New Social Network for Walking Fern
I know some of you expressed interest in having a forum or social network so I have set one up for you. Complete with profiles, personal blogs, a photo section, a wiki and the forums, you guys can join the Forestlings Network now. The new addition has been added to the main site, There’s Something About the Birds, as well. I will be updating links soon.
Seriously, guys, come check it out and join up!
New Social Network for Walking Fern
I know some of you expressed interest in having a forum or social network so I have set one up for you. Complete with profiles, personal blogs, a photo section, a wiki and the forums, you guys can join the Forestlings Network now. The new addition has been added to the main site, There’s Something About the Birds, as well. I will be updating links soon.
Seriously, guys, come check it out and join up!
Gettin out in nature.
Don’t know why I’ve never done this before, but I just did a 16km hike through a trail orienteering. Picked up a map from a conservation area with the nicest bathroom stop I’ve ever seen, and used it with my compass. The super shitty straps on my salmon pack basket began disintegrating. The top layering fell off and is all stuck to me. I did have a job interview so maybe I will be able to afford a proper daypack soon. Saw a fox, a snake and a raccoon on the way home too. I am about a fifth done the pre-reqs for my Red Pine Award.
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Shop Spotlight: Hippy Tree
Today HippyTree is a nature inspired surf and outdoor apparel company. HippyTree is dedicated to designing products and graphics that embody the “surf & stone” lifestyle. HippyTree’s rugged apparel designs and hand drawn graphics featuring waves, mountains and wildlife reflect the company’s passion for surfing and the outdoors. Marked by the “green tree” logo, HippyTree is committed to softening its environmental impact by using eco-friendly materials and manufacturing. HippyTree apparel is sold in surf, outdoor and specialty retailers throughout the United States and internationally.
All of the clothing and prints are aimed at men, so there’s not much here for forest girls, especially the more petite of us, but there is plenty for the forest boys. It’s something our Sylvan Men might quite enjoy. Take a look at some of the prints and clothing below:
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Too damn nice to be inside. Later guys!
Return/Camp love
So I’ve returned from my overnighter winter camp with the Girl Guides. The usual occurred such as fights, the odd child crying but all was swiftly remedied. Winter hit us hard on the bus ride there, temperature dropping to -20 degrees celsius and it began to blizzard. All of these girls are urban girls and for the younger ones, they’d never been on a camp in the wilderness so the close copses of trees and wild animals walking right up to your doorstep was a new experience. We played Night Eyes in the trees in the dark, went on a wilderness hike and scavenger hunt, did an owl pellet demonstration and played a card game involving mushrooms and a survival prey and predator game. The girls loved it, and they all had a healthy obsession with nature. One girl commented that her favourite part of camp was “seeing a dead fox”, in a way that only a 9 year old can. My solar charger performed its duties well, and so did the girls.
If all goes according to plan, I will be heading 8 hours to Northern Ontario for an Outdoor Activity Leadership course camping weekend. This one is for residential and I’m hoping to upgrade to the wilderness level. Tomorrow night we’re doing the Nedic Love Yourself challenge for valentines day, and the girls are going to make feel good valentines for themselves. I’m also all set to go to summer camp and we’ll be teaching them to set up their own tents beforehand. Thinking Day is coming up so that meets more outdoor adventures, a festival, skating, etc… All in all, it’s been pretty awesome.
Owl Prowling
So last night, my partner and I headed out for a night hike for an owl prowl. Essentially an owl prowl is a hike lead by birders which attempts to communicate with local species at the height of their hunting period. Our birder is an ecotourist and he took us out to try to speak with a horned owl and a screech owl. Though at the beginning of the night, the owls proved elusive, we did see a family of deer(something my partner has never seen) silhouetted against the moonlit sky. They stopped to watch us as we passed. 
Photo from The Firefly Forest
After failing to have any owls talk to us, we headed back indoors for an info session and a dissection of owl pellets. Dissecting the pellets brought back all my nightmares from my osteology classes in university(something I was absolutely awful at) but it was fun regardless. Our owl had eaten a mouse and a shrew.
When we left, we went with the two interpreters who ran the owl prowl and headed up a different trail where we had rumour of a particularly chatty owl. True to form he couldn’t resist talking back, and neither could the raccoons.
All in all it was, for me, a rather religious experience. I always feel at ease walking the forest amidst the wild creatures, and all the more at night. It was a favourite passtime of mine as a child. We had some funny moments too, mostly from one woman who seemed to think she was going to a zoo, and couldn’t understand why the owl prowl was at night and not during the height of day. She also destroyed the bones in her pellet in a most irreverent fashion.
Here is a downloadable leaflet all about owl pellets . I’m sticking it on my kindle. I have another owl pellet I am going to use for demonstration with the girl guides.
