Our Camping Trip

By Lara DeHaven

Kyla with her homemade broom.

One of the great things about living in the country is that you can throw together camping trips easily. You do not have to make reservations. There is always availability, and it is free. My father owns a ranch nearby and we can use the property as if we owned it ourselves.

As the weekend approached, my husband mentioned that he would like to go camping with the family. He explained that it was finally getting cooler and that we had not camped in a long time. Both of which was true. It is relatively cooler; it only gets to 94 degrees in the afternoon. We had not camped since I was pregnant with Isaac, which has been three years. So we packed up and chose a secluded spot by a little pond, or as we say in Texas, a tank.

It was very interesting to see what everyone’s priority was when we arrived. My dad and Clayton had built a little clubhouse/deer stand almost a decade ago which stands close to the pond. Kyla climbed up there and immediately climbed down. She began to cut broomweed to construct a makeshift broom with a stick as the handle. Using a piece of twine, she tied the weeds to the stick. When she was satisfied with its look, she commenced to cleaning the clubhouse.

Jake swinging on the rope.

Jake decided we needed a swing. So he found the rope out of the back of the truck. He threw it over a stout pine branch, secured it, and began swinging. Later he talked my husband into going home and bringing back an old tire to perfect his swing. This was a hit! The kids spent most of their time swinging out over the tank or making themselves dizzy by pushing each other in circles.

Clayton started digging a fire pit, collecting firewood, and finding pine needles. He did a great job! When he got all of that ready for the evening, he began securing our area by shooting at turtles in the pond. Clayton also spent a good portion of his time referring to his survival book. He and I went on a walk looking for edible plants like plantain and lambs-quarters. Unfortunately we did not find any. He really wanted to try them.

Clay shooting his BB gun.

Lane and I set up our huge tent. It has four rooms. We also set up a smaller tent for some of the kids, but as the darkness settled in and the coyotes began singing to the full moon, everyone decided to sleep in our tent.

Isaac and Andrew hung out and helped where they could. Isaac especially liked the concept that we were staying outside all day and night. He did not understand why we went inside the tent to sleep. He was going to sleep outdoors, not indoors. His protest did not last long as soon as the bullfrogs started croaking and the coyotes sang their opening chorus.

For dinner, we roasted hot dogs over the campfire and later marshmallows. The kids enjoyed drinking Capri Suns because they never get to drink them at home.

The next day we fished. Kyla caught five of the six fish. She had the magic touch. As they began to fish, I wrapped baking potatoes in aluminum foil and Lane placed them over the fire on a grate. Clayton and Lane cleaned our fish and set them over the grate as well. Lane seasoned them with black pepper. We cooked them for 10 minutes on each side.

They were so delicious. Talk about fresh fish. They were only minutes out of the water. The baked potatoes were good, too. It was a great meal to finish off a wonderful time with our family. It was a very memorable Labor Day! I hope everyone else enjoyed their long weekend as well.

translation

Tags: camping, fishing, Labor Day, priorities

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 9th, 2009 at 8:53 am and is filed under Green Living, Homesteading. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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