Marjis

I've been yelled at once, it was about two years ago I think. Me, my sister and two friends had logged a cache in the woods near a public road. We were coming down a quite steep hill when a middle aged man dressed only in his underwear rushed from a bush and started yelling "get out of my yard". There was no house to be seen anywhere, just woods and the cliff. I double checked the map afterwards and there was a house, but really far away from the path we took. I think that man has heard us going up the hill and decided he didn't want us anywhere near where he can hear us. In Finland, we have this law about woods and bushes, it's called jokamiehenoikeus in Finnish. It gives everybody a right to hike anywhere, collect berries, mushrooms etc, just as long you keep away from the yards. I think it's polite to keep the distance so you cannot be seen from the yard. But in this case, we were really far away from the house. It's also typical here that people think everything they can see is their territory and in some places there are (illegal) private property signs in the middle of the woods.

Yesterday I went to hide a cache with a friend and today discovered something really icky and scary behind my knee. A tick! It was already filled with my blood after 24 hours. I hate snakes but this was far more scarier than all those snake encounters ever. Fortunately I'm vaccinated against TBE but I'm more concerned about Lyme disease. I've already had it once and really don't wish to have it ever again. I thought last year's "snake cache" (two adders near one cache and me wearing flipflops) was scary experience but this is now far worse.

Jotenkin itse näkisin tuollaisen erityisen merkitsemisen aika turhana. Tärkeämpää olisi, että kätkökuvauksessa olisi kaikki olennainen kerrottu, näin kätköä etsivä voisi itse vetää kuvauksen perusteella johtopäätökset, että haluaako hakea purkin vai ei. Tuollaisten luokitusten kanssa voisi helposti tulla vaan "uusi lumihiutaleattribuutti", on ihan kätköttäjästä kiinni miten sitä käyttää ja kaikki johdonmukaisuus puuttuu...

Hi all, Marjis from Southern Finland, lurking until today. I've been caching a little over a year now, so still a newbie. I'm a little over 30, almost a cat lady because I'm living alone with my two cats. My avatar is my older one, a lazy and fat siamese. Looking for new experiences and loving the nature. Yesterday I was hiking in the snow (half a meter of it) with two friends, found ten caches.

I've had it, sixteen years ago. Had a lot of antibiotics. I mean, really a lot. 100 days of treatment and six tablets per day. Urgh. Ticks and lyme disease are both unfortunately quite common here in Finland, especially in the archipelago and coastal areas. Tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) is here even worse disease than Lyme's, but fortunately not so common. There's no treatment for it. I live and cache in an area with both threats. Last summer I got one tickbite while caching, little beast of hell was biting my arm.