Thurs. Mar. 10

"I'm ba-ack!"

I made oatmeal on the pocket cooker this morning.

In the pan is oatmeal and cinnamon. In the coffee mug is dried apples soaking in water.

The two taller plastic bottles with blue lids are coffee creamer powder (French vanilla and Hazelnut), which we use in place of powdered milk. Without refrigeration our choices are powdered or canned milk, and the coffee creamers are a delicious alternative.

The small bottle with blue lid is the cinnamon, which I already put in the oatmeal.

Next to those are the nylon bag for the pocket cooker and the original cardboard box.

I keep the whole thing in the box so I always have some firestarter in an emergency.

Next to the pocket cooker is a pile of sticks. The stove is so efficient I had sticks left. In fact, after I cooked the oatmeal I put the tea kettle on and heated water for tea, since I had fire left!

You can see my little fire in the stove.


Afterward I took the pan and teakettle down to the lake and used sand to scrub off the soot.

It worked good!

The cat followed me down and stood on sticks at the water's edge and watched.

Then the cat walked over to these rocks and looked into the water.

Fishing?

The most common manmade thing that washes ashore are plastic drink bottles.

The second most common is flip-flops.

There are a lot of people out there hopping around on one foot! lol

Odie likes to pick sticks out of the water and lay them on the shore, because that's what we do, to let them dry out so we can use them for firewood.

This time, though, she raced back on up to the uhau with her stickl, all proud and happy!

See the stick hanging out the left side of her mouth?

Steven dug the hole we're going to use tomorrow for the dutch oven.

The dog was helping by digging in the sandpile Steven was piling up, but then

she flopped down to watch him.

The cat laid at a distance, out of the zone of possible recruitment, and watched.

This evening we had yet another campfire.

I produced some surprised from the uhaul!

Can't you just taste it?
Imagine the faint smoky smell on the marshmallow, the outside warm and crispy, the inside cooler and gooey. The choclate bar breaking with a snap and graham cracker crumbs around it in your mouth.

Fiery driftwood dragon in the campfire.

Steven blew on the coals while I took another picture.