|
|
|
JJ Murphy - EzineArticles.com Expert Author
JJ Murphy is a nature writer, blogging hiker, curriculum creator, locavore and tree-hugger currently based in Harriman, NY. Visit writerbynature.com for more information on JJ's writing services and her favorite places for gear and supplies.
[View JJ Murphy's Extended Author Bio]
[Display Categories] Sort By [Title] [Newest] [Oldest]
- Premethrin - A Non-Toxic Tick Repellent That Works
[Travel-and-Leisure:Outdoors] Deer ticks, barely visible to the naked eye, were introduced to the Northeast United States 30 years ago; they carry Lyme disease. These microscopic intruders have impacted the outdoors experience almost as much as sprawl. I don't leave home without my pre-trek preparation, which includes making myself lethal to ticks.
- Ten Tips to Prepare For a Backpacking Trek
[Travel-and-Leisure:Outdoors] The first spring day that I can hike without my coat motivates me to grab my large backpack and prepare for a long trek. It's time to inventory my supplies, which is literally the first step.
- The Mentoring Relationship - 5 Things to Think About
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Internet-Marketing] Guidance, advice and support can come from many sources. In this fast-paced business environment, having more than one mentor can make it easier to achieve your business goals.
- Trail Nibbles - How Do I Know What Wild Plants Are Safe to Eat?
[Travel-and-Leisure:Outdoors] It's only a matter of time before all the baby spring greens will be available for wild salad. But how do you know what's safe to put in your mouth? Here are a few steps to guide the inquisitive naturalist when exploring the plant world.
- Online Fair Play - Always Credit Original Content Properly
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online] Open source sharing online is great. But authors deserve appropriate credit for their original words.
- A Matter of Life and Death - Choosing the Right Survival Skill Program
[Travel-and-Leisure:Outdoors] In the years since I took my first wilderness survival class, the number of survival skill programs has grown. But not all programs teach the same skills, nor do they share the same philosophy.
- Exploring Inwood Hill Park - An Old Growth Forest in New York City
[Travel-and-Leisure:Outdoors] Besides being the only natural (non-landscaped) park on Manhattan Island, trees in Inwood Hill Park have not been cut since the late 1700's, when the American forces built Fort Cox.
Popular folklore has it that Peter Minuit made his legendary purchase of Manhattan Island from the Lenape people living here in 1624; lnwood Hill officially became a New York City park in 1916, saving more than just trees.
- Discovering Nature Along the Hudson River in New York City
[Travel-and-Leisure:Outdoors] Nature thrives along the Hudson River hike and bike trails in New York City, where wild plants and animals coexist with urban dwellers.
Robins, sparrows and finches go on about their daily lives with no fear of joggers, dog walkers, toddlers, strollers, or traffic. There's a surprising poetry to this habitat.
- Ten Tips For Getting Acquainted With the Great Outdoors
[Travel-and-Leisure:Outdoors] The only spiders and webs you typically encounter are online, and suddenly you're invited to go hiking. Here's what you need to know to ensure you have fun.
- Survival Skill: How to Find Potable Water
[Travel-and-Leisure:Outdoors] When the weather is nice, a day hike can turn into hours of meandering along trails. It's easy to run out of water. I've even forgotten to repack my water bottle after taking a break. Streams and ponds may be everywhere, but don't be tempted. You have no idea if that water is safe to drink.
Potable water is available if you know what to look for.
- The Writer's Life: When to Use Passive Voice and Active Voice
[Writing-and-Speaking:Writing] How do you find the most powerful words to express your message? Here are some guidelines to help you make that decision.
- The Writing Life: How You Can Overcome Writer's Block
[Writing-and-Speaking:Writing] What do you do when the muse abandons you? How do you cope with the blank page?
Writers, like all artists, get stuck from time to time. Here are a few techniques that will help you negotiate past the obstacles in your writing path.
- How to Build a Barometer
[Travel-and-Leisure:Outdoors] Barometers are designed to be used indoors, so you do not need access to the outdoors.
This simple tool is a wonderful way to observe and learn about changes in air pressure. Use your webcam or camcorder to keep track of weather changes
- How to Build an Anemometer to Measure Wind Speed
[Travel-and-Leisure:Outdoors] This simple tool is a wonderful way to observe and learn about wind speed. Whether you live in the city, the suburbs, or a rural area, this project will work for you.
- Ten Ways to Improve Your Nature Observation Skills
[Travel-and-Leisure:Outdoors] You can enhance your nature observation experience and even improve your ability to spot wildlife by mastering a few techniques. When preparing for a hike or camping trip, take a few moments to practice these simple skills and you will be amazed at the value it adds to your outdoor experience.
- Common Sense Survival Tips for Dealing with Gale Force Winds
[Travel-and-Leisure:Outdoors] I hike in all weather conditions, except blizzards, downpours and gale force winds. If I had to be outdoors in nature during a wind storm, there are a few basic preparations I would make before risking exposure.
