Goat kids and geocaching

We are ahead of schedule this year and already have our 4-H goats for the fair.

It was a couple hour trip to get them so we took the opportunity to find a few geocaches on the way back.  I can not recommend geocaching with goats in the car.

I love the sites we see that we would otherwise just drive right by though if we didn't geocache.

Wisconsin Wanderlust

 

Helmets Required took a field trip to ------- Wisconsin!!  That was uber exciting for Spark who had never been there.  I asked if he thought we needed a passport and that got him even more excited (yes, he knows Wisconsin is in the U.S.)  Before heading over the boarder we stopped for snacks which were enjoyed in this huge Adirondack chair. 

 

 

In Wisconsin we hiked and geocached in a state park. 

 

 

Their tummies called them to lunch at this great ice cream and pizza shop - which had their heads spinning?!



When we planned this field trip it included a boat ride on the river, however,

 

 

the government shut down put the kibosh our excursion.

 

 

We did enjoy hiking and climbing up, down, through, in and over basalt rocks.

 

 

 

Geocaching Events

Finding geocaches is a thrill but another part of geocaching is events.  Events are put on by a geocacher who wants to get together with other geocachers and says, "Come join me at these coordinates and lets have a party!"  We have only done a few of these events because where we live in the state doesn't have many and we aren't ones to drive many miles to attend them (although many die hard cachers do).

 

 

On Friday night we went to a pizza pie making event in a state forest.  This cacher, who is an excellent chef over the camp fire, has hidden over 4000 caches.  That number is about 500 more than he has found.  It is guys like these that keep the game going.

 

 

There was a little pie iron envy going on.  This other gentleman brought an original pie iron and there were offers to buy it. 

 

 

The best part about these events is hearing tales from other cachers, getting tips on hard to find caches, swapping travel bugs or dropping off dead batteries. 

 

 

No it's not, eating pizza is the best part :)

Scenes of the day

1.  Spark and I dropped Dancer off at daycamp this morning.
2.  The largest swans we have ever seen at a park Spark and I stopped at while we were geocaching.
3.  Ducks - miss them when I see them someplace else, but not enough to have our own again.
4.  The coolest bird house, it was a Chinese pagoda.
5.  It would be fun to have this little house in our yard.
6.  Large musical instruments.
7.  That sounded really good.
8.  These were fun!
9.  A traveling tree house.  I told Spark they should stop and put down roots somewhere, he laughed after about 30 seconds, a pause long enough for me to think he didn't think it was funny.  He did, it just took a little bit :)

Die Hard Geocachers

This is where we spent yesterday afternoon - in the woods where it is hot, humid, and poison ivy, deer fly and mosquito ridden.  Actually this is one of the tamer looking places we were and Dancer was still smiling at this point.  But we are not the die hard geocachers.

That would be these two, the ones on the left, it's Spark on the right.  Notice the long pants, sleeves and hat even though the temps were at the top of the thermometer?  They will trek through anything, crawl over or under anything, drive their car anywhere and do just about anything to find a cache.  They call themselves extreme, we endearingly call them crazy, even their teenage kids won't go geocaching with them.  We live where there is frost all but 3-4 months out of the year to kill the noxious weeds and bugs so there really isn't any reason to be out there in the summer when we can go in the spring, fall and winter without all the nature drama.  We tend to stick to the in-town, out of the woods caches in June through September.  Besides I don't need to go in the woods to get a deer fly bite, I got one this morning watering the lilacs.

We bailed on them right after this picture, it was about 5:30 p.m. and Dad had homemade pizza crust rising at home calling our name.  I will admit we had a good time and will happily go out them again.  I think part of the problem was that, while I was sweating and swatting bugs even with a quarter inch layer of bug spray on, I was thinking about Dad home comfortably sleeping in the air conditioning since he worked the night before.

Dancer took this picture of the little snowman that sits on our dash.  He got put there somewhere along the line and no one ever took him out.  He didn't even get a name and still sports his tag.  I guess he is appropriate looking in the winter and in the summer he makes us feel a little cooler, he has never melted after all.

