Adventure! Wild Animals You Can Eat (and some you might not want to)

I've got to admit, this living near the beach thing does not suck. When we moved here, Mrs. Packman and I were not so sure what to think about leaving the comfort of The City. But now I know - there's just so many fun things to do here!

FBS chooses his friends very well, and one of them has a father who owns a 30-foot cabin cruiser power boat. FBS had never been out on a boat before, and as a worldly boy of three-years-old, we knew that this could not stand for long. Thus, an invitation was procured, and a life vest purchased, and off we went.

Are there any pirates out there, dad?

He actually seemed to really enjoy it, especially when we opened up the throttle and went very fast, or we hit the wakes of other boats and bumped up and down on the water. FBS was amazingly well behaved through the whole trip, and I got to take some pictures of our town from the water.

It was a perfect summer day

FBS really liked it when the draw bridge went up!

After our adventure on the water, it only seemed natural to try and catch some of the tasty creatures who live in the water. FBS and I have been fishing for short periods most weekends of this summer, but we have yet to catch anything together. I was beginning to lose hope that we would catch something at all before his three-year old patience was just about used up. However, this was our lucky day!

The moment we threw some bait into the water with his Spider-man fishing rod, there was a fish on the line!

It's a porgy!

What was FBS' immediate reaction to seeing the fish? "I want to eat it!" It made me proud.

Even Mrs. Packman got in on the action!

Look Packman, I caught one too!

Needless to say, both the porgy and the snapper made their way onto the grill that evening.

Fresh fish - YUM!

We also managed to spend some time exploring the local wildlife in our backyard. Specifically, the slimy kind of wildlife. Mini-man discovered this slug of some sort, and found it quite interesting.

What's that?

I, of course, being the curious sort, had to investigate the creature a bit more closely.

I'll call him Slugo

We see these things in our yard all the time. Perhaps they have something to do with the lack of tomatoes on my plants this summer?

After all of this fun and adventure, it was time for some relaxation, so we hit the beach. There have been hurricanes and tropical storms kicking up the surf the past few weeks, but finally the ocean was calm enough for me and the kids to splash around in the water, which is actually a pretty good workout. FBS likes me to lift him over the incoming waves, which basically involves me curling his weight over and over again as he squeals with glee. Tiring, but worth it.

Of course, one more picture of mini-man enjoying the sand:

Life is good. Enjoy the autumn.

What a weekend!

This was a great weekend.

It's been a very busy summer for the Packman family. We've either had guests stay with us (we do live by the beach!) or we've been away just about every weekend since memorial day, and to be honest we were all getting a little tired of it. Finally, we had a weekend to ourselves, with no plans or responsibilities.

Saturday morning dawned with a cloudless sky, and I headed off to drill with the rescue squad. This is my normal Saturday morning plan, and I usually spend from 8-11:30 or so drilling on water rescue or EMS skills and maintaining the equipment. This Saturday, there was a memorial swim for a fallen firefighter taking place off of Far Rockaway, so we took our new rescue boat out to pay our respects and keep an eye on the swimmers. It was great to be out on the water!

When I returned home, it was time to do one of FBS' favorite activities: go to Costco! It is a bit embarrassing how much he loves going to warehouse stores, mostly because there are very nice people who will let him sample all kinds of glorious junk food as we walk around the store. Funny kid, but I must admit that the chicken ravioli in pesto sauce they were handing out were quite tasty.

The shopping done, it was time for some adventure, and this was one I had been looking forward to for a very long time. When I was a kid, I really enjoyed going fishing. At summer camp I was always looking for an excuse to go to a stream or lake with a rod and reel, or even a handline. My grandfather at one point managed a fleet or swordfishing boats out of Cape Cod, and when I visited him as a teen he would often charter a boat for the day and we would go after blues and stripers. I spent many hours looking through fishing catalogues and organizing my tackle box, dreaming about the fish I would catch on my next trip out of New York City. You could say that I was an enthusiastic, if quite unsuccessful fisherman.

It was time to take FBS fishing for the first time.

I had been accumulating gear on his behalf for some time. He had a spider-man fishing rod, which I had taught him to cast in the backyard. He had a lifejacket to wear in the unlikely event he fell off the dock into the water. He had the fickle enthusiasm of a three year old ready to try something new.

My plan was to keep it to a short trip down to a dock to cast for fluke. I wanted to keep it short so that FBS would not get bored. I didn't really expect to catch anything, but I didn't really care either. I just wanted it to be fun. If we caught anything, it would be gravy.

It was fun!