- Survival Tip: Practice Using Your Non-Dominant Hand
[Travel-and-Leisure:Outdoors] There's nothing like a badly-injured dominant hand to give you a reality check. I'm right-handed, with a severe bruise. I didn't break any bones - but the pain is remarkably close to what I felt when I broke a bone years ago.
What if I had to deal with this kind of injury in a survival situation?
- How to Interpret the Language of Thunder and Lightning
[Travel-and-Leisure:Outdoors] When it's so oppressively hot that even the insects don't move and you might feel a breeze only if you're lucky enough to be near water, the conditions are ripe for a thunderstorm.
If the weather changes suddenly and you have to get to shelter, would you be able to figure out how much time you'd have?
- How to Use Your Webcam for Nature Observation
[Travel-and-Leisure:Outdoors] I originally thought of this when I drove past a lawn display just before Halloween. Most of the time when I see a scarecrow, it's either in a backyard garden, or it's a Halloween lawn decoration. Here's something else you can do with that scarecrow.
- Hands-On Habitat Observation
[Travel-and-Leisure:Outdoors] A habitat is a place shared by certain species of plants and animals. I'll use any excuse to find a way to study the balance of plants and animals in different natural settings. Take a walk along a woods road after a storm or study your lawn at first light. Some of the best opportunities to observe nature are right under your nose.
- How to Make a Compass: Two Designs
[Travel-and-Leisure:Outdoors] Use household objects to make a floating compass or a hanging compass. Then test your direction-finding skills. Set up your webcam to keep a journal of the changes in wind direction.
- How to Create Art Using Seeds
[Home-and-Family:Crafts-Hobbies] Seeds are the way plants reproduce. Not every seed will grow. Look at the variety of seed sizes and shapes in nature and collect several samples. In addition to sprouting seeds, you can use them to make pictures or jewelry as a way to study them.
- How to Grow Crystals
[Travel-and-Leisure:Outdoors] Nature is filled with patterns.
When molecules and atoms line up in a pattern that repeats itself symmetrically, they form crystals. Using basic household items and a bit of technique, you can grow crystals and watch them form.
- Make Friends With a Tree: How to Make Tree Bark Rubbings and a Tree Shaped Poem
[Travel-and-Leisure:Outdoors] Trees have different shapes depending not only on their species, but on their living conditions. Look closer and you'll notice that each tree is an individual.
- Steam Pit Cooking Technique: A Meal Remembered Years Later
[Travel-and-Leisure:Outdoors] This is no 30-minute meal technique. It takes organization and effort - but the results justify the labor. Nothing tastes better than food slowly cooked in the earth.
- Nature Study Activity: How to Build a Tracking Box
[Travel-and-Leisure:Outdoors] This is one of several activities adapted for indoor use, so people without back yards can still study nature.
- How to Use Household Objects to See What's Underwater
[Travel-and-Leisure:Outdoors] Here's a hands-on way to see what's going on under the surface of a lake or pond.
- A Safe and Foolproof Way to Forage for Wild Edibles
[Travel-and-Leisure:Outdoors] Wild edibles are now available in many farmers markets and specialty stores, making identification much easier.
- Survival Technique: Learn to Fox Walk
[Travel-and-Leisure:Outdoors] The first thing I learned in my survival classes is that a good shelter in a bad location is a bad shelter. The second thing I learned is that fox walking makes a difference in what you experience in nature and what you miss.
- Discover New Worlds on a Micro Hike
[Travel-and-Leisure:Outdoors] When it's too hot and humid for hiking, you can still explore the wonders of nature. Choose a patch of lawn, forest floor, or even the trunk of a tree in deep woods, and study it closely. The list of what you need is short. There's no end to what you might observe
- Cloud Formations and What They Mean
[Travel-and-Leisure:Outdoors] Different cloud shapes tell us what kind of weather is on the way. Here is a list of the shapes and where they occur in the atmosphere.
- A Good Shelter: Debris Shelter Instructions
[Travel-and-Leisure:Outdoors] The woods are a wonderful place for mountain biking, hiking and camping. Did you know all those branches and dried leaves scattered on the ground can be put together to create a shelter that will keep you warm and dry? It's called a "debris shelter" or "debris hut" – but it's not trash.
- The Writing Life: Tips for Effective Proofreading
[Writing-and-Speaking:Writing] Proofreading is an essential part of the writing process. If you are your own proofreader, you have to proofread on a different day than the day you finished writing. If you need to submit a piece on the day you finish writing it, hire a proofreader; the investment is worth it.
- The Writing Life: How to Revise or Edit Your Work
[Writing-and-Speaking:Writing] Writing is a lot like sculpture. In both crafts you trim away the excess to reveal the art within.
Sculptors chip or carve away at stone, wood or clay; writers trim words.
Here are a few tips to guide you along this process.
