I Love Camping in My New Canvas Tent, so Why Not Give Camping a Try?

Posted on February 3, 2011 by Frank

I love living in the country and I also love being in the forest. Going camping is one of my greatest loves.

There is something about camping that just makes it special. When you’re camping it’s even better than living in the country. When you’re camping you’re out the birds and the animals, you feel at one with them.

I’ve been camping since I was very small. My parents used to take me camping when I was very young, and of course back in those days there was almost nobody else doing it.

You could camp just about anywhere, wherever you wanted you could pinch your tent and you are camping. But now there’s all sorts of rules and regulations about where you can camp and where you can’t. It drives me nuts.

Speaking of tents I’ll have to tell you about my tent. I used to use a small hiking tent when I was younger, but now I’ve upgraded to a canvas tent and I love it.

There’s advantages and disadvantages to canvas tents of course. They are bulkier and heavier and you couldn’t possibly go hiking with a canvas tent in your pack. But I’m a bit old for hiking now, and I carry my tent in the car so the weight and bulk doesn’t matter.

But we’ve been out camping in some seriously bad weather, heavy rain, strong wind and more. And usually when we go out we do so with a bunch of other people, and I’ve been out camping when their tents have leaked and blown down and our wonderful new canvas tent is upright and dry.

Of course you have to take some precautions, I usually put out some extra guy ropes, pegged down against the wind, because you need to use your head. But some of these new lightweight camping tents just don’t cut it when it comes to bad weather.

If I was sitting in a tent with my family in wild weather it would be a canvas tent any day. More expensive than one of these cheap Chinese tents, heavier and bulkier, but give me a good canvas tent when you’re camping any day of the week. Continue reading →

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The Country Is Full Of Birds, And Birds Are My Friends

Posted on February 21, 2010 by Frank

I’ve already said how much I like living in the country, I really do.

But one of the good things about the country is the birds. Birds are the most amazing creatures, I love them.

Out here there are just so many birds. Dozens and dozens of birds. It must be because they like the trees around me because there’s always birds and they sit in the branches of the trees and pick off the pods with  their beaks and hold them in their claws and eat them one by one slowly.

I love birds but it is a shame to see them damage my trees, and they do damage them breaking all the bits off. If you look under the tree you can see all the tree lying there. Well not all of it but a lot, there’s broken tree all around.

Mainly they’re parrots, I don’t know. They so colorful that I just love to sit and watch them in the trees. I even get them sitting around my veranda, sometimes if I’m lucky I get them sitting right on the window sills. And they’re so colorful that I just sit still so I don’t scare them away and watch them.

There’s damage to the trees like I said but it’s still great having them around and I love it. I could shoo them away when they start damaging the trees and then I wouldn’t have the damage but I’d rather let them come and sit on my veranda. If I scare them away they might leave for good.

Its got to be so much better out here. I’ll bet there’s no birds like that in the city. Too many people to scare them off and no trees for them to wreck wither.

And it’s not just birds, there’s so many animals, and as I love animals I’m happy. I’m surrounded by animals and birds too.

Its good for the soul I think. Having birds and animals around is a part of nature and a part of life. Its not sterile like in the city. Birds and animals for me any day. Just right now as I was writing this a whole bunch of them flew right past the window. I can see one of them sitting on the veranda in front of me right now. Continue reading →

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I Have A Boat, It’s Just Great Having Your Own Boat.

Posted on February 21, 2010 by Frank

I have a small boat myself. Just a small aluminum boat, about 11 or 12 feet long. Its got its own trailer so I can tow it, I don’t need to put it on the roof of the car or anything.

It was raining and blowing hard when we went away last week. The kids had school holidays so they said they didn’t want to spend the whole time at home, so we went away. And though it was raining hard at first it soon stopped and got sunny so it was really nice.

And it was a really nice risort and the kids loved it. So many things for kids to do. The killer of a good holiday is bored kids, if you’ve got bored kids then they aren’t happy, and if they aren’t happy you aren’t happy. But here there was so many things to do for the kids.

Bored kids can be the worst thing you can do for your holiday. They are grumpy and unhappy and keep hassling you all the time to play with them, when all you want to do is to sit and relax and read a book. Kids hassling you doesn’t mesh well with bored kids.

But no problems on the weekend, bored kids weren’t a problem for me. There were so many things for them to do, table tennis, pool, a huge jumping thingy that they loved. A swimming pool that was outdoors and heated, and they love to swim.

