Is this not the laziest lion you’ve ever seen? I went to the Houston Zoo yesterday with a friend and her two daughters and I have to say, the animals were the most entertaining I’ve ever seen. Aside from the lion lounging on his back, there were two ‘baby’ elephants playing around, pushing each other, swimming together, it was actually fun! I hadn’t been to the Houston Zoo since college and it was similar to how I remembered it.

If there a: hadn’t been glass between me and the lion and b: I knew the lion wouldn’t rip me to pieces, I would have given him a belly rub and a big ol’ kiss.

Today I’m over at Sprout Dispatch so hop over and check it out!

Oh, the air is delightful and despite the lack of daylight in the mornings, I’m loving that the evenings are longer now. I’m loving the dill in the garden right now, tall and fluffy, the mature plants working on flowering. The tiny, airy seeds will be saved to sowing throughout the year. We’ve been drying dill in the oven on the lowest heat it can go, then crackling the leaves into baggies to save for later. I’m trying oregano, too.

I’ve been starring items in my feed reader and bookmarking things over the last few weeks and I thought I’d share them with you.

+Honey Harvest by Kinfolk Magazine
+Creamy Cheese Dip withot Velveeta: Want to try this soon. My mom went on an information spree about additives in food after the pink slime news came out. I was looking up other things for her and found the Food Renegade website. While they had some informative items they weren’t quite vegetarian friendly. That’s ok, I still learned a lot of interesting things.
+English Muffin Bread via Brown Betty Farm. I did make this one and it was delicious! I used almond milk in place of regular milk and it still tasted great.
+The Power of Introverts via Susan Cain on a TED talk.
+Free Bates t-shirt, with thanks to Elizabeth for the link.
+Made by Hand: No. 3 The Beekeeper….another dreamy bee and honey video. I need to find a chicken video soon.
+Creativity is a Precious Commodity via the Dirty Footprints Studio.
+Profile of a Ghost Orchid via the Florida Native Plant Society’s blog. Chris’ ghost orchid website is listed as a source! I keep telling him he needs to finish updating it…
+Salt Preserved Key Limes via Food in Jars….oh this looks delicious!
+Strawberry Honey Galette via Fig and Fauna. Strawberries are in season right now at the stores, or at least here, I might have to make this soon.
+Cedar Waxwings galore!
+Alexis Grant’s Nicaragua and Costa Rica travel report had me itching to get some short-term, foreign traveling done. Probably not this year…but still dreaming!
+The Goodwin Project traveling with kids via the Adventure Journal.
+Chioggia Beet Root Soup: Wish I’d had this when I had a harvest of beets. Maybe the next go-round…
+Lawn to Loaves Wheat Harvest via Heavy Petal. I was joking (only slightly, mostly being seriously) that I wanted to make my own mustard and then Chris retorted he wanted to make his own flour from wheat he grew. Well, someone has done it!

Phew—that was a lot! I hope you enjoy some of the ones I have shared and send some of your favorites my way!

+Two mile run after work. Loving running again, slow as I may be. I like to be on my own pace, getting it done, slowly but surely. I’m also happier with warmer weather. Thinking I might try running in my Vibram Five-Fingers tomorrow.

+The Runty, Leo, is feeling better and acting more like himself after whatever stunt he pulled almost two weeks ago. Tail is working better, he’s happier and running around. The cats love it when I open the doors when I get home so they can get some sunlight.

+This water oak has been putting on flowers as are all the other oaks in the area. I’ve been enamored with it for a week now and needed to get a photo.

+Been listening to the Bon Iver channel on Pandora for awhile now and I decided to download the album Bon Iver tonight. I’m not a music downloader, I’m a c.d. buyer but I’m trying to switch. I’m also very particular about what I buy and only buy once or twice a year. Next time will probably be my birthday.

+We ran out of butter and margarine and I thought that I would make some butter, so I bought a small carton of cream at the store. I wasn’t going with the shake a jar route this time. I thought that the Kitchenaide would work so I quickly Googled to make sure I wasn’t off my rocker. The Kitchenaide did all the work while I cooked dinner and about five minutes I had butter. I think I will do this more often!

