Never let it be said that Raisin, Jay and I are not hearty. This morning we braved the balmy 10 degree weather here in Boise to scout out potential Letterbox planting locations and also narrowed down the park choices for our October 2013 event.
I am not convinced that there is a magic recipe for letterbox planting. Sure there are do’s and don’ts to planting but the longevity of a box is really a hit or miss. There have been times where I have planted a box spur of the moment, in the dark or on the fly at a place I have never visited before and amazingly enough the box has survived for years and years. Then other times I lovingly hand pick a location that I think the box will thrive and be alive for decades to come and it turns up MIA in record time. Sometimes planting and the long term survival of the Letterbox is just dumb luck.
The other issue I have encounter over the years is I know of a location I think would be perfect for a box and I can’t find a spot that will work to hide a box. Boise is a desert and we have an abundance of bare hills with tumbleweeds and sage brush. Not exactly a perfect planting environment. If there are rocks there are snakes and scorpions (I have seen both) and all of the trees are up north. I have been trying to plant for years along our Greenbelt (the Boise River) and boxes disappear due to high muggle traffic when boxes are not re-hidden well, geocaching and muggle vandals and river flooding. I have lost more boxes on the Boise Greenbelt than I care to remember.
That leaves me back to today’s adventures. I have a location in mind for a new series and I finally took the time to stop and walk the trails today. Raisin and Jay are thrilled to report that they have given this location two paws up for dog, kid and box friendly potential. I have not checked to see if Geocachers have infested these trails yet but even if they have I think I will still eventually plant in the area because I like the history and the location.
Our success continued today as we have almost picked the location for our fall event. Events are a whole different beast of difficulty to plan. I not only have to consider many of the things above but again we are dealing with wide open parks with no trees and lots of grass, very expensive venues that do have trees but we can’t possibly afford to rent, variable weather conditions in October and more ideas than we can find a place to let them soar. Once again Raisin and Jay gave two paws up to the third park we visited today. All and all I would say we had a very productive and chilly day zipping around Boise.
Wondering where we were today? Well, you will just have to wait to find out on both accounts…and Raisin and Jay aren't talking!
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