Rhize of the Rhizomes

  OK, I know that not all mushrooms have a rhizome. But the title rolled off the tongue better than "Rise of the Mycellium" or any of the other options. And it is the title that might be the first thing to grab your attention. Kind of like the colour of the fungi in the woods are the first thing that you notice.

  The other day we went for our morning walk and almost as soon as we entered the forested track we started to notice the number of mushrooms blooming. This was shortly after the latest rain and it seems the added moisture gave the fungi community a real lift.

  We were really boggled by the number of mushrooms that we saw as we stopped to look. The variety was truly amazing. The more we looked the more we discovered, they were everywhere. Some were so tiny that you had to watch where you put your feet to avoid crushing them.

Your eye would be captured by a large yellow or red mushroom and as you looked at that you would notice a tiny, white, brown, yellow or red one peeking their heads up out of the moss or leaf mould. It was truly amazing to see so many types in such a small area.

   I truly have no idea if any of them are edible and don't honestly trust myself to read a book and feel comfortable trying a foraged mushroom. I read one time that the leading cause of death among mushroom experts was mushroom poisoning. So with my luck, I decided to give this learning experience a pass. I will stick to snapping photos and tempting the visual palette rather than the culinary palette on this topic.

   As we walk through the woods on the warm days of summer when the wildflowers are waning and colour seems to be a little harder to find. Head into the shade of an old growth forest. The shade is cooling and as you look around your feet you may start to see the colours that nature has placed in one of the more unlikely spots.

   As you look at them, see the one that caught your eye, then look around to see what you might have missed if you hadn't stopped to take a look. I  bet that there are a few more there waiting to be discovered.

   They come in all shapes and sizes, on the ground, on rocks on trees both dead and alive.

It may add a bit of time to your walk but by the time you have finished you may realize that you went further than you had planned and you are not nearly as tired as you expected to be. The frequent stops let you stay in your comfort zone for a longer period of time and being in the woods, with its quiet and relaxation may have made you much more relaxed than when you started. So get out and see what might literally be right under your feet.

Fresh Start

  Like a fresh snow, a new year is one that has no tracks made in it. We all have the chance to make the pattern we choose on a fresh canvas. 

  As a friend pointed out in an on-line discussion, every day starts the same way. This was a good piece of advice, as it means we don't have to wait for a new year to turn over to get our resolutions made. We can start each new day with a fresh plan and a fresh start. 

  This approach gives us 365 chances to start fresh and try to get back on track if we feel that we have failed in meeting our goals. We only really have failed in our goals is if we fail to try again, if we give up. If you vow to start again, to give it another try, you haven't failed, you have only had a setback or have found another way that didn't work.

  If you have made resolutions in the past and didn't make it out of January with them intact, don't give up hope, just decide to try again on a fresh day. Make a daily resolution, instead of an annual one. Try to set smaller goals, don't make a plan for a whole year, make a plan for a month of a week. This keeps the goals attainable and gives more chances to start over and get back on track.

Try to find a support group for your goals, a group of like minded people who will be there to support you when you are feeling like quitting something, as you will be there for them when they are down. No two people have the same motivation on the same days and it seems to average out that you can push each other through low points.

We all have things that we would like to change in our lives and we all need a plan to get to our goals. The only place you can get to without a map is lost. And life goals are the same, you need a map to get to your goals.

So, for all of you who are planning your goals for the new year, put on your mittens, dust off the skis, take the clothes off the exercise bench, plan a budget or sharpen the pencils for a new course to take. 

  This is the first day of the New Year as well as the rest of your life. Make the most of it and get out there and make the tracks in the blank canvas that is the rest of your life and may your design be an inspiration to you .

Happy New Year to all of our readers.

Geocaching

When we decided to retire at an early age, everyone told us we would get bored in no time at all. While it is true that the time could get log, we have not had that problem yet. We have our home projects and our hobbies. Hobbies are an important part of having a successful retirement, but like our last blog post mentioned you do need to budget for your hobbies as well.

One of our favorite hobbies is Geocaching. Geocaching is a worldwide game played with a GPS or a smartphone to find containers or caches as they are known that hold a log book for you to sign. Geocaching is free to join although you can get a paid membership that gives more tools and options. Once you have signed up for your free membership you then enter your postal or zip code or a town name into the search and you will be shown a map with the caches in your search area. The unfound caches are represented by an unopened treasure chest. Once you find a cache in the real world, you go back to the site and log the find online and the treasure chest changes to a smiley face on the map.

Abandoned stagecoach road in Nova Scotia

  The real fun of geocaching, for us is the places that it has taken us. Geocaches are hidden all over the world, chances are you have walked within a few meters of one and never even known it. They are hidden in urban settings with much skillful camouflage to rural settings with many hiding places to choose from. We find that geocaching takes us to someone's favorite spot in their area and we have found places that we would never have known existed otherwise. We love the long walks on abandoned rail lines and discovering a new waterfall or seeing a spot that is off the beaten track in a tourist area.

Fishing boat and fish house, The Tittle, Nova Scotia

Fort on Lokrum Island, Dubrovink, Croatia

    

Finding the geocache requires you to load the coordinates of the cache into your GPS or use an app for a smartphone to do this. Once you start your GPS, a pointer will aim you toward the cache location and there should be a distance indicator to tell you how far away you are. Most GPS units are accurate to 3-4meters(10-12feet), so in searching you need to have a radius of search about that wide to account for the accuracy of the hiders GPS as well. The next step is to search for the cache. The majority of caches hidden now are listed as a micro, which as the name suggests are small. They are easier to hide in urban settings to remain hidden from the general non-caching public(muggles). Inside the container is a slip of paper to sign you geocaching nickname and the date to prove you were there. Other sizes for geocache are regular, which could be an old ammo can or peanut butter jar, a small which could be a tupperware sandwich keeper to a large, which could be as large as an oil drum.

In Nova Scotia, we have the first geocache hidden in Canada, it was hidden on June 28, 2000 and to date has been found by almost 1500 people. It is on most people's must do list of caches. It is an easy cache to find as it is along the highway and only a short walk to get to this spot.

Geocaching also has different types of caches to appeal to different types of cachers. There are multi-caches which require you to find different legs of a journey to find the final location. Puzzle caches as the name implies have yo solve puzzles at home or in the field to discover the cache coordinates. There are geocaching events, where geocachers from far and wide come together to share their experiences and put faces to nicknames. CITO events are Cache In Trash Out events where geocachers get together and do a garbage cleanup in an area. There are also Earthcaches which have you learn about the geology of an area to claim your smiley face on the map. Letterboxing is a sport that predates geocaching by many years and has now been incorporated into geocaching. In letterboxing a person is given dierections to follow, like a story to find the final container. This container will hold a stamp and pad. A letterboxer will stamp the pad in the box with their stamp and stamp their pad with the stamp in the box.

Geocaching is many things to many people and there are as many ways to play the game as there are people playing it. It is a good combination of hobby and exercise that does not carry a huge price tag. We love this hobby and hope that others can join in and enjoy it as well.