My friend Scott Strain told me about an excellent book called “Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology.” It’s about a couple who lived with a Mennonite-type community for 18 months without electricity, and the wonderful experience they had. I haven’t yet read the book, but it’s gotten me back in ...

Check this out--a woman from Australia is living a dream I've had for decades! http://www.hannahfraser.com/mermaid/ My ten-year-old daughter and I are planning to make our own mermaid tails this summer for swimming in our neighborhood pool. Maybe someday we'll get to use them in the ocean!

I can't believe it. Real, competitive tournament jousting has been brought back. Check it out here. This is so incredible! If you've seen jousting at Rennaissance Fairs, you probably know those are acting troupes and it is all pre-planned and dramatized. This, however, is real jousting! Not only that, but this place offers real ...

A funny chain of events happened this past week. I had linked my Lord of the Rings Hike Adventure on to the LOTR costuming group. Through them I found out about Rangering--check it out. And a yahoo group called the Rangers of the North personally invited me to join them! And I discovered a wilderness survival home study course--perfect for an ...

My friend Shirley wanted to see the medieval shoes I wore on the Lord of the Rings Hike. So, here they are. I had them custom-made when I was active in the Societry for Creative Anachronism.

                 I was working on the morning fire, and had it almost going, when Sean came and helped me along. The pine needles really do the trick! I cooked bacon with sliced apples. The bacon took a long time to cook, so the kids ate the rest of the ...

   Shannon in Middle Earth                  I must have dozed again. At one point I noticed how bright the night was—I could even see the clouds. I thought it must be dawn approaching. But several hours later I had to concede that it was just a ...

          Sean and I each slept on an end, with all the kids in between. So he and I took the brunt of the cold, wind and rain. The first half of the night it rained pretty steadily, on and off again, coming straight down. I noticed at one point I was getting rained on a bit, so I scooted into the tent ...

          Probably around 5:00 or so, the rain did stop, and we decided to build a fire so that I could cook the sausages. Sean and I struggled with the fire for a long time, for the wind kept blowing out the matches and it wouldn’t catch onto any of the kindling we had. The rain came again, ...

             After lunch we struggled on, across the side of the second hill. Again, the kids complained and cried, and fell down a bit. Shannon later told us she actually enjoyed falling down on the trek—it was dramatic and adventurous for her. Sean and I were getting tense ...