Saturday, May 31, 2025

Blueberry Bust and Thunder Muffins - May 29

May 29, 2025

Day 1,336 of the Adventure


It's Blueberry pickin' time......... Well, Almost Blueberry pickin' time in the Ozarks. Shelley made her first pilgrimage to the blueberry patch this year on their opening day and.......... They were open but the blueberries were mostly still greenberries. As beautiful as the are, and as tasty when ripe, these guys just aren't ready for Shelley's personal picking onslaught. She want to see them all ready at the same time so there's no "single picking" of berries. She wants to be able to strip the whole twig worth of berries in one swipe without wasting a single berry. The trip wasn't a complete waste of time and energy. Blueberry picking carries with it a couple other benefits. One of the best ones is Thunder Muffins. Those huge blueberry muffins that they bake fresh every morning at the berry farm. 

Carry On

Adventure Quote: “Berries are berries. They don’t speak any language I can’t understand.”
― Mary Oliver

Resources

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YouTube Channel: The Campfire Trail
YouTube Channel: Life of Treasures

Our Books
Treasures of Life - Daily Devotional by Shelley
Treasures of Life 2 - Daily Devotional by Shelley
Back to the Land - Planning your Back to the Land Roadmap by Martin
Wealth Creation - Principles of Wealth Creation by Martin

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Thursday, May 29, 2025

Something NEW on the Backwoods Horizon - May 28

May 28, 2025

Day 1,335 of the Adventure


A while back (earlier this month) we mentioned that we had taken a trip to an Heirloom Seed company during their Spring festival. This idea came from there, even though they do not have the supplies available themselves. I got the idea from a vendor there and had not considered this as really much of a thing until now. Mushroom Logs. Yes, I discovered that many varieties of mushroom can be propagated right in the kind of wood that grows in abundance around our place. Today, we ordered up the supplies necessary to start Shiitake, Oyster, Chestnut and Lions Mane mushrooms. We've eaten three of these four varieties ourselves and liked them all. Foraging for them is very intimidating to me. I can identify the Lions Mane. That one is fairly easy. The others, not so much. I'll feel a lot better about it knowing that we are actually growing specific varieties and have some control over what we are harvesting. I have found Lions Mane growing right on pieces of firewood in our woodshed. The only problem is that two or three little mushrooms is never enough. Hopefully, we'll be able to grow a regular crop of them and have them available when we want them rather than just when they decide to show up. Look for updates as this new adventure develops. 

Carry On

Adventure Quote: “I’m growing mushrooms… because I can’t kill them. They just keep multiplying…and it’s like…I’m in service to them.” ― Sharon Weil

Resources

Make sure to visit our website regularly to see new products and resources.

YouTube Channel: The Campfire Trail
YouTube Channel: Life of Treasures

Our Books
Treasures of Life - Daily Devotional by Shelley
Treasures of Life 2 - Daily Devotional by Shelley
Back to the Land - Planning your Back to the Land Roadmap by Martin
Wealth Creation - Principles of Wealth Creation by Martin

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Tuesday, May 27, 2025

Food Preservation - May 27

May 27, 2025

Day 1,334 of the Adventure


Even though it's still late May, the food preservation efforts are fully under way. The Freeze Dryer has been getting the biggest work-out but today we dragged out the vacuum sealing equipment to preserve frozen whole strawberries. I was tempted to grab a couple as a snack while we worked on them. Only to remember they would be the consistency and temperature of ice cubes. 

Immediately after the strawberries, Shelley informed me we have a bunch of sliced Sweet Potatoes ready to be packaged as well. By the time we were done with it all, there were 15 big packages of potatoes and 13 packages of strawberries. It's a good start to the 2025 food preservation season!

Carry On

Adventure Quote: “We are not preparing for the world we live in - we are preparing for the world we find ourselves in.” ― Michael Mabee

Resources

Make sure to visit our website regularly to see new products and resources.

