CPRMom

I feel like I have been discussing ticks with someone at least once or twice a day for almost 2 weeks. I'm not a fan of bugs or ticks, so not something I would normally introduce into a conversation. But the ticks have been plentiful lately, and I've been seeing some Facebook posts on creative ways to remove them. First I want to say there are really only 2 safe ways to remove a tick. Tweezers or a tick spoon. I have a whole post on tick removal on my Coastal CPR blog .  Read the post, it explains how other methods can increase your exposure to tick-borne illnesses. The safest thing is to prevent getting ticks. So the conversation of insect repellent comes next. There are a lot of great insect repellents and some contain ingredients we might not want on our skin. I've been enjoying and learning about essential oils for a while and have made my own insect repellent. It's been working pretty well so far and I'm getting a lot of requests for the recipe. I mostl...

Friday Thing 3 attended 2 APEX programs at Hidden Valley. It's an hour drive so I decided to stay and do a little hiking. It was overcast in the morning so I did not set out until lunchtime. The plan was to hike the red trail to meet the blue trail to the top of Mt. Shannon which is a small mountain on the camp property. I would then take the yellow trail back. This is the map I used.  I found a lot of red trail markers, but they were not the red trail. This is not the red trail I started down what I thought was the red trail, until the trail markers disappeared. I saw 1 blue marker, and no others. There was a nice snowmobile trail so I followed that. That lead me up to a nice field by a road. When I got to the road I saw the field was posted 'No Trespassing', so I couldn't return that way. So I followed the road to the next road, and eventually to the entrance to the camp. This is where I met up with Tucker and his owner. Tucker was a very friendly bla...

*Update below* Almost a month ago I bought the World's Most Powerful Hand-Held Solar Charger online.  At least this is what they called it on their website. A few weeks later it arrives.  The only directions with it were a small piece of paper that said to plug it in to charge it fully, drain the battery, charge it fully, and then drain it, and then it would be ready to use.  No other directions were provided.  No mention of solar charging.  This should have been a hint that I obviously missed. The cord that came with it was loose and wobbly when connected, so I used my own cable and followed the directions.  I drained it by using it to charge my own phone.  As a battery pack it charged really well.  It had a flashlight which did not work.  I emailed the website, outdoorshiking.com about this, but never received a reply. After charging/draining, I set it in the sun. And waited. And waited. It never charged. I took it on ou...