I Miss Camping!

Another year has gone by, and another year that I didn't make it out to camp. I'm really surprised at how life seems to get in the way sometimes.

I hope to soon start planning a camping trip, which will be the first for my toddler. I believe she will thoroughly enjoy a night under the stars and days filled with exploring the wilderness. Hopefully our trip will be to Carolina Beach State Park, a place her brother and sister have many memories of. 

Camping with a toddler will be quite an adventure, that much is for sure. There may be more challenges, but there will most definitely be more rewards. Seeing everything through the eyes of a curious child seems to melt away the stress of the grown up world. 

For Christmas, I hope to give my daughter some goodies for her first camping trip. Her own lantern, a girly sleeping bag, and various tools to catch and examine bugs. I am so looking forward to this!

Snow Ice Cream

I have fond childhood memories of snow ice cream, and as the years went by it is something I sort of forgot about. But with this abundance of snow on the ground, and a gentle reminder, we decided to go for it with gusto! I'm posting here, because it is so simple and easy this could be a great cold weather camping activity.

Three ingredients, period. Eight cups of fresh clean snow, one small (14oz) can of sweetened condensed milk, and a teaspoon of vanilla extract. Stir well and eat immediately! I have found it does not store in the freezer well, at all. But fresh? Fantastic! It tastes like real homemade ice cream!

The condensed milk and vanilla are small enough to include in with cold weather camping gear, and this yields a yummy treat. I imagine eating snow ice cream under the stars by a roaring camp fire would be nothing short of divine. 

And for those who are nowhere near the snowfest, shaved ice does just as good. What a great treat! The addition of chocolate syrup is pretty good, too. Enjoy!

Camp Cooking In Cold Weather

Camp cooking in cold weather can present a few challenges. With the outside air dropping to frigid, it will take longer to achieve the same results. Some creativity may come into play, but it is still absolutely feasible to have a fantastic meal cooked at camp in cold weather.

My last cold weather camping trip I had brought along two things I regularly used to cook with in warm weather: a stove top camp oven, and a stove top smoker box. Both took an unusually long time to finish cooking. Neither are insulated from the outside, and I was fighting 20 degree temps. They eventually worked with a higher heat, but the results weren't as good. Leave behind anything you think the cold weather will hamper.

What did work best was my camp pots and pans that had lids. You wouldn't think there would be as much difference in the pot with a lid and a camp oven, but there really was. My chili cooked in roughly the same time as summer, but the smoked salmon took more than twice the regular time. 

For cold weather camp cooking, sticking with foil packs placed right over the fire, or things that can be cooked in a pan with a lid is probably the best option. The heat tends to be higher, and being offset less with the cold air. Cold weather camping always takes a little more planning and foresight, and cooking is no different.

All camp cooking in cold weather should be done outside. Not in tents, not in an enclosed area. Camp cook stoves and fires still put off carbon monoxide, a very real danger in cold weather.

Using Camping Skills In Emergency Situations

As we dig out from back to back snowstorms, I have to be thankful for having some good camping skills in place. We lost power for three days after the first snowstorm, but made do just fine. I wasn't as prepared as I should have been-- I did have to go on a run for more candles, batteries, and canned goods. But we got through everything just fine.

Having well water, our water shut off when the electric ran out. I didn't think we'd lose power so quickly, so we didn't have a big supply saved up for use in an emergency. Luckily, there is a creek right out front, so we were able to haul up water to use. I boiled water in a large stock pot for use in washing dishes, bathing, etc. and we had a couple bottles of water for consumption. Having a gas stove, I was thrilled with the coffee press I got for a Christmas present. The only thing needed was water heated on the stove. Perfect!

The one particular thing that seemed to help the transition the most was washing dishes. Many a night I've scrubbed pots and pans in a small pan by a camp fire. It wasn't any different here, I boiled a load of water, added cold water and soap, and went from least dirty to most dirty. My only complaint was that I couldn't see the pots and pans as clearly as I would have liked, so I felt like I wasn't getting them as clean as usual. But I had set the stopper in the sink and let the clean dishes soak in extremely hot water for several minutes, effectively killing any germs I may have missed.

All in all, it wasn't too bad. I had a good book to read, we had loads of snow to play in, and we thought of it as an adventure. I was reminded that I didn't like roughing it in the cold nearly as much as the warmth of summer, but we made it through unscathed. We still had heat and our regular stove for cooking, but I feel confidant if we'd lost that we could have made it through just fine. Not that I would like to try that route, but knowing as a camping we could do it should the situation arise made it all the more bearable. And one last thing-- the portable shower was a godsend!  

***Edited to add: If you find yourself needing to use your camp stove for cooking in an emergency situation, please do remember to use them OUTSIDE or in a well ventilated room (such as a garage with a door or window open) to prevent carbon monoxide poisoning.