'Uses of Stones'

Last night I continued reading from "Stones: Their Collection, Identification and Uses," by R.V. Dietrich. And although it was quite boring, I managed to skim through the entire 'Uses of Stones' section.

• Weights- More commonly used in the past as weights, but also used in modern day situations for on-the-spot temporary needs, or to satisfy aesthetic desire.
• Sports- Hopscotch, bocce, curling, tests of strength,
• Health (both in form of mineral and stone)- smooth stones are collected and sold as tranquilizers for "thumb therapy" 
• Rituals
• Tools and Construction

I'll be completely honest, this book bores me 100% of the time. When I first saw it on the bookshelf I thought "I had no idea there was enough interesting stuff to write a book about the collection, identification and uses of stones, cool!" Now, after reading (mostly skimming) half of it, I realize that there really is not. The main ideas of this section of the book I easily could have inferred on my own, and the supporting details just aren't that interesting. I think I am official giving up on reading this, and will now focus on my field guide more.

Summer

Earlier, Ellie and I were talking about how sad we are that our project is coming to an end. I feel that over the course of the project we have grown closer as friends, which after all these years means a lot to me. We were also discussing the possibility of continuing our project in a low key way over the summer. Possibly going back to the Adirondacks and camping, or going on an adventure in some new place. My dream is to walk part of the Appalachian trail, and I hope to do that for a week or so this summer, if I have the means to do so. I am excited thinking about all of the possibilities for future trips!

Mentor Meeting 5/18

Today I met with Mr. Morales to discuss my survival trip to the Adirondacks. I showed him some of the footage we got and talked about the things that went well or poorly. We then discussed what I am going to do for the next weeks in order to further my project and prepare for the presentation. The main things we decided I should do is:

-Organize a visit to a local girl scout troop to build a fire and teach fire safety

-Further macro & micro information, in particular, plant identification

-Find a location for our presentation

Adirondacks Day #3

Last night I got the best sleep I've gotten in a long time. The soft sound of peepers and wind blowing through the trees lulled me to sleep and, for the first time on these trips, the temperature remained above 45° all night, keeping me toasty and fast asleep. Ellie and I slept for nearly 12 hours and only woke up at 9:30 because a bird had flown into a tree directly above our shelter and was making a ton of noise.

One of the fishing rigs we built last night got a bite, but the fish got away and we were instead left with an extremely tangled line, oh well. We spent a large part of the morning building a fire and purifying water. We had a large pot of oatmeal with craisins, raisins and almonds for brunch, which was quite tasty.

We spent almost the rest of our day in the middle of the lake in our kayaks because the flies don't bother us as much out there. For a late lunch/early dinner we built another fire and cooked baked potatos in it's coals, which turned out quite well. 

Now we are going to try to pack some of our stuff up to get ready for tomorrow's early departure. So long!

Adirondacks Day #2

7:00PM

Last night was cold, approximately 30°F and our shelter was definitely not as weather proofed as our last one. It was also hard to fall asleep due to coyotes howling close to our site. Despite this, we ended up sleeping decently well and woke up at around 8:00.

First thing, we grabbed out kayaks and headed to go out fishing. We hardly shoved off when Ellie's kayak flipped and dumped her head first into the water. It was only 41°F at this point, so we decided to stay in a while and get a fire going so she could dry off. For breakfast we had some "Johnny cakes" (cornmeal and water) with some craisins and raisins. They were... interesting, but we were fairly hungry so we ate them happily. 

After breakfast, we packed up our fishing gear and a deck of cards and headed to the Green Pond portage (where the coyotes were last night). We spent most of the day there, talking, playing cards and fishing from our kayaks. We got a few bites, but they all got away. There was a Bald Eagle soaring about 50 meters above our heads, what a great day to be an American! At one point it swooped down and attacked a loon, hell yeah, 'merica! (Haha)

At about 3:30 we came back to our site (Ellie flipped her kayak again) and we ate a late lunch of craisins, an ear of corn and some nuts. Then we decided to take advantage of the last sun of the day and catch a quick "bath". It was quite cold, but also refreshing. 

For dinner, we ate some carrots, potatoes and onions. We then set up a fishing rig so we can fish during the night.   We've got another fire blazing and plan to spend our evening playing cards and watching the rig.

Until next time! 

A selfie from our "bath", Ellie's looking distressed. 