+Samson rolling around like a lazy bum.

+Leo being sweet on Chris’ desk.

+Last weekend I got together with a college friend and a teacher friend of hers to have a craft day. I started a drawing for a friend, something I initially started 2+ years ago and scrapped. I spent some more time on it tonight.

+Evening tea has started to become a ritual for me. Love having it, but have to watch which ones have caffeine. This chamomile is perfect!

A happy evening!

So. February. Was a bit better than January but still proved to be hectic.

Writing went well, mostly because I also busted out about 4,000 words over the weekend. Honestly, if I just devoted an hour to it at least a few times a week with a larger spurt in the weekend things would be done faster. But I often find so many other things to do, which shouldn’t be the case.

Alas, I’m happy with getting that much written.

Running. Well, 9 isn’t good either. I have made myself a schedule for the next month though and hopefully that number goes up as does the yoga. I ran 3 miles the other day in a little over 40 minutes. Yes, I am painfully slow. I could probably hike faster than that. But it felt good, and when I finished the last lap for 3 miles, I contemplated doing another lap to make it 3.5, but didn’t. I’ve also got yoga and some strength workouts planned. I love to lift weights but my weights are *still* in storage and here I am with nothing but my body weight…which is perfectly fine. I also bought a 10lb weighted ball to use and love it thus far. I haven’t done much in the way of strength exercises since pre-AT (re: 2 years) and can certainly tell my arm tone is greatly diminished. I’ve always told myself I did not want bat wing arms as long as I could prevent it—so maybe when I’m 80 I’ll accept bat wing arms but not when I’m 31. Or 51 or even 61.

As for the books I’m reading:
That Used to Be Us: I received it from my boss at Christmas who gave it to everyone in the office. He was enthralled with it and had brought it up after we’d all started talking politics one day at lunch. So far it is very interesting and the authors point fingers at every political genre. It is just a dry read so I’m not really rushing through it.
This Common Ground: Seasons on an Organic Farm: I got this off of BookMooch and have only read a handful of pages, mostly because I kept misplacing it. I am really excited about reading it though.
Darcy’s Story: A P&P spinoff told from Darcy’s POV. The author uses some of Austen’s dialogue in order to be consistent. So far it is a good spinoff and isn’t too drastically different. I do love me some P&P spinoff books. I just received Me and Mr. Darcy from BookMooch as well—so I’m set for Darcy/Elizabeth romance for awhile.

What do I hope for March? Looootts of writing. Looootts of running. I have an art/creative day scheduled with a friend this coming weekend so I am planning to DRAW! I’m hoping I do more than one drawing this coming month too.

How about you? How are you doing with your word?

Taken *last* Sunday at our community garden, perched on the flowers of a cabbage, Vanessa atalanta the red admiral butterfly

+This week…this week….whew, I am glad it is done. I ended up in the field for a few days, honestly thinking it was going to be two days max, but then it looked like it was going to bleed into the weekend. Chris is in the field full-time right now but the project I was on was nearby so luckily I was able to stay in his hotel with him. When I realized I needed to run home to check on the cats, mostly because I wasn’t sure if I’d left them with enough food—had put more water out but wasn’t sure on the food—we ran home Thursday evening to check on them and spend the night there. Leo, one of our cats, was acting a little strange but in the hustle and bustle of getting things done and ready for bed we didn’t think too much of it.

Then the next morning we were up at 4 a.m. to leave and head back to be in the field by 7 and I noticed he jumped off the futon strangely. I picked him up and put him on our bed to pet him and talk to him (Samson was on the bed all bleary eyed, wondering why we were up), when I petted his tail. It felt weird and when I picked it up he was not flicking it back at me like normal. When I let it go he dropped automatically. I tried it a few more times and got no response. Then I felt his tailbone and he looked at me weird and jumped down. He headed straight for the litter box and proceeded to try to use it but to no avail. Chris was in the shower so I went in and told him I thought Leo’s tail was broken. It was chaotic after that. Leo was scared and it was pretty clear I was going to have to go back to get my car (we’d only brought one back home) and then come back that morning and take him to the vet.