MN Science Museum

Our co-op studied anatomy and physiology this past year so for an end of the year hurrah we took a field trip down to the science museum that has a large section devoted to the body.

On the way there Spark took lots of pictures out his window that he found interesting.  Most of the pictures didn't turn out half bad considering that we were driving 50+ mph and his back window is tinted. 

Things we don't see by our house, skyscrapers.  The closest thing we have to skyscrapers is silos.

Cathedrals, now we do have cathedrals but none as fancy as some of the ones in the cities.  They are huge and ornate way beyond what small towns have. 

His favorite part, driving through the tunnels.

Apartments

 

Boggles the mind that people happily live in these their whole lives.  We have relatives who have.  I guess if your friends, family and life is there it makes it home.

 

Not even a balcony.



Imagine never digging the dirt to plant a seed or sit outside after dinner.

The lobby of the science museum.

 

A fruit fly larva contently eating, eating, eating.  Little does he know that Dancer and her friend are about to pull his head off with the hopes of seeing his chromosomes. 

Before they started the experiment the helper lady asked if they would be okay with taking off the head.  Um, both of the girls are farm kids so I don't think that a fruit fly head is going to make them squemish.

With thier lab coats, gloves and goggles they look so scientisty.

On to the pirate area.  This was an extra $12 per person and I guess it was worth it. 

The whole thing was educational about a sunken pirate ship found off of Cape Cod in 1984, not even one picture of Captian Jack Sparrow. 

What is the "Human Spark"?  Well, here is the human Spark!

Spark at the news desk.

Yep, we had a good time.



Added bonus, we did a little geocaching and found our 1000th geocache!

Pancake Taste Testing

The other teen at co-op is also in 4-H, a different county but they all have the same project areas.  Dancer and her both participate in gym and art but not science since we are doing a grade school science book.  This last week they did the foot work for a consumer education project. 

Together they made four different kinds of pancakes, three from box mixes and one homemade.  During our science time they were busy mixing and frying pancakes.

We forgot our griddle so Dad called a lady he works with that lives in town and asked to use her fry pan.  Thanks Kristin :)

They fried and fried all these cute little pancakes.

On the plates they numbered 1 through 4 and then put a pancake on each number.

After the kids tried them all, without syrup or butter, they each got a Lego piece and dropped it in the bag with the number of the one they liked the best.  Homemade won by the way.  After the testing we made large pancakes and everyone had a pancake lunch, with syrup and butter this time. 

Next week the girls will have to figure out the cost of each one and plan how to display the information.

The rest of the day we went to the library, did a little shopping, found a few geocaches and ultimate Frisbee started up again.  The kids played Frisbee late and I said I don't have anything planned for dinner so we should stop for something or it will be at least 8:00 before we are eating.  We ended up having super at Five Guys.  While were sitting there, Dancer said that it was just the best day ever.  I asked her if was as good as a birthday day and she said it was for sure.  So happy to have those once in a while, I thought it was a great day too.

Day Light Savings Time Celebration

Excited that the days are going to be longer into the evening we celebrated by spending the day geocaching.  Geocaching in the winter means that your done by about 4:30 p.m., tonight it was still light out at 7:00 p.m.  Love it!

Our geocache mascot Jason always goes with us.

Beautiful day, the temperature was 65 degrees and most of the snow is gone!  We didn't even wear coats, that felt so liberating after months of heavy coats.

We even ventured under roads in these tunnels.  Spark has his "tool of the trade" glove on in case we needed him to reach into any questionable crevices.  We didn't, but he was prepared.  Warm enough to wear shorts and t-shirt!!!!

Thought we had found our 800th find but we had a 'did not find' in the found list and it was only 799.  Here we are celebrating our 799th find at a Pizza Ranch.  Spark said we would have to celebrate again when we get the 800th.  Not at 40 bucks a pop for one meal.  Maybe we will celebrate number 1000.

Here is what we look like driving down the road.  I had to run really fast backwards to get the picture, not.  Look at all those cat prints, we call them popcorns, on the hood.  I would clean them off but the cats are right back up there redecorating so I don't bother.  Happy Day Light Savings Time!!!!!