YouTube Channel: The Campfire Trail
YouTube Channel: Life of Treasures

Our Books
Treasures of Life - Daily Devotional by Shelley
Treasures of Life 2 - Daily Devotional by Shelley
Back to the Land - Planning your Back to the Land Roadmap by Martin
Wealth Creation - Principles of Wealth Creation by Martin

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Monday, May 26, 2025

Living in Storage Units? - May 26

May 26, 2025

Day 1,333 of the Adventure


I watched a video a couple days ago that surprised me at first. After thinking about it though, it doesn't surprise me much at all. It's the growing trend of people living in storage units. (Here's a link to the video I watched) I'm not referring to shipping containers converted into homes or backyard storge sheds converted to legitimate living spaces. I'm talking about commercial storage buildings where you rent space to store your belongings. Those places with perhaps one light and no other electricity in the units at all. The ones where you have a gate code to enter the premises and there are hundreds of units. Yes, those kinds of storage units. The problem seems to mostly stem from areas where rent has become unaffordable or even unavailable. Rather than choose homelessness, people have taken to renting $150, more or less, storage units to live in. It's not something that's permitted, or even legal but to many, it seems you gotta do what you gotta do to survive. On one hand, I admire and respect the creativity and resourcefulness to find and utilize this "alternative" source for housing. On the other hand, I view it as a bit of an ominous sign. Nobody, I don't believe, at any point tells themselves ", a year from now, I'll be living in a storage unit just to survive." Yet there are obviously tens of thousands of people doing that very thing right now. Is it a lack of planning? Is it simply nothing more than unfortunate circumstances? Is it the economy in general? I would say it's all of the above and probably more. I think that the main culprit that leads to that final decision of choosing a storage unit is a sense of "It could never happen to me" syndrome. Perhaps the notion that we are immune from the hardships of life because we live in America. We never consider the possibility that we would ever have to face a decision like this.  I believe it underscores the idea of developing a more self-sufficient lifestyle. One that acts as a firewall, not just against the threat of needing to live in a storage unit, or tent, or under a bridge. Instead, it's something that helps you never be in a place where debt, high costs for goods and services and general economic conditions can ever hold that much power over your life and well-being. It's something that's certainly worth considering as we continue to make our way through the recent onset of a high cost of living and economic survival.

Carry On

Adventure Quote: “Over the years, Americans in particular have been all too willing to squander their hard-earned independence and freedom for the illusion of feeling safe under someone else's authority. The concept of self-sufficiency has been undermined in value over a scant few generations. The vast majority of the population seems to look down their noses upon self-reliance as some quaint dusty relic, entertained only by the hyperparanoid or those hopelessly incapable of fitting into mainstream society.” ― Cody Lundin

Resources

Make sure to visit our website regularly to see new products and resources.

YouTube Channel: The Campfire Trail
YouTube Channel: Life of Treasures

Our Books
Treasures of Life - Daily Devotional by Shelley
Treasures of Life 2 - Daily Devotional by Shelley
Back to the Land - Planning your Back to the Land Roadmap by Martin
Wealth Creation - Principles of Wealth Creation by Martin

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Sunday, May 25, 2025

Shelley on the Warpath - May 25

May 25, 2025

Day 1,332 of the Adventure


It was Sunday morning and I was enjoying a hot cup of coffee from my easy chair in the cabin. The rain earlier today had everything wet and kind of chilly outside. Another drop of 2 or 3 degrees in temperature inside and I would have been compelled to start a fire in the wood stove. It would have been for the purpose of a little heat, but mainly just to remove the dampness from the air. All of that was pretty much the extent of my thought process this morning. That is until I saw Shelley headed out the back door with a rifle in hand. To many a man, the thought of your wife heading out the door with a rifle would be of great concern. To me, it almost always translates to something related to her ongoing war with a small band of destructive gray squirrels. We are not necessarily opposed to, or hate gray squirrels. They just must have something in their gene pool that causes our cabin to become an irresistible snack this time of year. Don't ask me why, but in their best interest, I would advise them to just leave it alone. It usually takes a few of them being made an example of to deter the others. So here I sit, glad that I'm not the subject of her wrath this morning as I'm entertained by the activity in our back yard shooting gallery. All from the comfort of my easy chair. And that's how my Sunday morning went!

Carry On

Adventure Quote: “I believe in being everlastingly on the warpath.” ― Carrie Nation

Resources

Make sure to visit our website regularly to see new products and resources.

YouTube Channel: The Campfire Trail
YouTube Channel: Life of Treasures

Our Books
Treasures of Life - Daily Devotional by Shelley
Treasures of Life 2 - Daily Devotional by Shelley
Back to the Land - Planning your Back to the Land Roadmap by Martin
Wealth Creation - Principles of Wealth Creation by Martin

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Saturday, May 24, 2025

Let The Food Preservation Commence - May 24

May 24, 2025

Day 1,331 of the Adventure


Last year about this time, we made a somewhat significant investment into food preservation with the purchase of a freeze dryer. We kept it running almost around the clock during last year's garden harvest. It's mostly been silent since late last fall. We ran a bath of Chicken of the Woods mushrooms through it a few weeks ago, along with some redbud tree blossoms (for tea). Today we emptied it of the first round of fresh strawberries. From the looks of it, we'll have 2 or 3 more rounds of strawberries starting later today and blueberry season is just a week or so away. I think Mr. Freeze Dryer is about to get another work-out. And it has already started!

