So, why do we do it?

We just came back from a camping trip two week-ends ago. And there we go again. Another camping trip this week-end. So, why do we do it? Why do we keep going any chance we get?
Look at Debbie in this first picture and you'll get your answer. IT MAKES US HAPPY. People line up in a crowded place like Disney to enjoy a few minutes of entertaining or relaxing scene. People travel long distances to be at the beach and soak in the pleasant experience of the waves crashing on the shore. Why do you need to fight a crowd just to have a singular experience, unique to you?
Maybe if money was no object we'll go scuba diving in the Great Barrier, then go to Fiji or the Seychelles Island, go for a zip line experience over some forests in Costa Rica or the Amazon in Brazil, and...stop for breakfast in historic Paris before coming home. Right?
Otherwise, you drive 45 mins to an hour from home to a quiet and peaceful forest, camp where the birds will come visit you, see some unique creatures we still can't find in books or on line, and come back home. The inner being tastes the same repose, same unique and adventurous experience, and is totally refreshed...and it only costs one hour worth of gas in your vehicle (no, 2 hours, you have to come back). But gosh! it's peaceful, tranquil, restful.
So, why are more people not doing this?
Bugs-we don't like them either. Debbie won't go on the trails when the bugs are out. And we bring repellents. This time we even brought a can of "outdoor camp fogger". We used the whole g.d. can! The gnats were out, and we shielded our site. But we couldn't go on the trails this time. (We still saw over 20 different bird species just around the camp site).
Isn't it sinful to like nature so much then go in and spray chemical for your own cocoon? Hum, I guess so. May God forgive us then. and we just lost a few hours in longevity with all the bug spray this week-end. True, but we've also been adding years by new habits. net result? still ahead by a few years, not to worry. Keep drinking that wine, baby! and eat all those organic vegetables from our own garden. We'll be 100 years old in no time anyhow. Then we'll find a way to die, like snorkeling with the stingrays. Who knows. (The wine part was a joke guys!)
Other reason people won't camp-snakes, bears, mountain lions, and other ferocious attacking creatures. Hum... hard, very hard to find any of those. Even the snakes. Very hard to find. But again, we're not looking. These creatures hear you a mile away and go their way. And we go ours. You're not prey for them and you're not competing for the same food.  We found a turtle with a yellow head and yellow legs. Do you know the name? A weird creature came to visit us at the campsite. It looks like a squirrel but totally black and much bigger than a squirrel with a white face that looks flattened. He can climb trees super fast.
Wanna go camping? Let us know. We'd love company.

A little week-end project

Beside some gardening, we did a little week-end project.
Got three old doors out of storage. Spray painted 2 of the doors.
Connected all three.
The tricky part was to prop them up and brace them well so the wind won't knock them down. It all looked so good when we were finished that Debbie added her special decorative touch to it.
And...voila!
A nice little addition to the garden.

A graduating camping test

Finally! We feel we have truly camped. This is the first time we have camped in a place no one has camped before.
I don't mean that no one has camped in the Oconee National Forest before. But you're supposed to camp at designated camping areas. Well, this Forest does not have very many "designated" camping areas. There were brush fires around our favorite spot. Not too pretty. Our second choice was already taken. The next site was too far. This is a big forest!... we had just enough time to set up camp before nightfall and we haven't had diner yet.
Well, we did what any reasonable person would do.
Go back home...hahaha, that would be quite unreasonable. We spotted an abandoned trail and drove our Humvee (actually our Ford truck) around the fallen trees and mud holes and found the perfect camping spot. Perfect, because no one else will dare come here. It was on a dead end trail with enough obstacles to discourage the fainthearted. We cleared "our site" with tools we brought and set up camp.
We got our duties down pack. I was setting up stations left and right while Debbie was making a gourmet meal.  No worry, we brought wine and beer too! 5 Stars camping in the forest, you bet.
It then hit us! We just set up a comfortable camp site in the middle of nowhere. And we were happy like two little kids sent to heaven.
After some quiet moments, the birds started visiting. It was barely dark when the Great Horn and Barred Owls stated hooting like crazy. And the Whip-O-Wills (these are night birds), forget it, they were all around us wipowilling their hearts out! Just makes you smile.
The only unhappy campers we've made were a pack of some wild canines whose path we've inadvertently blocked. They howled, barked, cried, laughed like stupid hyenas in the middle of the night. No dice. It's now our spot for 2 nights! Stay away! When I realized what we did to them, I just smiled and went right back to sleep. We're the kings of the jungle, the humans. Everything else stayed away at a respectful distance. Maybe Debbie didn't see it the same way, but heck she had the loaded gun! I have my childish and naive confidence. I hesitated telling my "Betterhalf" we've blocked the path of those ... whatever they were. Nobody wants to scare his wife in the middle of a forest in the middle of the night! That would be stupid!

