An Outdoor Adventure

Last weekend Lenore and I participated in a nation-wide initiative to get women outside and recreating. Dubbed BOW (becoming an outdoor woman), it involved a day of workshops on all sorts of topics, including nature photography, plant ID, skeet shooting, archery, fishing, kayaking, more fishing...plus breakfast, lunch and dinner. All for $70 bucks. Where do we sign?! Our event was at the Max McGraw Wildlife Foundation, which is a spectacular privately-held property along the Fox River. We had a fantastic time! We opted to camp out overnight as well, because they were serving pancakes with homemade maple syrup in the morning. Sweet! Here are some photos from our adventure weekend. As Austin says, enjoy the pics. (Remember, you can click on each one to see it bigger.)

I opted to try skeet shooting while Lenore learned about nature photography. Here's a little guy having a bad hair day that Lenore spotted during her class.


So first up was a gun safety course, then we got to shoot. I actually hit a couple of 'em! Our instructor, Rosie, was awesome.


She wears a pink shooting vest with a patch on it that reads, "girls with guns have more fun." Do not ef with Rosie.



Here you can see her cheering cuz I hit a clay pigeon. All in all, it was a good day to be a clay pigeon, because not many were shattered! (Thanks to Connie for taking the photos for me.)




Though we were only shooting 20 gauge shotguns, I still felt the kick enough to be rocked back on my heels. My friend Connie said 12 gauge might have knocked me on my butt. She's a crack shot and hit almost all of her pigeons. And yes, when you're ready to shoot, you really do say, "PULL!" so the guy can launch the target. It's pretty cool. AND today's modern pigeons are biodegradable. When I was a kid, my dad's good friend worked here at the game farm, so his son and I used to have a blast during off hours swimming and rooting around in the grass and woods for the clay pigeons that got missed.

Here's Connie shooting -- you can see the pigeon in the photo. It met an untimely death shortly after this photo was taken.


Lenore and I took backpack survival together. Here's our guide showing us how to build (in miniature) a survival shelter, and here's Lenore's survival twine made of basswood bark. Which you can also eat. Yum.



I really enjoyed the fishing, mostly because their lakes are so stocked, you can't help but catch fish. I caught 6 bluegills in under an hour. And also fed many worms to the fish, who are adept at removing worms from hooks. Part of the workshop was also a fillet and cooking demo, so we got to sample some fresh fish cooked outside. I threw all but one of mine back, and I made sure they got to keep the worm for their trouble.


I did not attempt to remove the swallowed hook. Ick. It was bad enough getting pooped on by worms. But I think it was probably worse for the worms.


Here are some other shots from the day.





This is a bog we hiked to, and one of the residents of said bog.



3 of our fearless leaders. Cindi, standing behind, was a total hoot and camped out with us then made breakfast. She works for the fish and wildlife service and led most of the nature walks.


A wood duck house. I'm pretty sure they had help building it.


You have to watch where you walk on this trail.


More creative names for nature paths :)


A relative of the spider that stole Lenore's glasses in Library Springs. It's very easy to walk into these webs, and they all seem to be face height. Yeeks.


I should add that while I didn't sleep all that well, I really enjoyed listening to the owls hoot at each other all night. There was also a racoon fight and some other wildlife noises that, if you filtered out the nearby tollroad, provided an interesting soundtrack to the night.



Wine in a Starbucks cup -- now that's class.