Adirondacks Day #1

Today we woke up at 7:45 and were on the road by 9:00. It was a short 10 minute drive to the boat launch, and at about 9:30 we were in our kayaks and on our way. Through a combination of portaging and kayaking, we traveled about 2 miles into a series of Adirondack lakes and decided Little Long Pond as our final destination.

We discovered that we were only allowed to stay at the designated camp sites, so our picking was more select then preferred. We ended up deciding on a waterfront, isolated, southwest site. 

Unlike back in Ellie's woods, there were much fewer resources for our shelter here. A lot of the wood on the ground was either rotten or too weak to use for our shelter and other than pine needles (which fall through a shelter frame) there wasn't much debris at our disposal. To utilize our materials the best we could, we made a latice frame out of wood, layered in pine boughs and topped it off with large pieces of bark. Due to exhaustion, we ended up leaving the front of the shelter entirely open. Compared to our last shelter, this one was quite minimal, however, we figured that since it is going to be warmer and drier, we will be perfectly fine. Despite being a less insulated and partially finished shelter, it took the same amount of time as the last one, because materials were more scarce. 

Below are pictures of our shelter:

The unfinished front

Back of shelter

Woods facing side of shelter

Adirondacks Day 0

Today we left Ithaca at around 4:00 and set out to the Adirondacks for our second survival simulation. For this trip, we packed similarly to last time, but due to predicted better weather, we didn't bring a tarp. We are additionally bringing kayaks (for transportation to our site), and fishing gear. On the way out of town today, we stopped at Dick's to get our fishing licenses.

Tonight, we will be staying at a cottage that belongs to Ellie's dad's friend and then we will head into the woods early tomorrow. Ellie and I are both extremely excited!

Until next time!

IC JE 5/11

My blog is lacking a great deal of depth. I think from my blog a reader would definitely not see 8 hours per week because I am an inconsistent blogger. There are spurts where I blog more, and spots where I didn't blog for a week. I think this itself is characteristic of my project because there is a lot more interesting hands on around the trips and more research oriented stuff in between which isn't as "bloggable". I think I document well my wilderness stays and buildup the week preceding them. I think in order to improve communication I need to be more consistent with my blogging, doing it directly after I do somethig notable. I think a good way to do this would be to include reflection and research. Maybe also a foreshadowing entry for the next trip as well.

Packing List - Adirondacks

Food:

• Cornmeal
• Oats
• Cashews & Almonds
• 4 Ears of Corn
• Craisins & Rasins

Clothes:

• Shorts x2
• Pants x2
• Long sleeve shirt x1
• Sweatshirt
• Rain Coat
• Socks x5
• Undergarments x4
• Baseball hat
• Cold weather hat
• Sneakers

Other:

• Swiss Army Knife
• Pot 
• Mess Kit
• Twine
• Fork
• Sleeping Bag
• Dry Sacks
• Camera Gear
• Life jacket
• Fishing Gear

Looking at all of this written out, I was terrified thinking of how I was going to fit all of this in a reasonably sized load that would fit in the Kayak. After packing however, I was surprised to only have one medium sized backpack, a dry sack with my sleeping bag and a camera bag.  

Mentor Meeting 5/8

Today I met for 45 minutes with Señor Morales and we had a productive talk. I showed him Ellie and my's newly released trailer for our documentary. He thought it was well done and encompassed many impressive characteristics of our survival stay.

We then discussed the logistics of my final presentation. We both agreed that some level of outside hands on is required, given that my project is almost entirely hands on. We discussed possible ways of doing this, and decided that building a fire would be the most impressive way. The only problem with this is that we will need to find a location that is central (close to downtown) that will allow us to build a fire on the property and where we can also show part of our documentary. After our survival trip next week, I will begin looking into options for this. 

Poisonous Plants

Toxicodendron Vernix (Poison Sumac): A woody shrub or small tree growing to 30 feet tall. The plant contains a resin called urushiol that irritates skin and mucous membrane . When irritated, inhalation of the smoke may cause the rash to appear on the lining of the lungs. This causes extreme pain and possibly fatal respiratory difficulty.
Toxicodendron diversilobum (Poison Oak): A woody vine or shrub that is widely distributed in western North America. It causes itching and allergic rashes in many humans, after contact by touch or smoke inhalation.
Toxicodendron radicans (Poison Ivy): A poisonous North American and Asian flowering plant that causes itching, irritating and sometimes painful rash when touched. The rash is caused by urushiol in the sap of the plant, used to help the plant retain water.