Camp Cooking with Mosquitos and Grasshoppers or Building Self Asteem Through Trial and Error

I got to looking at an old book the other day called Roughing It Easy. It's all about how to camp cook in style and has all kinds of recipes and outdoor cooking ideas to make your life afield more enjoyable. Well, I got to laughing to myself as I remembered a number of camp cooking learning experiences I was able to endure over the years and so having nothing else to write about at the moment I thought I'd share one of the most memorable ones with you.

My camp cooking career began many years ago oddly enough in my grandparents backyard. The year was probably around 1960 or 1961. My dad had purchased an old canvas army surplus pup tent. It was a drab army green and had that old musty smell like it had been stored away wet since 1942. It was summer and as was typical of that era, I spent a good part of my time outdoors running around barefoot and looking for something to do when I came up with the brilliant idea of camping out...in the backyard...but, regardless it was a real genuine campout for a nine year old.

The tent was setup in a strategic location; far enough away from the house so it would feel like being out in the wilderness, but close enough so if too many creepy crawlies creeped and crawled too close I could easily make a dash back to the house. The old army cot was wedged inside the tent with more blankets than the one hundred degree plus temps required piled on top.

There were numerous broken limbs lying around the yard and I gathered everyone of them I could find and built a small fire late that evening. That time of year in that part of the country it doesn't get dark until well after 9:00pm, and I couldn't wait to sit up at night around my campfire. What I didn't realize was just how much firewood would be required to last until then. For the next several hours as my campfire continued to burn down I would run around in the ever widening circles in ever increasing darkness looking for something to burn. My intent of course was to cook my supper over the fire after it got dark, but by that time, it was too dark to find any more wood to burn and my grandmother had fixed fried chicken whose aroma kept drifting across my campsite, so I ate inside that first night. But, I was determined to fix my own breakfast the next morning.

Morning was long in coming. Army cots are not the most comfortable of devises to sleep on and it was hot and the mosquitos swarmed inside my open ended tent. I'd pull the covers over my head to protect me from their blood sucking bites until I would get too hot and then have to come up for air. I've often wondered what it is about the inside of your ears that is such an attractant for mosquitos. They were constantly buzzing and dive bombing around my head and wanted to burrow deep into my ear cavities. The grasshoppers were thick that year and a number of them along with daddy longleg spiders turned the inside of my tent into a residence. It was a regular commune of mixed species trying to co-exist. That pretty much was the pattern all night. Somewhere between one of the coming-up-for-air bouts and the hoot owls and whippowills seranade I fell asleep.

By the next morning I was skeeter bit from top to bottom. But, I jumped out scattering grasshoppers as I tossed the blanket aside. I quickly gathered another arm full of firewood searching high and low for the fuel...rekindled the fire and ran to the refrigerator and extracted a couple of eggs and several strips of bacon. Using my old army surplus spit kit I commenced to burning the bacon and destroying the eggs. What I ended up with was part burnt bacon bits blended with rubbery eggs and egg shells pieces and probably a hapless grasshopper or two that managed to find their way into the mix when I wasn't looking...which by the way probably considerably improved the taste and texture of the meal. I loved it. I was now a genuine fully fledged camp cook.

Over the years just how much my camp cooking skills improved could be debated long into the
summer night. Although I've managed to graduate to a more modern approach to camp cookery, those first feeble attempts proved much more valuable in the long run. What has improved is my appreciation for having done those things. As simple and comical as those trials-by-error events were, they were none the less great learning tools for those time when a good sense of self became important. I guess my parents and my grandparents instinctively understood things like that. They allowed me to build my own self asteem through trial and error, mostly through error. It is amazing just how effective cooking burnt bacon and eggs over your very own campfire...and throw in a grasshopper or two...can be when it comes to building such things.

On Any Given Day - Rural Kentucky - The Pond

Sometimes we pass by locations and never give them a second look. That is unfortunate because many of those places often provide great photo opportunities if we just take the time to see it. One such place is where a pond and barn are located just off the road on my way to work. I drive by it almost everyday, early in the morning and then again in the afternoon. I've seen it through various seasons and it changes its personality with each of those seasons and time of day. I've grown to like this location because by itself it defines the best of rural Kentucky and it has become one of my favorite photo op locations. I'd be willing to bet that most people drive by it and never see it.

Seeing is what separates a photographer from a snapshot shooter. Snapshot shooters tend to take random pictures of things rarely giving any thought to the lighting or composition. Every once and a while they will take a pretty good picture, usually more because of the high scenic value of the location that even a snapshot shoot couldn't foul up.

Although it is not always practical to do so, being able to photograph one location during different lighting events is a big time advantage. It gives you a sense of location and a feel for photographic value. That is why I encourage photographers to know their home range, to look for those iconic locations that define where they live and take advantage of being able to be there on any given day.

Oddly enough, this particular pond is no longer there. The year 2013 there was lots of rain and we live in cave country and that mean lots of sinkholes. One day I was drivng home from work and cast a quick glance at the pond as I passed by. The next morning as I passed by heading to work I through another quick glance and had to slow down to take a second look...the pond was gone and a large hole had opened up in the bottom near the outer edge and drained every last drop out of it.

It's still a scenic location, just the pond will no longer be a part of that scene. You neve know what might happen on any given day, so if you find a great location take advantage of it and capture its morning flavor and its evening taste through all the seasons. It may not be there one day.

Keith

What I see

Discovering a new way to observe the beauty that surrounds us can be an amazing revelation. Learning how to capture it photographically can be a challenge. Sharing it with others is the reward. This past summer I rediscovered the night sky and spent a great deal of time and energy learning how to not only observe it, but to capture it. It was a challenge that evolved into something much more than an exercise in technique or skill. It became a revelation of seeing.

I've often written about how photography is mostly about seeing light. But it is more than that really. It's about understanding what it is you see. There was a time I saw mechanically meaning I recognized the intrinsic value of what I was photographing, but failed to see beyond the superficial and cliche. Seeing photographically means to see through the superficial to find the solution.

More than likely last summer the efforts I placed on photographing the night sky may have seemed a bit over the top to most of my photography friends. A few of them gave it a try and then went on to other things that interested them more...and rightly so for them. Recently, I began to wonder why I was so captivated by that exercise. Night after night I would stand in some open field staring up at the night sky and painstakingly adjusting the homemade tracking devise I used to follow the stars across the field of view. Then later, after downloading the images and searching through the better ones I would spend time bringing out the best of what they were. Most of those images no one other than myself saw them, but that was okay. Because I wasn't taking them for someone else. I was taking them for myself.

You see what I saw was not just a night sky filled with stars and subtle colors of glowing dust along with nebula's filled with radiant gases. I saw a part of myself. In order to bring out the subtle nature of those glowing nebula's and radiant gases,  a long exposure was required along with patient and attentive tracking. When it all fell into place and that one moving image out of dozens materialized, well, a sense of satisfaction filled my heart.

As a result I began to understand how that experience revealed a great deal about life. Everyone has subtle light in their lives that requires a long personal exposure along with careful and attentive tracking to see. With the right amount of effort and understanding, the light in their lives regardless of how faint, will over time begin to glow with it own unique radiance. When I smile as an image of the night sky begins to form, I am smiling because what I see is so much more than stars floating in the sky . . I see lives beginning to shine.

Keith