FBS and I spent over an hour on the dock, which for a three year old is a long time to do anything without getting bored. We fished with his rod, we lay on our bellies and watched small baitfish swimming around, and we were not skunked - I caught many small see-through jelly fish with my hands and let FBS play with their slimyness, which he really liked. (These were non-stinging jellyfish, or I would not have been catching then or handing them to my kid!)

FBS had such a great time that he refused to take a nap. He actually said to me, "no daddy, I don't want to take a nap. I don't want to miss all the fun!" How cool is that?

The evening was a bit difficult, as the kids were overtired, but it was an OK tradeoff in my book.

Saturday night brought another adventure our way: Mrs. Packman and I hired a babysitter and went out to a dinner of Thai food in NYC, followed by a party at the home of some good friends. It's good to have an "adult" evening every once in a while, no matter how much fun you have with the kids.

Sunday morning started much earlier than I would have liked, considering my 2am bedtime after the party. At about 6:30 my rescue squad pager went off with a report of a pedestrian struck by a motor vehicle. It was my first major trauma call with the squad, and I handled myself well and learned a huge amount as we got the poor guy to a trauma center in Queens ASAP. We really made a difference in this guy's outcome, and I felt really good about being able to help.

The rest of the day was spent on some of our favorite activities. We spent the morning at the beach:

Playing at the beach

Staying hydrated at the beach is important

We grilled hotdogs for lunch, and then FBS asked to go fishing again! Of course, I took him :)

In the evening after a delicious dinner of tacos, we headed out for our traditional pajama walk along the boardwalk near our home.

Evening pajama walk

My beautiful wife

All in all, this was a great weekend. We really need to spend more time just enjoying ourselves, rather than over planning every summer weekend ahead of time.

Stay tuned for more adventure to come, including The Great American Road Trip!

Domestic Adventures

I knelt down and felt the cold of the snow sucking heat away from my body through the uncomfortably thin material of my pant legs. Adjusting my down jacket for added warmth against the 18-degree night air, I asked my wife to aim her flashlight in front of me to I could get started on the job ahead.

Was Packman preparing to field dress a large beast to feed his family through the winter? Perhaps he was going to splint the broken limb of a friend so they could make it back to civilization and medical care? Or maybe he was about to provide mouth-to-mouth rescue breathing to the beautiful young maiden who had choked on a powerbar during a winter hike? (What was she doing wearing a bikini in the freezing cold anyway?)

Nope. None of these exciting sounding scenarios happened last night. Rather, I was kneeling in the freezing cold trying to relight the pilot light of our home’s furnace so it would heat our house.

I headed up for bed at around 11pm and when I tried to wash my face I discovered that there was no hot water. No big deal, I thought. I had lived in large apartment buildings for years where losing hot water for a few hours at night was a regular occurrence when maintenance was being performed.

Then I remembered that I do not live in a large apartment building anymore. I live in a single-family house. With hot-water baseboard heating. In other words, no hot water, no heat. I recalled the radio telling me it was 18-degrees outside. Crap. I checked the thermometer in the bedroom and it read 62 degrees. Not dangerously cold, but significantly below the 68 degrees the thermostat was set for.

Plan “A” for keeping the family warm was quickly established. I woke Mrs. Packman and told her of our predicament. We procured an electric space-heater from storage and put it in Mini-man’s room to keep him warm, and decided that if it got really cold we’d bring FBS into bed with us under the down comforters. We’d all be reasonably warm until the plumber could get to us in the morning and figure out what went wrong.

By the time we figured this out and repositioned the electric heater the temperature had dropped an additional two degrees to 60 and I began to worry. Our furnace is located in a shed on the outside of the house. With the temperature dropping as fast as it was, how long would it be before pipes started to freeze and real damage was done?

Plan “B” was quickly put into place. This plan involved Packman attempting to make repairs on potentially dangerous appliances when he has absolutely no training or experience doing so.

Mrs. Packman and I dutifully bundled ourselves up and headed out to the furnace. I removed the front cover and carefully read the warnings about fire and explosion should I do anything wrong with this natural gas-fired device. Great. Then I read the instructions for re-lighting the pilot light. I’ve had pilot lights go out on stoves before and was able to re-light them with no troubles, and it certainly would explain why out furnace was nothing more than a very cold chunk of steel and aluminum. I sniffed around the bottom of the furnace where the instructions said the pilot was located and smelled a faint smell of gas, which was consistent with the pilot being out, so I decided to proceed.

Following the instructions I shut off the electricity, dissected the burner and turned off the gas valve to the pilot light. We stood in the doorway letting the cold wind blow any accumulated gas out of the shed to (hopefully) prevent an explosion when I tried to re-light the pilot. Did I mention it was very cold?

