That is what JACKS based the first 3 rings on... many years ago. I'm just revisiting the idea of another ; )

You guys are lucky. During TS Irene last year, we lost power for seven days! We then lost it for another seven days during the freak October snow storm two months later......

UGH! Hope you guy sdon't have a lot of damage!

BB

Anyone interested in guest blogging a series of DIY jewelry tutorial on little blog? :-)

Well, go figure! We got mail yesterday but we have been without power since Tuesday night at 6:30. They are hoping to get it back on early next week. I hope so because the kids have been off school since Monday and are supposed to go back on Tuesday. Who knows what this does to the school schedule?? But we've been lucky and have just a few downed limbs and minor house damage.

All 5 episode can also be seen at bbcamerica.com/doctor-who I can't wait! Hmmmm...fish fingers and custard for dinner? Alas! Snowbaby would disown me ;)

fish fingers and custard for dinner?

I've tried that! It's really good and im not a custard gal.

We did make a dalek cake for tonight though! its going to be yummy!

........._
...../--\
=(^._.^)=

Ah, the smell of fresh ink on a Saturday morning....
Thank you, Wise Old Owl, for a wonderful start the weekend.

My husbands cousin had lake pontchartrain come within a foot of her back door, but they are ok...they are in slidell. Not sure if they have power yet. They didnt yesterday. She said it was very scary... Fire alarms going off, had to go out in the wind and rain...glad everyone is ok.

I wish there were more "no motorized traffic" signs on the trails. It would give us a little leverage when they say, "Oh we didn't know that we couldn't ride here...".

You have all the leverage you need. Riding an ATV is not like walking, where it's OK if you are on private property unless posted "no trespassing." Under state law, all ATV riders are required to carry written permission from the property owner allowing them to ride on the property, unless they own the property. $250 fine right there. Further, if they are riding someplace other than their own private property, even a friend's property, they are required to register their vehicle. That means plates. Another $250 fine. Here are the laws: http://www.cga.ct.gov/2010/rpt/2010-R-0442.htm.

Also, under a relatively new CT "Encroachment Law," owners of conservation law (towns, land trusts, etc.) can file a civil suit against someone for riding on their property, even if no damages can be proven (damage is assumed). The court may award up to $5,000 in punitive damages, plus the costs to repair the land (if applicable), plus all attorney's fees. The biggest obstacle to filing a lawsuit is a lack of evidence, because the landowner does not live out there in the trees. That's where your pictures and video come in.

Yes, one of them was my Sayre 66 box in OK. That box is missing now; I may replace it in the future. The other one was San Pedro River in AZ and that is the one I moved. I guess I must be picking excellent locations to hide boxes for the geocachers to use my locations to hide their boxes!!!

- Azroadie

[A geocache right on top of my letterbox I was checking on (I moved my box to a different location) (this has happened to me twice!)]

Once in Oklahoma I know of because I got that box. and cache.

GG

I know it would suck to have to spend more money, but I bet you could buy more of those signs online. Just a thought! :)

-gollygee

.just how long are we talking about..1 year? 10 years?

i have stamp impressions that are over 6 years old. The ink looks just like it did when i got them. i'm sure there are others out there that have impressions that are 14 years old.
i would worry more about the quality of ink you are using to stamp up with than the acid "free ness" of your paper.
Archival and acid free are really necessary when you are talking about valuable to you, photographs/photo albums that you might be passing down for generations.
i don't think anyone else in my immediate circle is going to want my letterboxing logbooks...just sayin'

deniserows
and scrapbooks

It would be pretty easy to find a box if you planted it! :)

One would think...right???
i am here to tell you that after planting more than 400 boxes, living thru the 60's and being in what they call middle age......

it ain't so easy ;)

deniserows
to her own boxes with printed clues in hand

A decomposing whale carcass.

Mary of Team Safari and I were boxing in the Great Swamp when I heard what I thought was the hum of powerlines, but there were no powerlines visible. The humming got louder and louder until we came upon a HUGE swarm of flies over the fresh burial site. EEEeee-yuk!

I know it would suck to have to spend more money, but I bet you could buy more of those signs online.

They just rip signs down, then pretend they didn't know they couldn't ride there because there was no sign. Signs don't work. Cameras do.

