Animal, Vegetable, AND Mineral?

I haven't been Geocaching too much lately... I was disappointed to find out the off-trail forest hikes I normally like to do are much less of an option around this time of year unless I wanted to emerge from the woods "more deer-tick than man".  

My last attempt a couple of days after a big downpour was a miserable failure.  At a local public park I was driven back by a black cloud of mosquitos only yards into the hike and I hadn't yet stepped foot off the path.  I was likewise thwarted from retrieving a cache from near the local library by a one-two punch of cargo-net-thick spider webs and a poison ivy farm.  I have solved a few puzzle-related caches and done some recon to determine their exact location for later, but that's about it for the off-trail stuff.

I guess I will pick it up again in earnest (Autumn?) once the weather, terrain, and wildlife stop being so Jumanji-y.  In the meantime there are always tons of caches more in the open.  The city ones are usually too small to hold cool stuff - usually they contain just the log to sign.  I prefer the larger ones that have say, Dollar Store trinkets or Matchbox Cars or hundreds upon hundreds of... eeeeeeewwwwwwwwww... earwigs...

That one was in a birdhouse on the perimeter of a local cemetery.  After spraying the cache with a generous dose of OFF, I took this pic, braved the still-wriggling horde, signed the log and left a trinket.  I didn't take anything in trade except for a huge case of the willies.

And I thought it was gross running into caches filled with stagnant rainwater...  What a great hobby!

Oh, yeah, before I forget: Not only do cemeteries usually have a good number of easy-to-get caches, did you know that if you are being pestered by certain folks for "a couple of bucks" or "a gas can" you can ditch them by walking confidently onto cemetery grounds?  It's true!  I'm telling you, with this one dude he stopped so suddenly it was like watching a bird smack into a window.  Uncanny.  

Bugs and rainwater notwithstanding, some caches do contain some pretty interesting things.  For example:

Also this:

I left both the dollar and the ultrasound in the cache for others to see.  Not too sure what to make of the dollar, but I sure hope that woman had a good pregnancy...

The pic in the upper left of this post is the current state of the Geo-Junk Clock I made (and, technically, am still making) for my son's room.  Some of the pieces had fallen off and had to be re-attached with epoxy instead of hot glue, so what you see here might have stuff that's been slightly shifted around.  I am running out of space so I am not sure how much more I will attach before I call it "done".  A couple dozen more things, tops, I guess.

But I think I might just have an idea for what to do with any extra stuff beyond that.  We'll see... :)