And there was this massive tv for them to watch in the games room and every night there was a kids movie to watch so they loved that too.

And of course the swimming pool. I can’t believe something as simple as a swimming pool keeps kids entertained for so long.

And more about the boat. It was great for a number of reasons. Firstly it was a great way to get the gear transported. The kids bikes are too big to take in the car but if you have a boat along then you can just throw them in the boat and they’re taken care of.

So the boat was great. We did a couple of days in the boat. One was on the local river just looking around, a little time spent sitting on the bank having lunch and giving the kids a swim. More swimming! And we could sit there in the sun and read our books.

And near us was a lake too and we decided to spend some time on the lake. I had already bought a tube that towed along on the boat behind so that the kids could ride on it. They did it last summer and liked that so I decided to throw that in and was glad I did. In fact it was hard to get them off of it. Continue reading →

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The Weekend Is Dusted And Done.

Posted on February 21, 2010 by Frank

It’s all done, the weekend I really mean. And was it a great weekend? I loved it, though getting up quite so early was a little hard. Way too early for me.

I got up at around 5 am, really really early for me. It was way dark and it felt like the middle of the night. Wow was it hard to get myself out of bed, but I got out because I knew that I had a good weekend to look forward to.

I had to get going on time to meet the other people, so I picked up my friend on time. But it took quite a while to get all his stuff packed into the car, we were stuffing things into every space we could find.

It was raining by the time we got there unfortunately. That was a shame as it has been such good weather lately, the one weekend I want good weather its raining. But thats weather, you cant do anything about it can you?

We were camping (not great in the rain) and so we had to get there and put up the tent and so on. We were lucky that by the time we got there most of the rain had stopped. There was still a little but nothing like the rain we had on the way. It’s not pleasant putting up a tent in the rain is it? And it was a long drive there too.

And along the way there were all sorts of new speed limits, damn, I hate getting caught for speeding, so I observe them. Continue reading →

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I Have A Few Cows And I Love Them

Posted on February 21, 2010 by Frank

Cows.

I really love cows. They’re such lovely animals to me, almost a half ton in weight but so gentle. I’ve never seen an aggressive cow. Bulls maybe, but not cows. Even my kids can pat them as long as they’re feeding them, the cows don’t necessarily like being patted but they’ll stand there and be patted if they’re getting fed. They just pull back a little when you try and pat them.

You won’t get to pat them a lot unless you’re feeding them hay. They like their hay and when the grass is short and there isn’t too much because winter is coming and the grass isn’t growing. But I have a good supply of hay.

Now that means of course  that youre committed to feeding your cows every single day. Once there’s no feed in the field then they need hay each day without fail. So you cant just go away for a few days and leave them or they starve. So you’re committed to them.

I feed them myself. I like my holidays though so when you go away you have to have something to do so that the cows are fed. I do this.

I have a good system. I keep a couple of my paddocks fenced off with the gate closed so that when one has good grass in it I can keep it that way. The cows eat my hay until I have to go away and then I can open the gate and let them in there and they have plenty of food for a week or so and I can go away knowing my cows aren’t starving.

And when I open the gate to the paddock with the grass they’re in there as fast as they can, because they’ve seen all that grass when they look through the gate.

Then when I come back I shoo them out of that paddock and back into the one with no grass and I start feeding them the hay again.

Right after breakfast I feed them their hay. They get 1 1/2 bales of hay every day but if it’s too cold I give them 2 bales of hay and they eat the lot. And they’re not silly, they know when feeding time is, they’re waiting right out the front of the shed for their hay.

They got 2 bales this morning. But finally the weather is warming up and the grass is beginning to grow again. Good, because I dont have much hay left. But now it doesnt matter because they’ve got grass to eat. Continue reading →

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Bike Riding Is My Poison

Posted on February 21, 2010 by Frank

I love cycling, I really do, I just love cycling.

I came to riding quite a while ago. Well no not that long ago actually, considering that I’m not young. I knew I had to do something to keep fit.

Swimming never did it for me. I mean swimming is boring, really boring. You just swim up and down, up and down, up and down. For hours and hours. Actually it only feels like hours and hours, I rarely swim for more than about 20 minutes, that’s about as long as I can stand the boredom.

There’s a black line and you just spend your time watching that black line, because of course there’s nothing else to watch other than that black line. Now that’s what I call boring.

