Daily Life at Quiet Thyme Farm: Gone Camping

Waiting (napping) while the pie irons cook.

When I told my neighbor we were going camping, she asked why we didn't camp on our own 30 acres. I told her we wanted something wooded and remote. She said, well then camp on my property. She owns 35 wooded acres. No, we were off to Hocking Hills, an area in south central Ohio that is a lot more wooded and mountainous than the flat farm land here in the Dayton area.

The boys and I packed up along with the dogs early Thursday morning and Preston came out on his motorcycle after work that evening. We pitched the tents. They boys each had their own (a good thing). Valur slept with Colton and Annie slept with Ben. They all thought that was pretty cool since the dogs aren't allowed upstairs in the house.

Camping for me is all about waking up in the morning to a chill in the air, a fire going and warming up some water for coffee. We make our camping coffee in a coffee press (too spoiled to make instant).

We made some "fun" food while we were camping. I brought some sweet corn and we grilled the corn in the husk for about 15-20 minutes. We didn't soak them as most people will tell you to do. It was amazingly good. You just pulled back the husk and used it for a handle and after thoroughly soaking it in butter and salt, just lean over into the weeds and chow down!

We used pie irons for a couple of meals. For breakfast, we brought pancake batter made at home and put it in the pie iron along with some fruit. If you've not seen a pie iron, it's two pieces of cast iron about the size of a piece of bread that hook together with a long handle and you cook it over a fire.

We also made pie iron pizzas. We made some with Italian bread and some with Pillsbury pizza dough. You put the sauce and toppings on one piece of bread and then top it with another and close it up. The key is NOT TO OVER FILL!!! I also took a hunk of dough and put it on a cast iron skillet ... it cooks very quickly. Then put the toppings on. That is oh so yummy. Try it at home!

You'll see from one of the pictures the view from our campsite and the big tree. Colton wanted to use a rope we brought along to make a swing. Well, the rope got caught in the crotch of a big branch and they spent the rest of the weekend thinking up ways to get the rope down. Just as we were finished packing to go home they freed the rope. It was such a great way to occupy their otherwise idle time and exercise their ingenuity that we think we'll throw a rope up in a tree next time just on account.

We did lots of camping when I was a kid and my parents always played cribbage at night after we went to bed. So of course there has to be a cribbage game in the camping gear. Ben challenged me first ... he lost by 2 points. Colton was next ... nope, not even close. Then Preston took a chance ... nope. As a kid, I heard 15-2, 15-4, pair is 6 ... as I was dozing off to sleep. When we got home, Sunday night we played partners ... me and Colton against Ben and Preston. Our team won that one.

Friday we went on a 7 mile / 4-hour canoe & kayaking trip. Preston and I along with the dogs took the canoe. The boys each had a kayak. I didn't think the dog thing was going to be a good idea at first ... dogs walking nervously around a boat ... not a good thing. But they finally settled down and slept for most of the trip.

They have a new zip line attraction in Hocking Hills. For a mere $85 you can ride in a harness for 3 hours (ouch! without a bathroom?) on a zip line thru the trees from platform to platform like a modern day Tarzan. We got to watch several people zipping thru the trees as we canoed. It does sound very cool ... but $85, not now.

Near the end of the trip, Preston and I wanted to try out the kayaks, so we switched with the boys. I'll just say this ... it was a good decision to spend most of the trip with the boys in separate vessels. I also learned that I could never do 4 hours of kayaking. You are much lower to the water than canoing so it's a whole different set of muscles. I also was feeling the pain from the twisting that Dudley did to my wrist during the sheep deliver.

So we ended the trip with me in the canoe with Ben and Colton back in a kayak.

We came back to the campsite exhausted and hungry. So we started a fire for dinner. When we arrived on a Thursday, there was only one other camper that we could see near us, so it was a very peaceful first day. As the evening progressed on Friday, the campsite was filling up quickly. Next to us was a group of adults who felt the need to blast their radios and started partying as soon as the tents were up.

Now I don't mean to be an old fuddy-duddy, but there is a place for loud music and drunken parties and there is a place for quiet sitting around a camp fire. Well, it turned out all of their friends had sites, too. And before we knew it there were dozens of people and several sites. It went on well into the morning and concluded with a woman vomiting very near our tent.

It was a disappointment to say the least and even my quiet morning was not to be. They somehow managed to get up at 7am and start again. We went hiking that day, but decided to eat an early dinner and not spend Saturday night there.

The hiking was fun. We went to Old Man's Cave ... you can see the pictures below. We took the dogs. Valur was overwhelmed with excitement ... you can tell he doesn't get out much. "So much to do! So much to sniff! So much to pee on!" Pour Annie was acting like an old lady, but Preston was more than happy to let her walk slowly. It was very pretty and very well done to make it accessible for people to hike without it being tacky.

Camping at home the last night turned out nicely even if I didn't wake to a fire. We had planned to go mini-golfing on Sunday near the campsite, so we did that here at Young's Dairy and got ice cream, too. We played cribbage and some other board games that evening and had corn on the grill again. So I guess we did end up camping on our own 30 acres after all.

Here are some pictures ... I hope the captions line up ok ... I was having trouble with that and couldn't rearrange the pictures so they sort of jump around.