opalsns, that's kind of a sparkly, colorful name, how did you come to choose it?

In a nutshell, opals are my birthstone.

 Wow, nutshells make for short answers; can you give us some more detail in the next question? Just teasing! Tell us a little bit about yourself.

I'm a 49 year old artist, born in RI to strict parents, with great work ethics and deep religious convictions. I have a 25 year old son who has always worked hard since he was 18 years old and has a great job, big truck and beautiful home on 15 acres in Maine. I have 2 older brothers and have a great relationship with my oldest Bro, thanks to geocaching.  I love to draw and paint. I love living deep in the woods in Maine. I love animals and have a great wild animal show here daily. These are a few of my favorite things!

Sounds like you're about to break out in song! Must be a great place to live. What do you enjoy most about Geocaching?

The absolute BEST thing about geocaching for me is the relationship that I have with my brother now.
We see each other more now than we ever did. He comes up to Maine several times a year to cache, go to an event, or just to hang. I love it!!!

That's pretty cool that caching could do that for you! You've hosted quite a few missions and cointests in the geocoin forums, could you explain what those are and why you do them?

I've hosted more cointests than missions, (only 2 missions under my belt).
Cointests are a Blast. It can be anything from a puzzle, to a guessing game. Basically, you offer up a free, unactivated geocoin of your choice to the first one to complete a challenge, for example, name that geocoin or answer a question correctly, such as what am I holding in my hand right now?,  or pick a winner, like my NASCAR Cointests. These are all fun to watch, enter, or host.
 I once entered a cointest where many of the answers could be found in the stories in The Online Geocacher Magazine. That one was the best!!! It really held your interest!

I'm glad you liked it; it was a good way to introduce people to the magazine and my stories. What can you tell me about missions?

Missions are created and organized in the geocoin forums as a fun way to send gifts and geocoins to other cachers, (or cacher's pet). The host will set up a mission for a holiday or birthday, get participants to sign up and then the list of names is taken by the host and he does a name exchange and issues one participant to another. They're supposed do a little research on the person they are sending to and put together small package of "gifts " and add a geocoin or 2 that the receiver may desire. Send it off and wait for theirs to come in from someone else.
In My missions, called 52 Card Pickup, I'm sending around a deck of cards, to folks that signed up for the missions. The person gets the package, takes the coin sent to them, picks a card and writes their caching name on it. They put half of the card back in the package with another geocoin and send it out to someone they choose from the list. After it has made its way to everyone on the list, it will be sent back to me and I will pick a card and the person whose name is on it will get a geocoin from me. There was enough interest in this mission to send out 2 decks of cards!
It's a Mission and Cointest in one.
And by using a coin code, I've made it trackable so we can map its travels.
It was a very neat idea, if I do say so myself.

Definitely sounds interesting and it must be a lot of fun getting surprises like that in the mail. Do you have any other hobbies besides geocaching and geocoins? Do you find they have taken a backseat to geocaching?

Yup, NASCAR , oh and I like to do crafts and I like photography and gardening and fishing and carving walking sticks.

Actually in the summer, Geocaching takes the backseat. I'm allergic to bug bites so I stay out of the woods, this summer, I've painted and carved and even started to carve deer antlers again. I do swordfish bills also.

And NASCAR takes a backseat to nothing!!!!!

I ran across something a bit different recently while browsing in that e-place. There were paintings done by you... of crows, listed as geocoins. What can you tell me about those?
 
Well, awhile ago, I painted a Large crow and added a real Travel Bug to it. The painted crow held the real chain and TB in its beak. I called it "Cachin' Crow" It was to be an " event crashing TB " You know, one of those obscure, huge, heavy, ugly TBs that show up at events , hopefully,  taken by another cacher to another event. There's everything from a cinderblock, - Cindy, to a giant stuffed Wyle E Coyote, to a full size vehicle.
 My brother took my Cachin' Crow painting to an event in RI and it was picked up and has travelled across the country and even made it to an event at Groundspeak Headquarters.

  I had been reading in the forums of a rash of geocoin thefts or disappearances from geocaches and events lately and with that in mind, thought of creating paintings that could be tracked. They are unique and would be harder to steal or misplace, but could still travel all over the world collecting stories, in more safe, hand to hand type movements, so, I came up with WOA TBs , Work Of Art  Travel Bugs.  My crow paintings with an unactivated geocoin incorporated into the picture.

Your profile photo, geocoins and WOA are all crows, why are crows important to you?

 I love to paint and began painting crows after my husband's younger brother passed away. He was a bass player in a musical group named Raven St. Band and after his death, a huge crow started hanging around the house.
After learning about geocaching, I created the Cachin' Crow TB I was telling you about. My brother loved it and came up with the idea to create geocoins with that image. We are now working on our 3rd coin in the Cachin' Crow Geocoin Series.

Well opalsns, you gotta forgive me for this, but that's something to crow about! Thanks for talking with me today and good luck with the WOA.

By catsnfish

A couple of empty-nesters who caught the caching bug not realizing it was incurable. So if we’re found in the woods waltzing with Garmins, lifting lampskirts while tying our shoe or looking for “gum” underneath benches, be sure to stay away... it’s contagious and the only temporary relief can be found in finding bison’s, ammo’s, nano’s, or passing coins and spreading travel bugs!

Publisher's Note: Catsnfish write the periodic column The Adventures of Catsnfish. Subscribe (free) to The Online Geocacher to get an email alert when a new article is published.