Photo by Natmandu 

As a child my Father would take me camping at least once a year on the family farm owned by my Grandfather. I always loved camping and my favorite part was spending quality time with my Dad and cooking around the camp fire. It always seemed like the coldest nights when we would camp, but as a child it did not bother me much as long as I was outside. Our version of camping was not near as extravagant or lavish as many people’s today. We pretty much roughed it with a basic tent, sleeping bag, a number of quilts and blankets, and some old pots and pans that my Grandmother did not use any more. It would have been a lot warmer with a cot or blow-up mattress, but I did not learn about those until many years down the road. I thought it was fantastic and the only way to camp.

One of my favorite part of camping was building the camp fire. My Dad and I would take turns stacking the wood different ways to see who’s fire would light and burn the best. Looking back it was a great learning experience and it also taught me how to safely build a fire. One thing that we were also careful to do was to put the fire out properly. We would never leave the camp until that job was completed properly. 

The shivers

The one camping trip that I do remember getting cold at, is probably one of the most memorable of my childhood. We must have been in a hurry packing and forgot to bring enough blankets because we seemed to never sleep and shiver all night. I remember vividly setting up camp and getting a fire going then cooking a small meal before getting ready for the night. I even remember discussing sleeping in the vehicle instead of in the tent, but I was young and thought I was invincible I’m sure. 

I must have fallen to sleep eventually, but it seemed like hours of moving around and shivering. It was the coldest time I can ever remember. I can not even imagine how cold it is up North, because I was in central Alabama and could not hardly take it. I hear people even from the North say that it is a different kind of cold down here and they too get cold here. But, when I see 0 and -10 temperatures up North my teeth tighten and I shake my head and wonder how anyone can take it. 

Staying warm with new products

As I grew older I began to camp a lot less and hunt a lot more. I would build all my own tree stand and scout out all my hunting areas. I loved getting ready for the hunting season more than the actual hunting season. I was never a great hunter because I have always had a problem with staying still and being patient. How can blame me though, when the wind chill is 5 degrees and I’m in a tree 15 to 20 feet off the ground. I use to stalk hunt many times just so I could curl up by a log and get out of the wind.

Last year I found an amazing hand warming product that I bought for my brother-in-law for Christmas. My brother-in-law is an avid hunter and outdoorsman that is always in the woods or on the water. I have been duck hunting with him once and sure wish I would have had this amazing product on the hunt. I was amazed how well it worked and how long it lasted. The product is shown in the picture below and is made by Zippo Manufacturing.

Hand Warmer Features

• No flame - The hand warmer uses a platinum-catalyzed glass fiber burner. I’m not fully sure what that type of burner is and neither is anyone on the internet that I can find, but it sure sounds cool.
• Hot Hot Hot - The hand warmer is much warmer than any disposable hand warmer that I have ever tried.  With out the case the warmer is quite hot!
• Long  Lasting - After the warmer is lite it last any where from 12 to 36 hours depending on the measured amount of fuel you add to it.
• Reusable - What else can you say, you can reuse it and it is environmentally friendly!

Reader Contributions

Here at Living4Outdoors we would like to invite anyone and everyone that has an opinion on our article to comment and be interactive. If you have used the Zippo Hand Warmer please let us know how you liked it or if you hated it. I also want to invite you to let us know about any amazing camping product that you would like to share or even any outdoors product that you would like to share.

Photo by Daleberts

One of my favorite childhood memories is of a family reunion of my Mother’s family. My Mother’s family did not get together much as I remember. Probably one reason was that her parents were divorced. Although they were divorced, they both lived in the same community and got along well. The reunion that is burned into my mind was held at a “rock mill pond”. Many of you probably have never heard of a rock mill pond but during the 1960’s and 1970’s they were home of some record sized bass. The reasons for the large sized bass were the thousands and thousands of bream which grew in these ponds.I grew up in Crenshaw County on a small farm outside of Luverne, Alabama. Much of the land in Crenshaw is of the heavy red clay soil type which constantly stained our cloths and bare feet. In this clay was a sometimes vast amount of iron ore which was mined in a pit. A critical part of the pit was the pond constructed to provide water required to wash the clay off the ore.The iron ore pits and ponds were crude affairs and built as cheap as possible. To construct a pond, they would locate a small stream and dam it up with out clearing up the pond site. Therefore, years after the mining operations had ceased, the trees had died and fallen down into the water. You can imagine the vast amount of cover afforded the bream which made full use of it to produce thousands of offspring.

