My husband Fino and I must have shared some cosmic waves today. We both had strawberries on the brain. When I arrived home tonight from the office, he and the girls were checking out our strawberry plants in the garden. It turns out we have a bunch of strawberries in our own yard!

So much for having to go to the u-pick farm after all. We've never had more than a few handfuls of berries from our garden before; of course the addition of the fence to keep the chickens out of the patch probably helped. And the fact that the plants are three years old and have sprawled. But there aren't many plants and we didn't even pick them clean yet.

So maybe we'll hit the beach tomorrow instead of our original u-pick farm trip. The girls are interested in finding sea glass, a new idea that's captured their interest...

The kids love the u-pick farms during the summer. They run wild through the fields, usually eat more fruit than they should and hardly ever fill their buckets with berries. I end up picking most of the fruit that we take home to eat, cook and freeze. Not that I mind much though, I eat my fair share too.

One of our favorite u-pick farms is Dole's Orchard in Limington. Their prices are cheap and their berries are really sweet. If you're interested, check out Get Real, Get Maine for a searchable listing of u-pick farms in Maine.

Strawberry picking season is almost over however. It's unlike us to not be out on the first day of picking. But we've been a little distracted "treasure hunting" and managing our summer activity schedule that we haven't made time for collecting one of our favorite fruits. We're hoping to hit the fields tomorrow, as long as the thunderstorms stay at bay.

So old clothes, beach buckets and kids will be loaded in the car tomorrow to hit the fields for some tasty outdoor fun.

It's all about fairy houses at our house.

Read more about our adventure on Mackworth Island building fairy houses.

Update 8/16/07

Fairy Village on Mackworth Island

We picked up the Deerwood Loon travel bug earlier this week in Cumberland while geocaching. We're working on getting him closer to N.H. this weekend. He's in a race with another TB to get to Squam Lake in NH by August. He's pretty close to winning; the other TB is in New York at the moment. And the Loon is doing really well given the fact that he's from Florida and has only been traveling since January.

The kids liked the whole race idea but were disappointed with the lack of photos in this TB's gallery (there's only one). So we just added one. We thought Loon would like to spend time with some new feathered friends.

Almeida humor continues....

A photo was published in the Central Maine newspapers this morning about a pool in Waterville. My co-worker thought the picture should have included bunny. I agreed.

And Colleen, another co-worker blogged about it too.

We met up with some friends yesterday afternoon at Old Orchard Beach. The day was sunny but temperatures were a little cool for swimming. That didn't stop the kids from getting into their bathing suits and jumping in the water. Clearly the kids are products of their Maine upbringing when frolicking in 55 degree water is fun.

As with all our beach trips, the kids collect shells. L. always seems to have a fairy house construction project going in our backyard and needs shells. Old Orchard had plenty of shells as well as a couple of other random items. The large, very human-like bone G. found was creepy. That didn't make it into the bag - I buried that in the sand when the kids weren't looking. But the broken pocketbook handle was re-found and brought home. What they plan to do with that I have no idea.

After examining the finds on the kitchen table last night, G. noticed the bone was missing. Oops, I said, it must have fallen out.

We all need our little white lies.....

Yesterday I was closely monitoring my GPS to find a geocache at Twin Brooks Trail in Cumberland. And what is usually the case when it comes to my beloved gadget, I was not paying attention to the world around me.

We were off the trail, about 200 feet, when out of the corner of my eye I saw a bunch of green pointy leaves. There were alarm bells going off in the far corners of my mind (and I mean far corners) that I should take a closer look at those plants. But just as a thought was forming, the "arriving at destination" flashed on my GPS screen.

As you probably remember, my family hid our first ever geocache at the Lowell Preserve in Windham a few weeks ago for my column about geocaching. Within 24 hours of posting the cache to the web, someone had found it. But after that, the cache hadn't seen much action, at least not on the web. So on Thursday I decided to to take the kids, and a couple of their friends, to visit the cache again and check the log for entries. It turned out that the cache had several visitors (about 10) so far; they just hadn't logged their visit online.

But last night there was a flurry of activity and logged visits on the cache's page. Check it out. Seems there were lots of people hiking the trail yesterday.

And I have to say that the visitors to our geocache have left some pretty cool trades. Everyone in my crew left the cache with happy faces.

Sometimes we don't have to leave our backyard to have an "outdoor adventure." We have chickens. And that means that our family is never at a loss for a story about some random -- usually bizarre and funny -- incident involving our chickens.

For instance, there was the time a rooster jumped on my head and tried to peck through my skull. It felt like a scene from "The Birds" (and I couldn't wash my hair for a couple of days because of all the lacerations on my scalp). According to my husband though, I must have somehow "provoked" the rooster. But that theory was buried, along with the rooster, a week later when it tried to do the same to him.

