I'm tempted to dabble in doing a little field recording of natural soundscapes and the like, to play about with and mix with vocals (akin to an extent to examples I've seen posted here, which have caught my interest.)

I've also got access to a variety of music production software (Reason, Sound Forge, Cake Walk etc.), which as yet I know as much about as something I know absolutely nothing about - but I'd like to explore for the various creative potentials in working with otherwise unaccompanied song. Though most specifically with field recordings.

So that's the theoretical context.

What kind of equipment should I invest in for making the required field recordings, that is a) easy peasy to use, b) cheap as chips, c) will be suitable for doing what I want to do (as described above), and c) not total shit?

Oh, and then once you've given me your educated and informed opinion, can you like, just come over to my house and do all the complicated techy stuff for me... Because that'd be really great.