So after trying swimming I knew that wouldn work. I knew I couldn’t spend 4 or 5 days a week putting some swimming into my day. Because if you’re going to keep fit you’ve got to do it about 4 or 5 days a week or youe really just wasting your time.

And you’ve got to do about a half hour minimum. Less than that and its a bit of a waste of time.

So once I decided I didn’t like swimming I really had to find something else. And like swimming I found running really boring too so that was out. What to do? Then I thought about cycling.

I didn’t have a bike although I used to ride to work many years ago. My old bike was up at the shed  but its so rusted that its unusable. I knew I had to get another bike. And a new bike isn cheap.

But I found out that there was a cycling club near me and they were starting up a new cycling recreation group. The ideal time to buy a bike and take up cycling.

I found the pace of riding wasn’t right for me, but enjoyed the rides. They did longer and shorter rides and I enjoyed it.

Now Im not young, 52 actually, but even so I wanted to go a little faster. The ride was more social than a workout and I wanted a workout as well. Eventually I dropped out to ride on my own because I needed to ride a little harder to get a real workout.

So after a while riding on my own I found that it was nice to ride hard but a little lonely. I was getting a workout but on my own. So I made some enquiries and found out that there was a riding group that rode out of town a few days a week that used road bikes and rode hard. It went sundays and I decided to go along.

But the bike that I had already bought was a half mountain bike and half road bike, called a hybrid, and so I had the wrong bike again. So again I had an issue with no bike that would do the job, but by then I knew I really liked riding to I bought a road bike and joined the Sunday group. They ride pretty fast and sometimes I keep up, occasionally I don’t keep up.

But of course its a hard workout, exactly what I need. Continue reading →

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I Get To Go Away This Weekend And I Love It

Posted on February 21, 2010 by Frank

Here’s a treat coming up for me, I get to go away this weekend. What a great treat, it will be really nice to get away.

I get to go with a friend because my family all have some concert to go to and they can’t come so I get to go with a friend. Last time I took my family, not this time.

It’s forecast to rain this weekend unfortunately so I’m planning too take the big canvas tent. It’s big and bulky and heavy and I have a much lighter smaller tent, but if it’s going to rain I’m taking the big heavy tent.

I don’t like getting up early, I resist it when I can, but we have to go at 6 am Friday. It’s a 3 hour trip to where we are meeting up with some others, and we meet at 9.

But it’s not that much of a drama getting up early if you’ve got a holiday to get up for. And I’m looking forward to it so it’s not that much of a problem.

I hope the car does ok,  its not really old but its not new either and Id hate to think the car let me down and didnt make it.

I broke my old fishing rod a while ago and I bought a new one this morning because I plan to do some fishing on Saturday. Saturday is planned to be a free day and so I’m off fishing. And so I needed a new rod.

I made that fishing rod when I was about 25. I bought the blank and I bought the whipping and the rod varnish and all the other bits and pieces that go into making a fishing rod. I was pretty pleased with myself that I managed to make my own fishing rod.

It was a sad day the day I broke it, I’ve used that fishing rod a lot. And the silly thing is I still don’t know how I broke it, I was just walking through a patch of trees and I looked down at my rod and saw the tip hanging off. I have no idea how it happened but I was really annoyed.

It wasnt worth a lot but it was to me. I mean I made that rod myself. And I broke it. So today I went back to the fishing shop and bought a rod.

And I couldn’t believe. 25 dollars for a new fishing rod. They certainly aren’t expensive now to buy. But the new one isn’t the one I made. I’d rather my old one than a new one.

So there’s the news about my weekend to be. It won’t rain will it and I will catch a fish won’t I?

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I Have To Say I Just Love To Write, Even If I’m No Good At It

Posted on February 21, 2010 by Frank

I really enjoy writing, though I’m not at all convinced that I’m much good at it. I have been into writing for many years, in fact I remember when I was really young and in primary school I wrote stories one after another. I wrote them then gave them to my teacher who read them all. I suspect he got a little bored with it all. I can’t believe I wrote so many stories when I was young.

I went to university when I got older but I made a mistake. I studied what I thought would be good to get a job. But when I should have done was to study what I liked, writing. If I had it all again I’d study writing and see how far I got, though maybe it wouldn’t be too far.

I have no idea if I would ever have become good enough at writing to make a living at it, but I would have liked to have tried. You never know unless you try, and I wish I had tried. I would have given it a really good go, and would have made a difference.

