Happy Hanukkah!

This evening will mark the last night of Hanukkah, or the Festival of Lights—a widely celebrated Jewish holiday commemorating the defeat of the Seleucid Greek rulers of the land of Israel in the second century B.C.E by Hebrew soldiers, the Maccabees.

The eight days of Hanukkah are about a seven-day miracle in which the Maccabees only had enough oil to light their temple’s eternal flame for a single day, yet the lamp kept on burning for eight!

Let’s take a deeper look into some things you may not have known about this Hebrew holiday.

Biblical Hanukkah
The Tanach is pretty much the equivalent to the Christian Bible when it comes to the Jewish faith. But did you know that unlike any other Jewish holiday, the Tanach makes no mention of Hanukkah. No one knows why. Strangely enough, the Hanukkah story can be found in the Christian Bible but not the Jewish one.

Oil Have Something to Eat
As mentioned earlier, Hanukkah celebrates the miracle the Maccabees witnessed of the oil that burned for eight days. The importance of oil is honored throughout traditional Hanukkah recipes—all of which are fried in oil: Donuts, Latkes, Fried Fish, Fried Sweet Cake, Deep-Fried Pancakes packed with cheese.

Calendar like Clockwork
Hanukkah consistently falls on the same date every year: the 25^th of Kislev (a month of the Hebrew calendar). The Hebrew calendar and the Gregorian calendar are very different, however, which is why Hanukkah comes at different dates between November and December. The Hebrew calendar is a lunisolar calendar, based on the sun and the moon while the our Gregorian calendar only considers the sun.

I hope you’ve all had a great Hanukkah celebration these last seven nights! Make tonight something special. Happy Hanukkah one last time and, as always, thanks for reading!

- John

Take a Hike Day

Happy Take a Hike Day, Everybody! Hiking does more than just keep your body tuned up and feeling good. It’s also good for your mind. Incorporating a beautiful trail that twists and turns and leads to new landscapes is a nice little treat for your eyes and eases your head. Most people live within a reasonable driving distance of cool trails just waiting to be discovered and explored by them!

And it’s really something remarkable that there are so many routes that have been established and groomed through wooded land and remote wilderness. In honor of today, I thought we could consider all the labor that goes into creating a woodsy trail.

Saw and Chain
Woods don’t grow with those winding carpets navigating through them. Somebody at some time came along and cut down any trees or other vegetation that couldn’t be easily wrapped around. Nowadays people do this job with a chainsaw which makes for a pretty strenuous job. But people did a job like this before gas-powered equipment existed to make it that much more manageable. That’s some back-breaking work.

Careful with that Axe
Once a path has been cleared, there will be plenty of brush roots and tree stumps to remove from the ground. Along with the chainsaw yet, this job can be achieved with a shovel and axe to create a clean pathway along the surface and just below—eliminating most, if not all, tripping hazards.

Rakin’ up is Hard to Do
While, at this point, all the big stuff has been removed, there’s still a good amount of work to be done to truly CLEAR the path. The sticks, viny vegetation, roots, rocks, woodchips, and whatever else there may be remaining all still needs to be raked off of the path. It doesn’t require the same kind of intensity as felling trees or stump and root removal, but it’s still a heck of a lot of work.

Like a Bridge over Swampy Water
Depending on the type of land you’re working with, there’s a possibility that you still have a lot of work ahead of you in order to make a traversable trail. If you have a wide enough stream or marshy land that you need to cross, a bridge must be built for reliable crossing.

It’s an astounding amount of work; like I said, it’s amazing that we have so many in national state parks and simple, local trails all over the place—sometimes in places you’d least expect, smack-dab in the middle of a bustling city. Enjoy discovering trails around you and appreciate all the effort that went in to making them possible. Happy National Take a Hike Day! As always, thanks for reading!

- John

Hey, Buggy Boys and Girls!

As you probably DIDN’T know, World Mosquito Day is today. Mosquito Day may not seem like a day you’d want to celebrate, but it actually makes good sense. It’s observed on August 20th every year since 1897 when the British doctor Sir Ronald Ross made the discovery that mosquitoes were transmitting malaria from person to person. To raise awareness over the matter, he insisted World Mosquito Day be observed annually.

In observance of this day, I thought we could take a look at some very interesting and little known facts about those pesky little buggers. 