The vet ran some tests, having to sedate him because Leo is a monster at the vet. Nothing conclusive came back. His tail is functioning but not like normal, he is still skittish and seems to avoid our bedroom. He gets all cautious when he tries to peer under our bed and I had to trick him with treats to initially get him into our bedroom. I hadn’t seen him jump at all until this morning, when I was getting his medicine ready to squish in some soft treats, when he jumped up onto our breakfast bar and quickly got down. He’s also started using the litter box again. I have no idea what happened but it scared him and he was hurt for some reason. I don’t know if it is internal or some sort of freak accident, but he has a follow up appointment tomorrow afternoon.

Freaking cats. I know children are 100x worse.

+Aside from the cat, things are good here. Spring is arriving!

+I went around some Farm to Market roads (FM) near my house scouting wildflowers. It was a sunny and bright morning and I heard rumors that the bluebonnets were up in San Antonio so I wanted to scope them out here. No bluebonnets but I found Indian paintbrushes & blankets, a variety of yellow asters, sunflowers, alliums and crow poison (they look similar) and just took my time driving down the roads and stopping when I felt like it. It was nice to see some places I hadn’t seen yet and I found some ranches and homes that I wanted!

+Tomorrow check back here early as I’ve got a new writing adventure waiting!

+If you are a gardener you might be interested in what seeds are owned by Monsanto. This is why I like heirlooms!

+Found an awesome backyard chicken book at Barnes & Noble the other day but I didn’t write down the name of it. I guess I’ll have to go back. Chris doesn’t have much optimism for me and my chicken idea (he wants bees), but I do. I’m not going to eat them, they will definitely be pets who give me eggs, but I’d like a few when we get our own house.

+I had more but I’ve got some things to do around here, writing to get done and some cooking to do.

Hope your weekend was great!

Things that have caught my eye this last week or last month:

+Yoga by Equinox video. I first read about it on Huffington Post in regards to it being potentially offensive or objectifying women. If that were the case why aren’t we talking about the beach volleyball players who wear bikinis to play their games? The beauty of the whole video is not what she is wearing or that she is only in her skivvies, but that she is freakin’ strong and the amazing lines that the body forms as she performs the routine. If only I were that strong!

+And then I read about the dangers of yoga because that was all the rage. And to that I say, um, yeah? It is a sport. Any time you are in repetitive use of a part of your body you can potentially hurt it. And you can do that if you are untrained in the sport, too. With any sport. So, I don’t quite get the hubbub, other than it makes yoga look bad. Lesson? If you feel uncomfortable in a position or can’t do it, don’t push yourself.

+I saw That Hike Guy’s PCT video last week. Then all of a sudden it seems the popular bloggers caught onto his awesome PCT moleskine journals. I’m glad to see a hiking blog get some mainstream activity!

+Section Hiker has been writing about several White Mountains bushwhacking expeditions—in winter. They are very adventurous and after my own bushwhacking heart.

+Have been loving The Familiar Wilderness. I can’t remember how I found this blog, but it is quickly becoming a favorite.

+Also love Finding Cross Creek & The Forgotten Compass.

+My Brother has been writing a lot in his blog lately. I love it because he is writing about his garden but also I get to see my niece and nephew and their antics.

+If you like Downton Abbey, my cousin Elizabeth has been creating commentaries with her friend called Picture Shows & Petticoats. Get a cup of tea and have a sit while they chat about the show for half an hour! Good stuff!

+If you remember Make Time from our AT thru-hike and his summit of ‘Daltahdin’, well, he is at it again. This time he’s heading north from GA with his wife. Follow his journey as he hits the AT again!

+I’m not a rock climber, but I found Crag Mama and I love it. Mostly because her kid is out there learning to climb and enjoying the outdoors. I particularly loved her About page in regards to not succumbing to the status quo of sacrificing a life outside when a little one comes into play.