All in all we've identified 22 birds including 4 new species we haven't seen before. This does not include the dozen or so we could not identify or the ones we couldn't even see. 

We saw a water spring on one of our walks. Debbie saw it first...at a very Elvishlike setting of the forest.
A baby snake tried to crawl under our tent. I picked it up and threw it back in the woods, sparring his life. I could have just killed that lost soul but I guess I'm maturing now. That was the only snake we saw.  Usually we don't see snakes.  Maybe because they ran for cover when they hear us, or because we're looking up for birds. (Hey, we're not stupid though).
The memorable thing during this camping trip is the amazing serenity and peace of the place. At night, you have a beautiful sky full of stars. Glorious. We feel like just having graduated from camping after this pleasant adventure.

Picnic at Oconee National Forest

What's the next best thing to camping? You're right! An all day picnic in nature. And that's just what we did this beautiful Saturday Spring day.
We found the perfect spot by a running stream and set up our station complete with our own come-along bathroom. Ooooh, the sound of nature, the serenity of the forest, the melody of birds singing in the trees. Everybody seemed to have enjoyed it because everybody looked happy all day. Of course, the pulled BBQ pork sandwiches with macaroni cheese casserole helped. Did I mention chips, beer, all the bad stuff for you? Nah, we worked it off! There was the good ol' iced tea for those who don't drink, of course.
Debbie's Mom was visiting this week and enjoyed all of it too. The one thing you can't experience with these pictures is the soothing sound of the running water. I think that put Kelly to sleep.
Have you ever wondered why I enjoyed nature so much but I usually wear pants? Well, I wouldn't want any bugs crawling on my legs! That's why. And it makes it easier to go deep in the woods.
Oh yes, we did play some Rook games too. As usual, time passed by quickly. But there is another day.

The great rewards of birdwatching

After working in the yard yesterday, we went for some birdwatching at the Piedmont Wildlife Refuge.  We wanted to see some waterfowl so we headed straight to the pond and marsh areas. 
What a nice surprise as we got there!  A Double-crested Cormorant was sitting right in the middle of the pond on a tilted log. Just like in the bird books.  We know this bird but we've never actually seen one before.  We see his "cousins" the Anhingas all the time.  Hello, Mr. Cormorant, you're not bad looking.  A small flock of Canada Geese were having some "loud conversations" at the other edge of the pond. 

Now, we're off to the marsh areas. We met various Passerines (songbirds) on our way.  A determined Titmouse was singing his heart off, calling for a female. Never mind humans walking by!  Getting close to the marshes.  Nothing, nothing, nada.  Turtles... wait a minute, ducks, YES!!! ducks, pretty ducks.  These are some very pretty ducks playing in the water.  You think the Wood Ducks and Mallards are pretty.  Yes, they are, but these ducks are different and pretty.  Full and fluffed red-burgundy head with a green mask, the same distinctive green you see in the Mallards and Wood Ducks.  More of the same green was in their wings as they were splashing in the water. A straight white line runs downward  his body toward the front, his tail... what's that???  Some distance to the right of the ducks were four Sand Hill Cranes watching us and wondering why we were not looking at them instead!  They're special visitors from Florida!!!  We don't have them here in Georgia usually.  We saw their unmistakable red caps before they took off.  Four of them, big but graceful in their flight.