In nature when food is plentiful, prey animals such as bass also increase. Although these ponds contained vast number of fish, they were difficult to catch and mostly all you caught were small bream. My Aunt and Mother often took us fishing and we caught hundreds of small bream while replacing many hooks and broken lines. Of course for a young boy the size of the fish and lost hooks did not matter because we were fishing! Young boys and fishing have always been for each other. I am sure it was during one of these trips when my Mother and Aunt decided to have a family reunion at this old rock mill pond.

On the selected date Grand Parents and most of my Aunts and Uncles and their families showed up and starting fishing. Grand Daddy was placed in charge of cooking rather than Grand Mother who loved to fish. Someone had brought a few cast iron cooking pots and oil to fry the fish and hush puppies. I helped Grand Daddy locate a few large rocks, probably iron ore left over from the mining. I remember that the site was fairly clear due to the lack of top soil on top of the red clay. After we got setup, I joined my many cousins and started fishing.

After we had caught a good many fish, the adults began cleaning them and Grand Daddy starting cooking. In my memory it seemed that we fished, cleaned fish, and ate fish for several hours. I do not remember anyone catching a large fish but it created a large memory for me about a great family reunion in the outdoors.

Photo by Jwinfred

Being outdoors in nature and having a great time doesn’t require much money or equipment. I wonder if that old pond still exists where I can take my grand son for an outdoor adventure and catch a few fish.

Photo by leppyone 

Quail have always been one of my favorite bird since I was a small child.  I remember my father telling me stories about the many coveys that called the family farm home and even at a young age I always knew the distinctive “bob-bob-white” call from the beautiful birds.  Whistling the “bob-bob-white” call on my grandparent’s back porch as the sun went down in the evening is one of many cherished memories that I keep from my late grandmother.  She loved the outdoors and nature as much as anyone that I have ever know.As I grew older the quail covey sightings on the farm became less and less frequent.  Most of the farm became plots of planted pines and very little of the land was used for cultivation.  I still had fun walking around the farm trails and the occasional open areas finding a covey, but the sightings were rare.  The most important thing to me at the time though was getting outside and hiking around the farm on my own.  I was not very good at shooting them anyway and I really enjoyed getting out and finding them more than anything.  I’m sure I would have been more interested if I had a great bird dog on my side, but even today I would rather watch the dog work to find the birds.

The older I got the more interested in hunting I became and the more I started to learn about how to improve the property for wildlife.  I read a lot of information form county wildlife extension offices, books, and also met with county wildlife agent to help access the property for all types of wildlife.  I will discuss many different improvement areas in the future, but for now I will mainly focus on quail habitat.  Most of the ideas for quail are also good for your turkey population and many other wildlife species. 

One fact that you can not ignore

If you do not have any birds, no matter what you do to improve your habitat it will not help.  To improve your quail population you must first have some population.  Your best bet, if you do not have any birds, is to purchase and release some good quality and well raised ones.  Make sure that you purchase them from someone with a good reputation for raising birds that are to be released to the wild.  The birds should have been raised in isolation with little or no exposure to traffic noise, humans, dogs, predators, domestic animals, etc.

Hedge your bets

Any hedge rows, old fence lines, or uncultivated or unharvested rows you can leave on your property, by all means leave them.  Quail need nesting sites and cover from predator as much as anything else.  The lay of the land years ago was a great number of family farms split by various means, all of which created little hideaways, of fences, uncut borders, hedge rows, etc.  By leaving or creating these type of areas on your property you are allowing the quail to hatch and raise their young easier.  Reproduction is the key to increasing your quail population.  The government in many cases will also offset the loss of revenue associated with wildlife management practice, so check with you local county farm agency for details.

Giving up some short-term gains

When dealing with planted pines, giving up some short term gains by thinning prematurely will pay long term benefits to your quail population.  With normal pine thinning almost all the undergrowth is choked out by the needles.  After about five years the planted pines will shade and cover the ground with needles enough to kill off most of the weeds and other sources of food that quail must have to sustain.  By thinning your pines before the food source is eliminated the quail have a diverse and steady supply of food.  Another must for planted pines is to adhere to a good burning program so hardwoods can be suppressed and the steady build up of litter can be eliminated.  It is also a good idea to routinely disc areas around your pines, not only for fire prevention but for diverse habitat for your quails.  Young quail need soft areas to find and hunt insects and seeds.

Diversity and Food Sources

The last thing I want to talk about is diversity and the types of food sources that are available to your growing quail population.  I touched a little on diversity in the last section but here is a list that I feel you need to ensure proper diversity.