+A couple/friends of ours in Florida recently had their second child. Like a week ago. I knew they had started potty training their oldest when he was under a year old but I didn’t realize they were following elimination communication until she posted about her newborn using the toilet. I had to look up this term and then I realized what exactly it was. It sounds interesting and I will have to do more research on it, but I will file it away for potential use in the future. It’s verrrrryyy interesting. Yes, I will probably be *that* hippie parent. I was already thinking of using non-disposable diapers…

And that’s a wrap!

January started off with a bang and continued on quickly and seemed to escape from me fast. I was not prolific in the manner I was expecting. I have a small journal I keep with me to jot down to-do’s and ideas as they come to me, and I will just say that I probably gave myself too much to do for this month.

Creatively I only accomplished one big thing, which was finishing up a baby blanket…well, really I restarted it and finished it. I cut my time short because the baby it was intended for came about three weeks early! The crochet took a lot out of me and I felt creatively drained after.

Outdoors-wise it was mostly a big no-go on adventures or physical fitness. I probably averaged two days a week running and a tiny scattering of yoga during that month. I had hoped to do four days a week running but various things kept intruding. I really prefer to run in the mornings because it frees up my evenings, however I also don’t like getting up before it is light. I might have to start braving the dark and getting out there early. Adventures were non-existent because Chris went to work in the field for an extended time (and will probably return after a short break) and weekends were here-there-everywhere. I had contemplated doing some hiking on my own but I ended up doing other things. I’m hoping I can get out more in February.

Writing was very skimpy, maybe 3,000 words within the last week. Because the crochet drained me creatively I was sapped of energy for writing. With that and the fact the last time I had written was on the drive to DFW for Christmas, my mental focus on writing was shot. I have got to get a fire lit under that this month and hit a big fat number. I had anticipated 70,000 words for January, starting at 40K, but I’m going to be aiming that for February instead. Must get this thing written because editing and some research will be taking up time after that.

Art, which is part of the creative aspect, didn’t happen. I did work on some photos, reprocessing photos I already had. My big goal for art this coming month will be to continue organizing and processing older photos that I never did much with in order to update our website later this spring. This is a much bigger process than I thought it would be and has taught me to start keeping better track of potential photos to put into the gallery. I have one drawing I would like to do this month and will probably spend a couple of days doing that.

The biggest thing I suppose is not to overload my plate and to pick and choose which things to tackle first. I tend to get ahead of myself when I start making my lists and then start to panic when I don’t finish what I wanted to do.

How are you doing on your word for 2012?

+Chris pulled all of the beets, roasted them, and then turned them into pickles. Should be an interesting thing to try!

+My parents came to visit this last weekend and brought their dogs. Isabelle, here, enjoyed sunning herself in the doorways when the sun came through. I think she enjoyed seeing me but she’s going blind, deaf and is getting old and I think she would have preferred to stay at home. My cats weren’t so keen on having the dogs back, but at least they were familiar with them and weren’t too upset about them.

+Been wanting some Vibram Five Fingers for awhile. Found some on clearance at REI this weekend and my parents bought them for me. So far I love them. It will take some getting used to, but I do love feeling closer to the ground. I prefer to be barefoot anyway.

+Samson had to have his fill of sunlight…

+Leo preferred the suitcases we had out as Chris has been slightly transient lately, coming back from the field for a few days.

+Bought some broccoli sprout seeds this weekend at a specialty garden center…going to attempt to do my own sprouting and add it into my breakfast smoothies.
+Getting incredibly frustrated with Mexican restaurants when I go out to eat. I feel like my only options are cheese and more cheese. I love cheese, but I’m trying to be a healthy vegetarian.
+The garden kitty has been taken in by someone at the garden to get shots and to be spayed and will be returned to the garden soon. She is incredibly sweet and will follow you around the garden. As much as I hope she gets a home, I do miss seeing her in the garden.
+Tried the sauerkraut yesterday—16 days in—getting tangy but needs more fermentation time. Scooped a few bits of mold off but it seems to take awhile for any mold to even form. After scooping it off it is very difficult for me to try a taste, but I manage. If I eat raw fish (when I take temporary leave of vegetarianism) then I think I can eat slightly rotting/fermenting cabbage.