The Sand Hill Cranes got the Green-Winged Teals aware and they too took off.  Yes, those pretty ducks were Green-Winged Teals.  After our Teals took off, another group of ducks took.  Those might be Wood Ducks, we didn't have a good look. Then another group!  Mallards? Oh well, there they go.  We've seen Mallards and Wood Ducks here before.  The Green-Winged Teals were our first.  As we were walking around, another group of 4 waterfoul just took off also.  Were those sleeping or something?  And how did we miss them?  Ok, ok, now we know.  Next time, we're coming even earlier, setting up a blind and waitting for them birds! We ain't walking in on those no more, hear?

That wasn't all, folks.  Before we left the swamp area, we saw three Rusty Blackbirds. Have you ever seen one of those?  Well, today was our first time too, so don't feel bad.  We got back the truck, ID'ed the birds we've seen and had our breakfast, very contented.  As we headed back driving through the forest, we were quite surprised at how vocal the birds were today. Chipping Sparrows, Chickadees, Cardinals... all singing.  We were the only humans around so, I guess, they all were happy to see us too.  The feeling is mutual.  To cap it all, there goes a BIG bird.  What was that?  We were driving quite slowly already and saw the biggest Red Tail Hawk we've ever seen.  He was flying low through the trees, his copper color tail looking very prominent.  We stopped and watched him for a minute as he perched, then we all went our ways.

I wish someone told me earlier birdwatching is so rewarding.  If you're reading this, trust me, birdwatching is fun.  I'm telling you.  

Tae Kwon Do tournament

We had our regional TaeKwonDo tournament this past Saturday.  It turned out to be an all day affair. Too many people for the space.  We needed at least 10 rings, and we only had 7.  So, the process became slow. New schools have joined our regional tournaments.  These "sister schools" are more agressive and hit and kick hard. You have different versions of TaeKwonDo, but the basics are the same. Korean styles with a lot of foot techniques.

I've spent most of the day judging.  I was assigned one of the kids group, which was nice.  I could hear the teenagers having at each other hard around our ring.  Yes, some people got hurt, which was unfortunate.  But, nothing serious. We show a lot of control in our schools. But if some people are not showing control at tournaments, then of course, everybody start kicking and hitting hard.  After the kids did their forms and sparring (fighting), some of the parents went home with their precious little ones.  That gave us more space.  We pretty much cleared the floor for the adult men black belt competitions.  These are the ones you want to watch.

Three divisions for all black belt men. Yes, you have to be a black belt for these divisions. The women had their own black belt divisions but do not compete for the grand championship.  That's not fair because some of the women are pretty good.  Each division has 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place trophies.  The 1st place winners of the divisions meet for the Grand Championship.  All three winners came from Georgia and a Macon student won. A good friend of mine, Austin McWaters. We train together.  I usually loose fights with him.  He is good, and super nice.  Austin is fast and young, just 19 years old.  He started very early. You can see the people in my division on these two pictures.  Too many people fighting for just 3 trophies.

Sometimes, people forget that these are mainly plastic trophies!  Overall, there was good sportmanship and everyone was pretty much pleasant and friendly, except when the fights were going on.  Then you have no friends.  

 I came home with a 3rd place trophy.  I'm happy.  If I'm going to compete again in these tournaments, I will really have to train better.  It's getting more and more competitive.

Birdwatching with Connie and Duane

We got the pleasure of having Connie and Duane in Macon this past week-end.
Yes, we played lots of Rook games and spent a pleasant time together.
The highlight of their visit was a trip to the Bond Swamp. As usual, it was serene, quiet, and we enjoyed a nice walk and saw lots of birds.
Kelly and Leah were at home this past week end also. That made everything even nicer.
Debbie cooked some great meals.
Before you know it the week-end was gone, but we sure were glad for the good company.
See you next time!