imagine most states have similar programs. Just go to a state park and ask about it, and they will sell you a little log book. It costs about $15. It lists all the official hiking club trails with little descriptors of each one. All you have to do is visit the hiking spots, do the hike, find the password which is posted at about halfway through the hike, and then record it in your log book. You write down where you were, the name of the trail, and the password.

After accumulating 25 miles of walking you get a patch. You get another patch for every additional 25 miles. I think if you do all the hikes you will have walked about 200 miles. I believe you also will be awarded a free camping night at a state park of your choice. Pretty good deal!

My signature look is to wear a tie-dyed shirt on a hike -- 

at this one I also had a tie-dyed hat!

Anyway, I have now been on about 5 or 6 hikes with various groups of women from the Facebook list. Sometimes people drive from quite a distance to join us! It is so fun! They have all been very nice, and it has been fun to do a new thing with new people. One of the people who came was an oldie.. a friend of mine who went to interpreter training with me waaayyy back in the 80s. Now we're both retired, but we had not seen each other in about 30+ years. It was quite fun to see her again out on a hiking trail.

I'm sharing some pictures I have taken on various hikes. Most of these are in state parks. Some have been hikes with my husband. Most have been hikes with women from the WWHMN list on FB. There are several more hikes coming up, and I am eager to see how things change once cold weather returns. I will need to learn how to dress for winter hiking.

I'm on my way to being an expert, apparently. Today I purchased these hiking sticks, aka trekking poles. Here's to the great outdoors!

A Day on the River

Effortless Flowers

I have yellow irises in bloom, this purple whatever-it-is, and some daisies. I just love perennial flowers that come up and bloom while I do no work at all!

Last year I had purple irises; this year yellow. I hope they both bloom next year. That would be so pretty... a Vikings flower bed! Rock on!







This pretty basket I bought from the local high school marching band.



On a different subject, I decided I want to buy myself a retirement gift: either a Kindle or a Nook (e-reader). Do any of you have either one? Do you recommend one over the other? I can't see a huge difference, but want to see if there are strong opinions either way.

I hope my book-store-owner sister won't be appalled that I'm buying an e-reader.

Sky Gazing

It was a beautiful weekend! Weather was perfect!

Today we had a good time at church.. lots of lay member involvement, and then a fund-raising spaghetti lunch afterwards. It was yummy! Even though the crowd was small, we made a good income for the Rosebud team's trip this summer. People are generous; it warms my heart.


For some reason after church I felt a little restless. I came home and couldn’t decide if I wanted to be upstairs in my sewing room, downstairs on the computer, or somewhere halfway between. I felt like I wanted to be doing something, but I didn’t know what it was.




Charles and I ended up sitting on our patio in the shade, gazing at the sky and watching the world. It was so peaceful and beautiful. We chatted quietly. Then after a while we lapsed into comfortable silence. Charles fell asleep, I leaned back in my chair and continued sky gazing. The colors of the new spring leaves, the blue sky, the puffy white clouds, the little birds flitting here and there were just awesome and soothing. I listened to birds twittering and leaves fluttering in the breeze. Lots of elm seeds were floating around the sky and landing on us. My restlessness had vanished. I just felt so wonderful; nature kissed me today!


Later Charles and I took our usual 2-mile walk. Life is good, and I am one lucky woman.

Carbon Neutral Again!

Wow, check this out. Another blogger, Amy, decided to plant a tree for every blog who joins the Carbon Neutral drive (see button in my sidebar). You can get "double your money" for joining in! Offset your blog-energy-use by having TWO trees planted for you.

To do so, visit Amy, and visit Carbon Neutral by clicking on my sidebar button. Get your own button and spread the good, clean, fresh air provided by trees!

A Ribbon 'Round the World

This is so cool. A friend of mine, Jody, sent this email post to a list I'm on. I hope she's OK with me posting her message verbatim. Check out her little tutorial video (it's her voice you will hear). It's very neat! I'm going to add an image to Planetfesto. You can, too! Read on to see how....

*****
from Jody:


Earth Day is coming up next week, April 22nd.

This morning I was digging through some notes to myself about project ideas for work. (If you're not familiar with what I do "for a living," the short story is that I create tutorial movies for AtomicLearning.com about technology projects that teachers can do with their students.) I came across some scribblings about the PlanetFesto Web site and thought that it would be a great Earth Day project, but didn't know if I would be able to produce a tutorial and have it published on the AtomicLearning Web site in time for Earth Day next week. The guy who writes blog posts for Atomic Learning said that he could post it on the Atomic Learning blog more quickly than it could be published on the regular Web site. This was great news, because the blog is more public anyway -- you need to be a subscriber to view most of the tutorials on the Atomic Learning Web site -- so that meant that it could ultimately reach more people. Yippie!

So ... I made the little movie this morning and Clint had it posted to YouTube and the Atomic Learning blog by 1:30 this afternoon!

To view my little movie (it's about 3 minutes long), visit the Atomic Learning blog at:

http://atomiclearning.blogspot.com/2010/04/planetfest-help-create-virtual-ribbon.html

PlanetFesto is an online collaborative project that anyone can take part in. Participants add an image to a virtual "ribbon" that is encircling the Earth, and write a few sentences about what they love about the Earth and what they will do to try to protect it. It is very easy to add your own image, which will add 6" of length to the ribbon.

The blog page also contains links to the PlanetFesto Web site and more information about the project.

Celebrate the Earth!

******

Thanks for the great Earth Day idea, Jody! Let's see how many times we can circle the planet!

My Blog is Carbon Neutral

Well... I don't know if it truly is neutral, but there is a German outfit that will plant a tree for every blog that links to them and writes a post about it. That tree is supposed to offset the energy my server uses to run this blog.

I hope it really makes my blog "neutral," but I have my doubts. I'm also using electricity to run my computer, lights are on in my computer room, we use natural gas to heat our home so I can sit in warm or air-conditioned comfort while I play around at my blog and other sites. The keyboard and monitor used up some energy in the production of the plastic and other parts.

I like the idea, though, so I'm in. I am trying not to be cynical. Maybe I'll also plant a tree this spring (soon) so TWO trees can work to offset my energy use.

You, too? Want to make your blog or your life lean a little more toward being carbon neutral? Click on my button in the sidebar and go to the website.. have a tree planted in your blog's name!

P.S. Even if it doesn't make me completely carbon neutral, the tree will be planted in northern California by the Arbor Day partners of the German group (in an area that suffered a bad forest fire), and they can use all the trees they can get!