How was your January? I need to get out more in February.

Over the years Chris and I have experienced a variety of wild places, some remote and others in the frontcountry. While for the most part we encounter lovely places that are in generally good condition, we often come across places that are wretchedly trashed or abused in some manner.

For New Years weekend we went to Enchanted Rock, one of the most visited state parks in Texas. To add to the crowdedness we of course went on a holiday weekend. The place was crawling with people, most heading to the summit of Enchanted Rock, but others bouncing around Little Rock and some of the other subsidiary rocks nearby. Several ‘backcountry’ campsites are also within the park, all within three miles of a parking lot. These had high use as well though not all of the car camping sites were full.

The first part of our dismay was finding our campsite in a food mess. The picnic table had remanants of that morning’s breakfast still on the table and on the concrete beneath it. In the vegetation to the side were orange peels and egg shells. It was pretty disgusting.

In the backcountry woods, or on trails far a parking lot or camping site, I am all for throwing a banana peel or orange peel off into the woods, though I know more hard-core Leave No Trace people would say otherwise. But in a campground? With a trash can less than 100 yards away? More than ridiculous. We rinsed the table off but I was grossed out all weekend.

An eroded tent pad was set somewhat in the middle of the campsite and we set up our large car camping tent in the middle of a path that led from our campsite to another directly behind us, closer to Little Rock. We thought this would deter folks from using the path as a cut-through. That worked for awhile until the next day when I was sitting at the table eating lunch and Chris was in the tent taking nap. Two men came with a gaggle of children down the path from the distance, turned and then proceeded to walk up to our campsite. They didn’t even attempt to turn around and say ‘oops’, or go around, nor did they stop and ask permission or say they were sorry for using our campsite as their trail to the rocks behind us. Nope they just kept on going, walking between the picnic table, the fire ring and our tent. In the middle of our campsite. Do you walk through someone’s home to get to what is behind their backyard? No. Why would you do that at a campsite? I understand the need to get to the rocks behind the campsite, but there’s a multitude of other paths that lead to it without having to access a campsite.

That didn’t happen once, no it happened yet again with another smaller group, and then another group did it to our campsite neighbors. What the heck, people? Is this just a general rudeness that has seeped through society?

Perhaps our visits to backcountry campsites and less popular campgrounds has spoiled us, and staying a top-visited Texas state park has brought that to our attention. Those other camping areas are nice and quiet! Yeah, we may whine a bit in the winter if we’re in the tent earlier than everyone else but at least most people pipe down at a decent hour. Both nights at Enchanted Rock, and one night can be forgiven because it was New Years Eve, our neighbors stayed up to unearthly hours. The first night it had to be at least 4am before they went to bed. There are quiet hours for a reason! Respect them. If you want to talk, do it more quietly than your normal talking voice. And for crying out loud, do not play your radio!

Out away from the campground we encountered some mild trash on the rock areas, a water bottle tucked underneath a boulder, pieces of litter here and there. It wasn’t terribly bad, but bad enough to roll your eyes and wonder what people were thinking. They weren’t.

Some of this I should have spoken up and said something, particularly the first time someone cut through our campsite. I was grumbling too much at the time and was worried I’d snap something nasty in front of the kids so I kept my mouth shut. But, I should have said something in an effort to teach the kids the right and wrong of camping ethics. Maybe next time dad walked through a campsite one of them would have reminded him not to do that.

So, what do you need to know about outdoor camping ethics?

First, learn Leave No Trace ethics. I think we strive to follow most of their principles, though I will not pack out my toilet paper. I’m sorry but that is just disgusting and if you make a cathole appropriately you shouldn’t have any problems. I will pack out feminine products, though, and you should too.

Pick up after others. If you see a piece of trash on a trail, pick it up and pack it out. Educate others when you can, without being hostile about it. Actions also speak louder than words.