Writing well can be learned I’m sure. It’s a skill. It’s not something that you’re born with I’m convinced. It’s a skill that anyone, including me, should be able to learn. I think the most important thing is that you enjoy it and if you enjoy it you’ll keep at it till you’ve learned.

But if you love it like I do then writing is just something that needs time to develop. It is a skill that you have to work on every day. I work on it every day.

So I have this website and this is where I’m going to practice my writing. I have it on the internet as it’s a convenient place to have it, but I really don’t intend for lots of people to come along and read it. It’s just about me and what I do every day, so it’s probably pretty boring to others. But if you’re someone reading this then I have at least one other visitor other than me, so thanks for visiting my website.

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Good Days Are The Best Days

Posted on February 21, 2010 by Frank

Don’t you love days like today, I do. It’s just as I like it. Warm but not too hot, (I hate heat). And there’s no wind and it’s just ideal. I love it like this. I’ve been out in the car today and I’ve been feeling good. I drive along looking at the views and I love it here where I live. I see cows in the fields and happy people.

But of course I’ve decided that it’s a perfect day but maybe not everyone would agree. Maybe for some people it’s just a terrible day. Really bad. Maybe you’ve had some really bad news or something isn’t working out for you at all or maybe you’re sick.

But it’s different for you than it is for me. It’s entirely subjective and that’s why it may be wonderful for me and terrible for you. My day is the best ever, yours is the worst.

What is it that makes it a great day for me but is really not the best day for someone else? Why is it that I see the sunshine and the cows in the fields and the happy people? Why is it that you may not see these?

Maybe you see terrible things in the day, all bad, darkness. The best day for me is the worst day for you.

But you might see the horrors, you might see the all the bad things, you might see the darkness. My great day is your worst.

I even think it’s possible that if you and I have the exact same experience of the day we will see it totally differently. You come for a drive with me and we see different things. You see the same cows, the same sunshine, the same people, but maybe you don’t even see them. Maybe you see something completely different. You mind registers the same things as mine, and records it, but it filters it all through the experiences you’ve had in the past and mine does that too, and that makes our experience of the day different.

There’s some of my silly rantings. I was just thinking about this stuff today, that’s all. Continue reading →

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I just love the country

Posted on February 21, 2010 by Frank

It’s the country that I live in and I really like it. Living in the country is a treat and it’s something that I’ve done for quite a few years now. I grew up in the city but you wouldn’t get me back there again.

There’s just so much to living in the country that you just can’t find living in the city. One example. I love cycling and do it heaps out here in the country. It helps keep me fit and that’s important and I definitely need to keep fit. And it gets me into some beautiful outdoors locations.

And riding gets you out where you see so many things that make it worthwhile. I love to see sheep and cows in the paddocks. Actually I have my own cows and I love that and I even get calves from time to time.

It’s just one of the best things of living here, I get to keep cows and calves. I love that and all of the nature around me.

Its Summer right now and its hot. Weve had some really hot days lately. Now of course if I lived in the city it would still be hot. But here I see the cycle of the seasons so well. I feel more at one with the seasons and with nature now. I see the grass wilt and die when summer comes, I see the grass regrow and get green again for winter. It see snow, I see drought, I see rain.

All the leaves turn such great colors, and they fall off and they look so good all on the ground around the base of the tree, and the trees drop seeds and new baby trees start to grow underneath them. I get to see the old and the young, all cycling.

I cycle and nature cycles. Everything goes around and I get to watch it all.

If I lived in the city I mightnt even have a garden. I mightnt have a tree at all. I might have a lot of concrete, I might have pavers and a BBQ, but I mightnt have a tree or a blade of grass.

And unlike here I probably wouldn’t get to see the seasons change like I do now.

It’s sterile in the city and I spent a large part of my life there so I’ve been there. Of course it’s just me that thinks it’s sterile, others don’t.

Even the rest of my own family live there. My brother loves it and he’s single so I suppose he needs more social life than me, and there’s probably more social life in the city. But I don’t like it.

I’ve lived in the city for a long time, I grew up there and I really feel now like I’ve wasted so many years. Now of course I didn’t waste them I had my time and I lived my life but it feels like wasted time. I should ask my brother if he’d like to live in the country, it would be nice if he lived nearby. But even if I suggested it to him I doubt that he’d move here. Continue reading →

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