Then there was this time that my husband put a baby monitor in the chicken coop to listen for the raccoon that was somehow getting into the coop and trying to eat the flock. Have you ever heard a rooster crow at 4 a.m. through an amplified baby monitor? Oh yeah, lots of fodder about chickens at our house.

Yesterday my husband and the kids have ensured the chicken lore will continue with the arrival of another dozen new chicks.

The chicken population at the Almeida homestead is now over 30 with plans for acquiring another couple of ducks in July. My city upbringing and sensibilities are being stretched to their limits..... and the chicken stories continue.

We released our first ever travel bugs in geocaches in the Standish/Steep Falls area.

"Lilo the Swimmer," who likes to swim in all kinds of water, is hanging out in the "Steep Falls" cache near the Saco River.

"Ronny" the Ronald McDonald doll that wants to visit new McDonald's and eat cheeseburgers is hanging out in "The Rips" geocache on another part of the Saco River.

The "Ice Cream Eater" is still in process but we're working on getting that one released next week.

Happy caching!

The ban on flip flops lasted all of one day in the Almeida household. G. purchased a new pair yesterday after demonstrating a new strategy for carrying flip flops across a rushing river. She was certain wearing the flip flops on her wrists like bracelets, instead of on her feet, would solve the problem. There was also a promise of no crying if the plan didn't work.

I figured it was worth the $1 risk for another pair.

Now the question is - will the swimming temps return to Maine again this summer?

Scenario:

Crossing 30 feet of moving river to get to the island where the geocache was. Not crazy-fast but enough that footing was a little tricky jumping from rock-to-rock.

Agreeing to let G., my 9-year-old, wear flip flops.

Loosing a flip flop while crossing the river.

Crying, lots of crying, about how wonderful those 99 cent flip flops were.

Spending almost an hour looking around the island and the opposite river shore looking for said flip flop.

Meeting some interesting people, none of which had seen said flip flop.

Finding well-stocked geocache then enjoying our swim in the calm area of the river and forgetting about the flip flop.

Getting into the car then realizing we're leaving without said flip flop.

More crying.

Wishing I'd made G. wear the strap on sandals I asked her to originally.

Lesson to self: Don't wear flip flops in the river. Or better yet, ban flip flops in Almeida household.

As I mentioned in my column this month, the kids love finding travel bugs in geocaches. These travelers go from cache to cache in search of a particular adventure. "Dora the Diner" is still with us after a month (we're getting her into a new cache this weekend) so we took her to another diner; this time Friendly's. Taking pictures of bugs doing silly things is a favorite activity of the kids.

A couple of days ago the travel bug tags I ordered for the kids arrived in the mail. So last night we set out to decide on our traveler's missions.

Here are the ideas (all created by the kids) that made the final cut (and all the figures were found at Goodwill for less than a dime a piece):

"Ice Cream Eater". The figure the bug is attached to is a bunny riding on a bike pushing an ice cream stand. The bunny wants to go to ice cream stands across the country.

"The Swimmer". The figure is "Lilo" from the Disney movie and she wants to swim in lakes, rivers, streams and oceans everywhere.

"Ronny". This is a small plastic Ronald McDonald doll that wants to visits McDonalds and eat french fries across the country.

We'll be hiding our bugs in the next week or so in caches in the greater Portland area. I'll keep you updated on where they are if you want to grab one to host.

It always seems the really interesting activities all happen on the same day. And it's usually on a day I already have a commitment I can't change.

Take for instance Saturday, June 18.

One of the reasons I decided to start a blog about my family's outdoor adventures is that more often than not, something funny or unusual happens. We seem a typical family with two elementary school-aged daughters who have a variety of interests, including a real love of nature and animals. But my friends are often entertained with the antics and stories of our family life so it seemed fitting to give this blog a go.

My kids are 4-Hers and one of the projects they are working on this summer is a community mapping project. They are gathering GIS data (global information systems). It sounds a bit ominous but it's pretty simple. The kids have made a list of their favorite places in Maine and now they're in the process of collecting the necessary information to post online so others can learn about each place.

We use our GPS to mark the coordinates of each favorite place and take a photo of it. Then we get the street address and write a few paragraphs about why it's a favorite.

The list the kids have developed is an eclectic mix of hiking trails, beaches, ice cream stores and commercial businesses.

A couple of weeks ago we started the project with stops at Scarborough Marsh, Mackworth Island and Old Orchard Beach (of course we had to get some pier fries and ice cream at the beach; and build a new fairy house at Mackworth).

The other day we headed to Gorham to gather coordinates on Baxter Library and Goodwill. Yeah, Goodwill. The kids love it there - they can buy a lot of stuff for only a couple of dollars (which is all they ever have anyway). While gathering coordinates my 7-year-old spotted Darth Vader on the roof of Burger King. This brought on speculation about the SpongeBob theft and the hopes that Vader didn't suffer the same fate. So she decided she wanted a picture with Vader for posterity "in case he got stolen."

This is very typical Almeida children humor.

Continue reading our blog if you dare.