• Borders to allow hide aways from predators and nesting areas.
• Various forms of food, planted and native.  Improving and increasing the yield of your native food sources is on of the best practices that can be done easily and does not cost a lot of money at all.
• Uncultivated and uncut areas.  If the property you are working with is being cultivated, try to arrange a 15 foot border that will not be harvested or cut.  Be sure to leave areas uncut for a couple years to allow good nesting areas on your property.
• Limit the number of pesticides that are used on crops and planted plots.  By killing off the insects you eliminate a valuable food source for your quail.
• Create patches that allow your young quail to flourish.  Basically all of the above with added areas of disc or plowed soil to make it easier on your little quail.

To me the most valuable and cost effective ideas is to supplement your native sources of food.  If you have native grains, berries, or nuts on your property simply fertilize those areas to increase your yield.  Native plants are almost always more hardy than anything you can plant and are also more resistant to local insects which might damage planted crops.

I hope this article will give you some ideas on simple ways to improve your quail population.  There are many source out there, one of the best being your local county agencies, that can be found so be sure and read them all.

When my son was about seven we lived in Mobile, Alabama.  My parents still lived on a family farm outside Luverne, Alabama where we frequently camped and visited my parents.  One of my very special memories was the first dove hunt with him.  Before I get to that special hunt, I need to share some back ground information.  Our neighbor was retired and loved animals and children.  He and his wife always put out bird seeds for doves and wild pigeons.  We often discussed the dove’s beauty and ability to survive in the wild.  While watching them eat and fight I told him about some of my dove hunts.  After sharing with him one of my favorite dove hunting sites he pressed me to promise to take him there and shoot some doves.  I had taken a new job and had not been able to take him to the farm for awhile.  To make it up to him we scheduled a dove hunting trip to a spot where I had hunted as a teenager.  We had a spring on our farm where doves came for water in the afternoon and roosted in the surrounding trees.  There was a pasture a few hundred yards from the spring with a patch of black berry bushes which served as a natural blind or cover.  When I was young I only had 20 gauge single shotgun.  I would hide in these black berry bushes and shoot a few doves as they went over on their way to drink and roost.  Since I seldom failed not to get a few shots, I figured that we would have an adventure as well as get some quality father and son time.

On the trip up my son, always the thoughtful young boy, asked how we could distinguish between the wild doves and the “tame” doves.  After a few minutes, I told him that the neighbor’s doves could not fly that far.  Although he did not come out and say, I was certain he was uncomfortable about shooting the tame doves.

As anticipated, we had a great time and shot a few doves.  One or two landed a few feet from us just like I had bragged in my stories.  We were thrilled that we were able to create a similar experience as I had as a young boy.  What cemented the memory in my mind was when he put his arm around me and asked if we could spend another day and hunt again.

Although my new job prevented us from spending another day on this trip, I made a special effort to spend as much time as I could with him.  I now have a grandson and I can not wait until we get to take him dove hunting in the black berry bushes on the family farm outside Luverne, Alabama.  Maybe my little grandson can shoot the 20 gauge shotgun that my son now owns.

Take time out of your busy schedule to spend time with your children.  Outdoor adventures are a great way to spend time with your kids and you will create memories that will last a life time to you and your children.

Photo by NotQuiteSonic

Photo by Elle Rigby

Living4Outdoors is a place for myself (Brad Baggett) and my father, Kyle Baggett, to express our great appreciation for outdoor living and the fun times that we have had outdoors.  Living4Outdoors is a way to promote all things outdoors including becoming closer to your family and children outdoors.  We have both lived in the state of Alabama for most of our lives and have always loved being outside and really just enjoy nature in general. Throughout my childhood I remember watching nature shows, dog shows, camping, hunting, and fishing with my Dad.  Since I started JuiceofChampions, I have wanted to start another weblog and thought that one about the outdoors would be a great project for me and my Dad.  Our whole family loves the outdoors and the tradition is being carried on with my 15 month old son, who we can hardly keep inside.  Everyday he goes straight to the back door and wants to go play outside.  The apple did not fall far from the tree because I remember countless times coming in after dark after play sports outside in the neighborhood.  My friends and I would play basketball, football, baseball, swim, and any other outdoor activity from when we got up to when we were pulled inside. We hope you enjoy the new website and really hope this becomes an interactive place for everyone to promote the great outdoors.  If you have any stories, memories, tips and tricks, or just want to drop us a line don’t hesitate and get in touch with us through our contact page.We will post articles on pretty much any thing about outdoor living.  Here is a short list of subject that we will start writing articles about soon:

• Camping
• Hiking
• Hunting
• Fishing
• Outdoor Sports
• Swimming
• Growing closer outdoors
• Outdoor adventures and stories
• Gardening
• How to tips for various task outdoors
• Property management
• Wildlife management
• Wildlife and environmental conservation
• Childhood memories and adventures