I'm so sorry to hear that box is missing ... I accompanied two boxer to that location to get that box. It was a nice location for a box.

GG =(

This mouse was on the letterbox the last time I went out:

http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/542318_4591695395145_2090358534_n.jpg

These kids MOVED BRIDGES. A sign is nothing for the strength of the male teenager. Arrr!

In Shelton this year we had some ATVers create a vast trail system on some conservation lands that previously had no trails. I wheeled off the distance of the paths (1.25 miles) and multiplied by the average width of the trail tread (6 feet) and came up with nearly an acre of trail tread. People were in there with chain saws and possibly heavy equipment for moving large boulders. And then over 100 trees were then spray painted with smiley faces and such.

i don't think anyone else in my immediate circle is going to want my letterboxing logbooks...just sayin'

Exactly why I stopped wasting the time and money to scrapbook my finds. If my short people are boxing with me, I work with those mementos but I don't worry about doing anything with the ones that I just found alone. Who is going to care?

What kind of jewelry are you looking for?
I really enjoy making chainmaille jewelery, but I also make wire and bead jewelry. I have earrings, necklaces, bracelets and rings. I can send you some pictures of finished products and if you'd like.

My status as a Michigan resident is part-time now. I made a decision at the beginning of August to attend a University out of the state. It has been a dream of mine to relocate, even if it is only temporary. My reason for this post is that it will be a bit harder for me to check on my boxes. I am not retiring them because I will return throughout the year.

I'm one, but I've only got VHF and UHF so we wouldn't be able to reach each other.

Well, I am now living in North Carolina. I will be back and forth between here and Michigan while I attend UNC. I made the choice to live here almost, but not quite, a month ago. It has been an interesting and very busy two weeks since moving in here. Everything isn't settled. Still lots to do!

oh my goodness I didn't realize you decided to go to university in NC from Michigan.... I thought you meant it little closer to Michigan.

But it's great in NC have fun boxing... when you get the chance.

GG

Cool!! Which UNC?

I'm so happy for you, koalacat! Where are you headed and what are you studying?

And, please don't retire your boxes...there are many I need to find yet :).

The best to you!

Well, I am now living in North Carolina.

Yeah!!! WELCOME!!!!!

I have a gut feeling it's going to be UNC Chapel Hill.

If it is Chapel Hill maybe we can box together one day. :)

I will be making this for dinner tonite! Have been drooling over it in my mind for days now, thanks!

I don't think you should have to feel a need to apologize for sharing a cache story. Lots of people enjoy both hobbies. The frustrations between the two groups are mis-communications...same thing that happens within each hobby.

I know some people here enjoy both hobbies, but most people aren't quick to include a cache as part of a story. Since we dont trade trinkets in a box the rubber snake would have been out of place in a letterbox story. (the snake was not a part of the cache, it was listed in the log as "took (trinket X) ; Left Rubber Snake". Although based on some of the snake fear stories on here I'm SORELY tempted to make my next "non-mystery" box be similar to that cache in size and shape, place the stamp and log book in the bottom, and coil a large rubber snake in it. I'll put something in the clue that reads "beware of monsters" or something.... and leave a note in large letters in the log to replace the snake EXACTLY to surprise the next visitor... hmmmm... Think. Think. Think. Maybe poor Piglet stamp will have to live in the box with a large snake..... hmmm....

I acctually found very few caches until I started letterboxing. I heard of letterboxing first, but was too intimidated to carve a stamp, and didn't want to buy one as that felt against the spirit of the game (I feel a little differentyly now, having even purposefully gone after two series of boxes with store bought stamps as one series was at a park my son likes, and the other was just at a place I had never gone and was curious... not all of us can carve stamps, but should get to play nicely, right?) My first dozen or so trips looking for caches turned up nothing. I only kept at it because of two local cachers who set some AMAZING puzzels to solve! Most other caches around here are boring.

