Everyone should be able to relax on a vacation, including the family cook. No-one wants to spend all afternoon chopping and prepping a meal when they could be at the beach or hiking up a mountain trail. At the same time, eating out every day is a surefire way to max out your vacation budget and stretch your waistline, so most families have to do some cooking on vacation. The trick is to make food that’s tasty, quick, and […]
Whether you’re concerned with the rising cost of food or just want to be self-sufficient, you may have started growing your own fruits and vegetables. If so, you may have discovered the ongoing debate about the pros and cons of hybrid and non-hybrid seeds. What’s the difference, and why should you care?
Hybrid Seeds and Commercial Interests
Hybrid seeds are produced by cross-pollinating two different strains of plant. For instance, if one type of large cabbage is susceptible to disease, and […]
Hikers and campers delight in ghost stories. Crowded around a crackling campfire, with the noises of the dark night around you, tales of horror and the supernatural that you’d scoff at in the bright light of day seem eerily possible. Perhaps because of this, the United States is home to dozens of haunted trails. We’ve assembled some of the more compelling, for those of you brave enough to walk with the unknown.
Batona Trail, New Jersey
In the woods of the […]
Hikers have long maintained that spending time walking through nature has a positive effect on their mental health and mood, and science is beginning to prove them right. The mental benefits of hiking go beyond simply getting exercise (which has long been shown to positively affect mood). The connection to nature seems to be just as important, if not more so.
Negative, Obsessive Thinking and Hiking
Negative thinking and obsessive thoughts are common in the modern world, especially among city dwellers. […]
You’ve realized it’s time to prepare for emergencies and disasters. That’s great! You’re taking steps to ensure the safety and survival of yourself and your family in what are often unstable times and in the face of increasingly severe weather and natural disasters.
Like any new skill, there’s a learning curve involved with prepping, and a set of common mistakes people make as they learn how to protect themselves. Knowing what mistakes to avoid will help you gain the skills […]
Mosquitoes are one of the most irritating parts of spring and summer seasons. Often being outdoors and enjoying warm weather gets interrupted by these little insects. And in some parts of the world mosquitoes even transmit several serious diseases, therefore we should avoid getting bit as much as possible. Although there are endless array of products which deter and kill these aggravating pests from mosquito fogger to bug spray, understanding mosquito biology and habits can also help us to […]
During the Second World War, backyard victory gardens cropped up across America. These little back lots made a mammoth contribution to the war effort, growing up to 40 percent of the nation’s fruits and vegetables at a time when every morsel of food counted.
Modern urban farming has been compared to the wartime victory gardens. The comparison—and the claim urban farming can produce a significant amount of a city’s food need—may be overblown, but that doesn’t mean city farming isn’t […]
The price of solar panels has dropped by sixty percent since 2001, making them an attractive investment for anyone interested in reducing their dependence on utility power, either out of a sense of environmental concern or the appeal of off-grid independent power generation.
Before you invest in solar panels, however, it’s important to consider whether your home is a good fit for them. This doesn’t just mean calculating whether solar power is a worthwhile financial investment—sometimes the physical nature of […]
Camping with kids offers opportunities to teach life lessons they’ll carry with them as they make their ways into the world. The skills and attitudes you teach children when camping prepare them for future challenges, and instill personal responsibility, self-reliance, and a deep, abiding love of nature.
Survival Skills
Even if you’re car camping for the weekend, campsites offer opportunity to teach valuable survival skills. Learning to pitch a tent, build a fire, catch a fish, and cook their own […]
Ever noticed you sleep better after you’ve been camping? It’s not just because you’ve been exerting energy hiking and backpacking. It’s also about exposure to natural light.
For most of our time on the planet, human beings went to sleep shortly after the sun went down and got up with the sunrise. Candles and oil lamps pushed bedtime back a little, but for the most part, if the sun wasn’t up, we were sleeping.
Then along came gas lights, and the […]
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