I did some Googling and it seems I am not the only person annoyed with campsite cut-thru’ers:
5 Ways to Ruin a Camping Trip…for Someone Else.
Virginia Outdoors
Daily Organized Chaos

Many campground webpages came up in my search and they even listed out in their guidelines that one shouldn’t cut through other’s campsites!

Camping should be fun and enjoyable for all. Think twice about what you are doing at your campsite and what effects it might have on your camping neighbors. Leave your campsite better than you found it. Educate those who may be oblivious to outdoor ethics guidelines—it is likely many don’t know these things because they don’t often visit state parks or campgrounds, particularly in high impact areas that see a lot of day visitor use.

Now, I’ll step off my soap box. Do you have any outdoor ethics stories?

My word for 2011 was Possible, but somehow it turned more into Adventure. I think this was because I put the tagline “Live Adventurously” into my blog header and from then on it stuck. I wrote a little about that on Messy Canvas in the comments, how adventure butted in and took over. I’m not too disappointed that Possible was moved out of the way, but I think both words tend to go hand in hand.

Frankly, I thought about making Adventure my word for next year but decided against it since it seemed to take over this year. Instead the first word after that was Productive. The more I thought about that word the more sterile and bland it became. Productive feels like something that someone at Dunder Mifflin might say. I looked up synonyms and came up with Prolific.

I want to be prolific in 2012.

Part of being prolific has also been ‘focus’, in that I need to specialize in something in each of these categories (except for reading…I just want to read more).

With being prolific and focusing on a particular subject in these arenas, Art, Adventure, and Writing, I want to be really darn good at what I do.

Art
I am meshing together photography and drawing. In both of these I want to work on a series of work, several in fact, and on the art side I have a few that are AT related. I hope that at the end of the year I would have enough within the series to do something with it, either publishing it in a magazine or having a show or just selling it or making prints somehow. I’ll conquer that when that time goes. Need to do the work first!

On the photography side I want to do a series as well, but also start focusing more on the macro side of things since that is where I tend to take most of my photographs. I also like doing landscapes but Chris is much better at that than I am, and I think has the patience to seek out those landscapes. I want to do smaller scenes, either smaller, more compact landscapes but also the tiny macro scenes and shots that get missed. I also want to submit my work to magazines and gallery exhibitions! I have two exhibitions in mind already.

Also in photography I am trying to get this portrait thing off the ground and would certainly like to have at least one client a month! Again, I think it is time to specialize in something instead of being so broad and I am thinking of settling on maternity and children. I have no desire for weddings or other big parties.

Adventures
Since our days of big backpacking adventures are over for now, we’ll be doing smaller backpacking and car camping trips, but I also want to do other adventures that might be overlooked locally. Our friend Speaker just finished the Source to Sea of the Mississippi River and Chris and I joked that we could do the Source to Sea of the San Jacinto River—in about the length of a long weekend. Of course the river might be dry in some spots due to the drought, so theorhetically we could probably walk the length of the river right now. That’s just one thing—doing smaller adventures and being prolific about it. The basic premise is to get out, see and do.

Writing
For years I’ve wanted to write a book but the actual premise never really came to me. I contemplated an AT book (I actually have an idea for one but it doesn’t involve thru-hiking and would take a load of research and interviews…) but realized the market was inundated with thru-hiking memoirs. Instead I am working on a book on our Florida Trail hike. Yes, this is even more specialized and I doubt I will sell enough for me to stop working (I can dream!) but more needs to be written about the Florida Trail. I am hoping to transfer this also to writing articles in various magazines about the FT but also to expand my writing and write about places we visit in Texas too. That and I want to guest blog on a few blogs that I follow…I just want to write! Hopefully at the end of the year I have a book written and some articles, too.

Being prolific is going to require focus and execution of the goals so I will probably be pulling back from blogging some, only writing here a few times a week instead of almost every day…unless I have the time to write posts for a week to schedule, which is what I do sometimes. I will be around but when I catch myself heading for Pinterest, I will know that I am just wasting time and should be doing something else!

What is your word for the year? Need ideas on what to do with your word? Mandy has some great ones!

2012—-we’re going to be Prolific!