Outdoor Parents Outdoor Kids: a book review

A few weeks ago I was the recipient of a giveaway at Outdoor Blogger Network. This was the book. It is published by Fox Chapel Publishing. What a great publishing company! If you are a hobbyist or home craftsman type person you really should check out their wonderful line up of books. We are book people and we were both impressed with the catalog they sent us with the book. Great diverse selections, from wood working and carving,  arts and crafts, animal husbandry, even a few on tattoo design and yes plenty of outdoor books. Fishing, canoeing, kayaking, boat maintenance and camp cooking to name a few. Definitely worth taking a look.

Now, about the book itself. I have been enjoying this book. It makes me wish my children were young and I could do it all over again. If you have young children or even intend to, I recommend you get this book. It is informative and honest about what it takes to get yourselves and your children outdoors. To make it a way of life....an outdoor lifestyle. If that is what you want for your family, this is the book to have.

The chapters are each about a particular outdoor activity. Bicycling, snowsports, camping, hiking etc... It is written in a friendly, comedic style. With an honest look at the extra work it does take to do outdoor activities with small to teenage children. It's true it does take extra effort to get out with children. We believe you will not regret the effort and will establish lasting, quality family time.

I was talking with my youngest daughter about this one day and regretting that we had not done enough. She laughed and said "mom, we lived out of doors, we were way back in the country and had all the room to roam we wanted, we hiked, rode horses, bicycled and all of that! What are you worried about?!" When I thought of that I knew she was right. We may not have gotten to do the camping part as much as we wanted, but our children certainly did not lack for outdoor play!

The last chapter of the book is on the statistics of today's children and lack of adequate exercise. I'll list a few of them for you. Here's one that has an ironic twist to it. National Public Radio recently did a survey of orthopedic surgeons and found that they are treating far fewer broken bones among kids and more repetitive motion injuries! (video games) I'm not for broken bones or against video games.....but it does show a trend. This same trend would also be showing , that 22 million of the world's children under the age of 5 are overweight! It gets worse....60% of overweight children are already  at risk for heart disease and 25% show early signs of type 2 diabetes. This can be traced in a great part to the fact, that an average of 44 hours a week are spent watching TV, computers and video games by many of these same kids.

So, if ya love your kids, get them outside, doing something, anything!! It would be one of the best things you could do for them. Enjoyed this book and found it very informative and full of ideas! Worth getting!

 And of course, here is the link for the book. Outdoor Parents, Outdoor Kids

Letters From Eden ~ book review

Every once in a while I read a book that is just so enjoyable from start to finish that I can't put it down. This is one of those! Delightful, enjoyable, relaxing and peaceful are just a few of the words I would use to describe it. Her writing style is so readable. It just flows from one page to the next. You are hardly aware that you are reading and not just listening to her tell it. It's like you've sat at her kitchen table and listened while she tells you about the happenings in her life.

Julie Zickefoose is a naturalist, writer and painter of nature. Her paintings throughout the book just captured my attention. So realistic and yet still have that wonderful blend and flow that only watercolor can do. At least that's the way I feel about watercolor paintings. One day, I was watching our two grandchildren while Tim, Jeff and Tash (our son and daughter in law) were loading up the moving truck. We sat on a mattress, in the empty living room and looked at all the lovely pictures in this book. They loved them! Especially Everitt, our 17 month old grandson.  He would laugh, point and say "birdie" at the bird pictures. I think it would make a great read aloud for most any age of readers.

It is full of information about nature, wildflowers, bird-eating bullfrogs, turtles, deer and a lot about birds. Even some about wildlife gardening and the use of native plants which has become a new interest of mine. I have had enough of mowing my acre plus of lawn and have goals of turning part of it back into a meadow. I gleaned a few tips about that from this book.  She is an avid birdwatcher and master naturalist, something that I wouldn't mind achieving myself....

So if you love good writing, beautiful painting, birds, nature, stories about family and country living, you will also love this book! My new favorite. I found her blog before the book. I ordered the book through Inter library loan. I told Tim, "the next gift giving holiday this is what I want!" You can purchase a signed copy here. I have also added it to our amazon store.

She  has a new book coming out soon which you can pre-order here. It looks just as wonderful. You can see her style of painting by the covers. Beautiful Watercolors!