Then things got really interesting. The instructions said to turn the gas control to “pilot” and press and hold a red button before lighting the pilot light with a match. The only problem was that the gas valve had only two positions, “on” and “off,” and there was no read button to be found.

Getting desperate, I went for the brute force method. I held a long-handled lighter to the pilot light and turned the gas back on. Not much happened, but I didn’t get blown up, which I guess was a good thing. I kept the lighter on the pilot light for a while and noticed the flame change color a bit. Maybe this actually worked? I let the lighter burn out and saw no flame remaining and my heart fell. It was going to be a cold night.

With a heavy heart and cold fingers, I re-assembled the furnace and prepared to head inside. I was sure I had failed. However, when I turned the power back on I was rewarded with the unmistakable sound of the furnace cycling on with the burners firing right up. Success!

Mrs. Packman and I headed back to bed to snuggle until the heat came up.

What did Packman learn?

- Being unable to keep your house and family warm in sub-freezing weather is an extremely uncomfortable position to be in.
- Keeping detailed instructions on or near critical appliances can be a real lifesaver.
- Wives are very impressed when you fix important big things, even if you’re not sure you did it correctly.
- Not blowing up your family or burning down your house when working with gas appliances is key.
- Adventure can be found where you least expect it.

Stay warm everybody!

Return to Overlook Mountain

Wow, it's hard to keep up with this blogging thing and still accomplish everything else I need to in my life. Two kids, coupled with the need to earn a living, are exhausting!

About a month ago we all headed back up to The Inlaw's house outside of Woodstock for some more exploring in the woods. One of our favorite things to do is to climb the trail up to the fire tower at Overlook Mountain. It's about 2.5 miles each way on a wide trail, and the views from the top are awesome.

Happy Family on the trail.

Though FBS was carried much of the way, I wanted to make sure that he had a chance to do some walking on the trail as well.

Two-year old on the trail!

He particularly enjoyed it when I pointed out and picked some wild raspberries for him to snack on. Of course, Mini-Man came along for the hike as well. Interestingly, he was not the only infant on the summit!

Mountain Baby

It was a beautiful day on the mountain, capped by the fact that FBS amazed everyone by climbing all the way to the top of the firetower!

Almost to the top!

The ranger on the summit remarked that FBS made it higher up in the tower than most of the adults who try to climb it. I guess he has not yet learned fear!

The next day we spent more time in the woods, this time on Peekamoose Mountain, where some distant relatives own some land. FBS had a great time exploring the grass.

Then we headed into deeper woods and came across our destination: a woodland stream.

They call this The Bathtub

We found a nice shallow spot for FBS to splash around in, and he did his best to explore everything he could get his hands on.

Cool, a wet stick!

All in all, a successful weekend of getting a city kid out into nature. I'm a very happy dad!

More adventures to come, including a story about talking to sheep!

Camping With The Boy

OK, the plan is to sleep out in a tent with First Born Son (FBS) this Saturday night. We'll be heading up to the Woodstock, NY area on Friday to spend the weekend with my in-laws, and if all goes according to plan, FBS and I will escape late Saturday afternoon and head out to the woods somewhere. I'd like to eat dinner together, and then sleep in a tent.

Of course, the backup plan is to pitch the tent in the in-law's backyard. This is what Mrs. Packman is pulling for.

This will not be FBS's first foray into the woods. That happened last summer, when he was about one year old:

FBS, Mrs. Packman, The In-laws, and I climbed to the Overlook Mountain firetower just outside of Woodstock. It's only about 2.5 miles to the top on an old jeep road, but it's uphill the entire way and a pretty good way to guage your fitness.

FBS had a great time on the hike, but I did most of the work. I guess you can't expect a toddler to carry his own gear.

Weight on your back: 22 lbs

Distance to the top: 2.5 miles

Seeing the look on the face of a city kid the first time he gets out in the woods: PRICELESS!

Seeing the look on the face of his mother when you come across a timber rattlesnake: frightening

No, I didn't know there were rattlesnakes in New York State either. Apparently, Overlook Mountain is one of the few spots where they can be reliably seen in the state. We saw four or five of them at different times on this hike.

The goal of the hike was the firetower at the summit:

From the top of the tower there are spectacular views.

That's the Ashokan Resevior, which supplies some of the drinking water to New York City. Apparently there's some great fishing in the resevior if you get a special permit, as well as deer, bear, and small game hunting in the surrounding woods. I'll have to check that out for future adventures.

If you're looking for an easy hike with young children in the woodstock area, or an outdoors diversion from more "touristy" activities in the Hudson Valley, I highly recommend Overlook Mountain. It's great views for the effort.