The boards seem full of stories about troubles from cachers, some fear, or possibly even dislike of cachers. Even though I particpate in both hobbies, I don't plant caches, and I am actively trying to avoid placing a letterbox too close to a cache, and I will NEVER make a hybrid cache (although I have a puzzle letterbox I am putting a lot of work into planning that MAY just need some GPS help to get a starting point on... Google earth before heading out will help... ). One local letterboxer is very, VERY against cachers, and I don't blame her. Several of her boxes had stamps taken and replaced by cacher trinkets. Every hobby has it's bad players. I think a lot of cachers who don't know what a letterbox is just dont understand, I don't BELIEVE they do this on purpose. I have acctually found more caches while searching for letterboxes by accident, than I ever have purposefully looking for a cache.

Part of this is that around here most of the people who hide caches (and it's a dedicated handfull, but each of them have planted tens or even hundreds of caches) are playing a game called "Turf Wars." They are purposefully trying to cover more ground than each other, and trying to hide caches in each other's "territories". I'm not making it up, it's in the cache descriptions. Stuff like "hahaha (fill in name) I'm now on your block, take that". It SEEMS to be centered around RPI college, so I think it's college students, but it's spiraled outward into the city of Albany itself, and literally, it seems darn impossible to find a cache in a search that ISN'T a "Turf Wars" one. And to make matters worse, the Turf Wars participants are all premium members, which I only mention because they have all set their caches as "premium member only". On geocaching, a premium member only cache still shows up in a search to non-premium members, it's part of how they try to push the premium memberships. So if you are a non-premium member, you can do a search and click on EACH ONE to find out that you can't get the coordinates and description. I finally signed up for a premium membership just so that when I am looking on my phone for nearby caches and I find that all 25 of the nearest ones are ALL "premium only" I can still go look for them. I still find it easier to just trip over a cache while out boxing though! I sign the logs, but I only log my finds online that I acctually sought out.... which is still less than 10 finds.

Actually, BECAUSE of letterboxing I now have an easier time finding caches on purpose. I spent two years as a cachers LOOKING before my first find. (Admittedly I was looking for a lot of hard ones before I went looking for an easy one.) I've learned a lot of tricks from letterboxes that make caching easier (keep in mind the GPS is not fully accurate so you get within a general area. then have to look). If I didn't learn about good hiding spots from letterboxing I would never be a decent cacher!

Off topic now:
Two weeks ago I was out letterboxing, I ran into a cacher and his wife. It ends up they learned about geocaching because they were letterboxers first, but they havent gone letterboxing in years. They were out looking for a micro cache that was the first step in a multi-cache and having some bum luck. I offered to help as AJ was fast asleep in the stroller. The wife gave up and walked down the trail. Her husband and I continued to look, and we were looking in the knot holes of a tree, under some rocks, etc. The "usual places." I asked to see the description again. It read "this is an unusual one" I noticed there was an old taken down, abandoned telephone pole, with old ceramic (the valuable kind) insulators. I started to unscrew them one at a time, and screw them back on. THere were a few littered on the ground, I picked them up and looked to see if they were hollow. Finally the last one, I turned a half a turn, and the coordinates for the next stage were printed directly on the insulator, but turned to face down so only someone trying what I did would find them. Neat, right? The other day, I was looking for a cache in a cemetery. There was a metal fence, the kind with the hollow aluminium poles. The cache was attached to a key chain at the other end of a dog leash, and dropped down the aluminum post so that only about an inch stuck out the top. If I wasn't used to letterboxes hidden in odd spots I would never have been investigating the pole (Although I was thinking that it looked so old it might be steel and was looking for a magnetic box).

I have mixed feelings about other cachers, based on stories from people I trust, based on seeing first hand some damage to an area that was searched a little too strongly for a cache, based on one local cache that is always stocked with porn and condoms (the owner tells people in the log to stop it... why not just pul the cache and replant if you want to maintain a cache? Right?), based on the immaturity of the "Turf Wars" game. The game only works because groundspeak forbids caches within one tenth of a mile of each other, and will not allow you to list one in that range. I imagine if that rule was imposed here, we could all still get along. Already, I know of boxes placed much closer together and box owners know about each other and it's all fine. (I'm thinking about two that are about ten feet from each other in particular).

I do understand that no one is going to jump down my throat because I admit to going looking for caches. But it still feels a little akward to discuss. And I think it's just the few bad eggs in that camp make it bad for the rest of us that do it.

--Ringo