Carry On

Adventure Quote: “Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” ― Confucius

Resources

Make sure to visit our website regularly to see new products and resources.

YouTube Channel: The Campfire Trail
YouTube Channel: Life of Treasures

Our Books
Treasures of Life - Daily Devotional by Shelley
Treasures of Life 2 - Daily Devotional by Shelley
Back to the Land - Planning your Back to the Land Roadmap by Martin
Wealth Creation - Principles of Wealth Creation by Martin

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Racoon on a Stick - May 23

May 23, 2025

Day 1,330 of the Adventure


I'm not even sure what to say about this! We are experiencing an over-abundance of Racoons this spring. Our deterrent measures have been lacking and now we're paying the price. It's not like they don't have enough foraging space in our woods. They just like bird seed, I guess. Every night, a group of marauders raid the bird feeder area. Doing their best to knock them all to the ground and rob them of their bird treats. They are equally persistent as they are annoying. It's easy to scare them off. just opening the back door will send them scurrying off into the woods. I can also speak harsh and threatening words to them through the security cameras. It works to temporarily frighten them away, but by the time I'm back in bed on the verge of sleep, I'll hear them fighting and crashing around again. Surely, I'm smarter than a racoon........ Wouldn't you think?

Carry On

Adventure Quote: “The smaller the creature, the bolder its spirit.” ― Suzy Kassem

Resources

Make sure to visit our website regularly to see new products and resources.

YouTube Channel: The Campfire Trail
YouTube Channel: Life of Treasures

Our Books
Treasures of Life - Daily Devotional by Shelley
Treasures of Life 2 - Daily Devotional by Shelley
Back to the Land - Planning your Back to the Land Roadmap by Martin
Wealth Creation - Principles of Wealth Creation by Martin

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Thursday, May 22, 2025

Strawberry Pickin' Time - May 22

May 22, 2025

Day 1,329 of the Adventure


Once again, we have achieved "Strawberry Pickin' Time" in the Ozarks. The entire cabin is drenched in the aroma of fresh strawberries. Shelley is fanatical when it comes to Strawberry, Blueberry and Blackberry seasons, and it's all started again for this year. She picked 8 flats today and by 5pm she has already begun cleaning and slicing them. The first batch will become "Strawberries and Cream" for tonight's desert. Besides fresh, which a good portion will get eaten fresh. the next level is freezing some and freeze drying many. 

Carry On

Adventure Quote: “Strawberries are full of love & happiness.” ― Anthony T. Hincks

Resources

Make sure to visit our website regularly to see new products and resources.

YouTube Channel: The Campfire Trail
YouTube Channel: Life of Treasures

Our Books
Treasures of Life - Daily Devotional by Shelley
Treasures of Life 2 - Daily Devotional by Shelley
Back to the Land - Planning your Back to the Land Roadmap by Martin
Wealth Creation - Principles of Wealth Creation by Martin

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Wednesday, May 21, 2025

Back Home to the Morning Campfires - May 21

May 21, 2025

Day 1,328 of the Adventure


After 15 days gone, we're finally back home and ready to get back to work on the house project. Not before enjoying our first morning coffee and campfire in quite a while. It was nice to get away for a while, but it's also nice to be back home. I started the day early, like 6am early, with a small campfire. It was a surprisingly cool 55 degrees out and the chill made the fire very inviting. The only real problem is that everything was so wet from the recent rain while we were gone, the fire was a little bit stubborn to get going. As I sit here, I'm reminding myself of all of the things we need to do now that nice weather is upon us. All of that can wait for me to drink another cup of coffee and enjoy the peace and quiet of the Ozarks backwoods. 

Carry On

Adventure Quote: “Life’s most precious moments are not all loud or uproarious. Silence and stillness has its own virtues.” ― Kilroy J. Oldster

Resources

Make sure to visit our website regularly to see new products and resources.

YouTube Channel: The Campfire Trail
YouTube Channel: Life of Treasures

Our Books
Treasures of Life - Daily Devotional by Shelley
Treasures of Life 2 - Daily Devotional by Shelley
Back to the Land - Planning your Back to the Land Roadmap by Martin
Wealth Creation - Principles of Wealth Creation by Martin

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