Blather
Cooking for Guys
Live to Camp
Camp to Live
Poetry
and Other Lies
Optimus Crux Backpacking Stove
I have had this little stove for a number of years and it is still my go-to on those rare occasions when I choose to backpack in. The stove itself weighs 3 ounces and folds up to fit in the palm of my hand. It uses isobutane-propane for fuel. The stove stores in a...
Tarting Up the Ramen
Ramen noodles are a no-brainer pack food. Cheap, lightweight, quick and easy to prepare, you can eat them right out of the pot and cleanup is fast and effortless. I like to tart mine up just a little. Adding some oil and vegetables and maybe an egg to the mix doesn't...
Baked Couscous
Baked Couscous I've made this dish stove top at home and in the Dutch oven while camping. A savory couscous galette, it is an easy, flexible recipe. You can use any mushrooms, or none at all. The same with the meat: use whatever you have, or no meat at all. I've made...
Chicken & Dumplings
Chicken & Dumplings Chicken and dumplings may be the ultimate comfort food. We had this for Sunday dinner on our Halloween camping trip. To ease the work at camp, I did some prep at home, mixing the dry ingredients for the dumplings in a zip lock bag, and cooking...
Cranberries and Chanterelles
Cranberries and Chanterelles Cranberries ripen at the height of chanterelle season. It was inevitable eventually I would try cooking them up together. I'm only surprised it took me so long to get around to it. Ingredients chanterelles wild cranberries...
Good Afternoon
Walter accompanied Michael and I into the woods to look for mushrooms. Even though we have had recent rainstorms, it was too dry and we didn't collect many specimens for the amount of ground we covered. We did find a few rubbery chanterelles, a small chicken of the...
WAAAM Fly-In 2025
My friend Russ Noe suggested I help him ferry people around the air show with our sidecars, so I did. We had a lot of fun, met some great people and saw a bunch of interesting machinery. Here is a photo dump. I may add captions later, when I have more time. ...
A Day In the Woods
We had been hearing rumors of boletes being found at higher elevations, so Amy loaded Michael, Walter and me into the CrossTrek and we headed north of Trout Lake. ...
Good Afternoon
8/29/25 85f (29.4c) 3:00 Clear sky with a few mosquitoes. Mike, Walter and I made an excursion into the woods to escape the heat and look for mushrooms. It felt a good ten degrees cooler in the forest. ...
Good Afternoon
Amy's Uncle Joe and Aunt Judy are visiting from back east. I collected their autographs, then we spent the rest of the day wandering downtown Hood River. ...
Good Morning
11/22/25 6:00 32F (0.0C) Dark, moonless, frosty. The sky. The ground. Everything is sparkly. ...
Good Morning
11/21/25 6:30 33F (0.55C) Clear, calm, cold. It is just above freezing yet the deck has a veneer of ice. What a beautiful dawn. The sky, clear behind a thin, nearly invisible gauze, is brightening through pastel shades of pink and blue. A small bird whistles...
Good Morning
11/20/25 6:00 42F (5.5C) Dark, moonless and cloudy. It was raining lightly but now it has stopped. It is a very quiet morning. I wonder what that damn dog is up to? ...
Good Morning
11/19/25 6:30 31F (-0.55C) Partially cloudy and still. The stars are fleeing the dawning light. It is a very frosty morning. I think it is the first hard freeze we have had this season. ...
Good Morning
11/18/25 5:30 34F (1.1C) Dry, light breeze, broken clouds with a few stars showing through. Amy's up a little early and the lights are on, lending a cheery illumination to the early morning. ...