- The Writing Life: Writing to Persuade Your Readers
[Writing-and-Speaking:Writing] Writing seems to flow when you have a strong opinion.
Whether you write for like-minded readers or readers you hope to persuade, spotting the weak parts of your argument will help you and your readers.
- The Writing Life: Using Gender Neutral Language
[Writing-and-Speaking:Writing] This is an interesting area of writing technique, because the strategies for applying gender-sensitive language are still being worked out.
I'm comfortable using terms like flight attendant or fire fighter when I'm referring to an individual who performs that job. I typically struggle with pronoun use.
- The Writing Life: Tips for Dealing with Procrastination
[Writing-and-Speaking:Writing] I know something's up when I'd rather do laundry than write.
Another more subtle sign of procrastination is when I conduct endless research, but never write a rough draft. I'm in trouble when I'm hunting in the refrigerator after every sentence.
But what can I do about it? Here are a few ideas that have helped me negotiate this rough terrain in my writing life:
- How to Calculate Wind Speed
[Travel-and-Leisure:Outdoors] This handy chart is useful in determining how fast the wind is blowing. It is an excellent supplement to building your own anemometer if you are preparing to study wind as a nature topic.
- Ten Tips to Improve Your Study Skills
[Reference-and-Education] We are all students, whether we are in a school program or navigating life's lessons.
In order to improve your study skills, you have to pay attention to how you learn best. Reading, hearing, hands-on, images, repetition and your own mental, physical and emotional health are all factors in how you learn.
- Chicken Mushrooms: Sauteed, Steamed, Baked and Frozen
[Food-and-Drink:Recipes] Laetiporous sulphureous, a/k/a chicken of the woods or sulphur shelf is the first wild mushroom I learned to gather. I see it now at farmers markets and speciality stores for $16 a pound.
- How to Test Puffball Mushrooms for Edibility
[Food-and-Drink] I was sure I'd found puffballs (Calvatia and Lycoperdon) on yesterday's hike.
I followed my own rules for identification and edibility. Last night I matched features of the mushrooms with my field guides, notes and trusted sources. Finally, a couple of hours after dinner, I cooked and ate one small piece of what know is edible.
- Wild Edible Recipe: Sauteed Puffball Mushrooms
[Food-and-Drink:Recipes] I took the time to learn to identify the Gem-studded puffball and the Pear-shaped puffball, but I've seen these and other wild gathered mushrooms for sale in local farmers markets for $16 a pound!
- Ten Ways to Celebrate Leaf Season
[Travel-and-Leisure:Outdoors] Red, gold and amber leaves against a deep blue sky, frosty air filled with the scent of burning wood and ripe apples, migrating birds and animals feasting on this year's abundant harvest - autumn feels like a celebration.
Here are ten things you can do to maximize your enjoyment of one of the most dramatic and beautiful times in nature:
- Ten Ways to Prepare Lamb's Quarters or Wild Spinach
[Food-and-Drink:Recipes] Also known as goose foot, pigweed, wild spinach and officially, Chenopodium album, this abundantly available plant is nutritious and tasty raw or cooked. Here is a list of ways to prepare it:
- How to Raise a Credit-Savvy Child
[Home-and-Family:Parenting] Many financial experts make the distinction between good debt and bad debt. Learning these lessons early, has left me with a sense of control, the power of choice and a strong feeling of well-being.
- Summertime: Get to Know the Bugs That Buzz From Cousin to Cousin
[Travel-and-Leisure:Outdoors] You can take effective steps to make yourself inedible to insects, making it much easier to observe and get to know the ones that crawl or fly across your path as spring gives way to summer.
- How to Build a Worm Bin for Composting
[Reference-and-Education:Science] This is a great way to learn about composting even if you do not have a back yard. It can easily be done indoors using household objects.
- How to Grow Fresh Vegetables Indoors In Less Than a Week
[Food-and-Drink:Recipes] This is one of several activities designed to make nature accessible to people without back yards. The added benefit of this activity is fresh, wholesome food.
- Wilderness Survival:The Sacred Order is a Universal Truth
[Travel-and-Leisure:Outdoors] Panic and frustration get in the way of success in any situation – they can be deadly in the outdoors. If it's late in the day or you are in a place with limited resources, what you do first matters.
- Edible Wild Weeds: Spring Salad Recipe
[Food-and-Drink:Recipes] Most of what we think of as weeds are nutritious and tasty. This is the perfect time of year for a salad that feeds the eyes as well as the palate.
- How to Program Your Children Against Impulse Buying
[Home-and-Family:Parenting] This happened over 40 years ago, but the story replays in my head every time I walk into a store.
- Pocket Survival Kit: When Hiking, Little Things Make a Big Difference
[Travel-and-Leisure:Outdoors] This light-weight, ready-to-go checklist includes everything necessary to enjoy a short hike or a longer trek.
|
|
|