Boys don’t Bite
You know how people are always complaining when the mosquitoes are out? Well, it’s just the females. No, no—not the folks complaining! I’m talking about the mosquitoes. It’s just the female mosquitoes that bother you. The male mosquitoes are harmless and will not drink blood—in fact, they don’t even have the mouthpiece that the females do to pierce the flesh of an animal host. Instead, they just drink nectar.

Don’t Spit on Me
The worst thing about a mosquito bite is the itch! Am I right? But did you know that it’s not really the bite that’s causing your itching sensation. It’s her spit! As she’s drinking, your blood at the surface of this microscopic wound begins clotting as part of our body’s healing process. If your blood clots too fast, she can’t get a good drink. So she spits on your wound which prevents clotting. It’s that slobber she left behind that our body responds to with itchiness and histamines.

Slow Poke         
Yeah, they’re vicious bloodsuckers, these girls. But did you know that they’re actually pretty slow. Yep. Despite being four times lighter than a feather (which you’d think would aid their speed), they only get around at a little over a mile per hour. That makes them one of the slowest flying insects of them all. Dragonflies, for comparison, can be found zippin’ around at 35 miles per hour!

So the next time you find yourself surrounded by a swarm of mosquitoes, remember to blame the female gender for this irritation and keep guarded with the proper repellents which can be found when you click right here. Share your new knowledge with people for World Mosquito Day and, as always, thanks for reading!

- John

Hey, Dessert Devourers!

The campfire craving that has everybody asking for “some more”, these gooey dessert sandwiches consist of chocolate, marshmallow, and graham cracker. Today is National S’more Day. There’s really only one dessert to have when you’re sitting around a campfire. S’mores, though they weren’t always known as such, are the traditional campfire treat that have been around for roughly a century.

America’s traditional treat, S’mores are sandwiches of roasted marshmallow and a piece of chocolate between two Graham Crackers. Short for “Some more,” this delicious dessert got its name because of what it makes you say after you eat it: “Mmm! Can I have s’more?”

A man named Alec Barnum is said to be the one who invented the s’more, though the dessert’s true history is somewhat of a mystery as its recipe appears in a book that was written by the Girl Scouts in 1927 called Trampling and Trailing with the Girl Scouts.

You can make your own variations to s’mores recipes. Some people add peanut butter, others add fruit; as long as you have the initial three flavors, you have a s’more. In fact, all the desserts I listed at the beginning of this post can be made s’more flavored—s’more cake, s’more pie, s’more pudding, s’more brownies, s’more ice cream, s’more cookies, s’more dip, s’more bars, s’more donuts, s’more rolls…that’s—that’s a lot of s’mores.

Of course, big s’more fans here at Everything Summer Camp, join our S’more Bucks rewards program for our online store. It’s a fantastic way to get free money for little effort that’s redeemable for the camping gear available on our site.

Learn more about our S’more Bucks and get signed up with this previous Blog post. Appreciate your S’more Bucks as well as the actual treat and, as always, thanks for reading. Now go roast some ‘mallows and smoosh your S’mores together. Cheers!

- John

Hey, Fire Fans!

Did you know today is Campfire Day! I could go on like I have in the past with fire safety tips like finding a suitable location and sitting at a safe distance (read more when you click here) or go over the different methods of starting a fire like I did in this previous post that you can find right here. But campfires are all about hanging out and relaxing, so let’s just take it easy for this Blog post and talk about why campfires are so cool!

The Snacking
Fires lend themselves to good food. Whether you’re just passing a bag of chips or candy or you’re using the flames to roast your treat like marshmallows and S'MORES, campfires usually indicate there’s some fun junk food going around. 

The Storytelling
Something about the darkness of night and the frolicking flames, the atmosphere tends to eliminate our inhibitions and incite our instinctive nature to tell a good story. No matter if it’s a funny story, a true story, a scary story, some sort of combination of those, or you just got some good jokes or something, fires are the perfect venue to try them out!

The Mesmerizing
While a campfire tends to get people in a talkative manner, it’s always good to keep quiet for a while and let the fire do the talking. The crackles and pops of dry wood are warming and cozy with a spectacular display that’s mesmerizing to say the least.

Enjoy the camaraderie that comes along with those who you sit down with to share a fire—they’re likely some of the closest people in your life. And the magic of sitting around a campfire together is that you will likely walk away feeling even closer. Fires feed friendship! Happy Campfire Day. Enjoy it today by enjoying your own fire this evening. As always, thanks for reading, Camp Folks!

- John