and a strong cup of coffee

I don’t trust myself not to kill myself. I wish I did. But I am going to learn! And the first step in this process was heading out into the woods with my friend Robin Follette during some downtime at BOW. We were off in search of edible mushrooms! My love of mushrooms is not normal. They are my selling item at a restaurant; if a dish has mushrooms in it, I will order it. I can eat mushrooms with every meal. But one thing I can not do; identify which ones in the woods are actually safe for me to pick and eat. Robin agreed to show me some basic mushrooms. She told me what they were and talked about how to make sure they are edible or not. Fast forward a couple of weeks and I met Greg Marley at the Common Ground Fair. He hears me raise my voice as I enter the tent “Ohhh mushrooms!!!” and knows he has an easy sell on his hands. He hands me a cup of Chaga Chai to drink and tells me about some courses he is teaching and how I can learn how to not kill myself. My pla...

So, I do have 3 more blogs to write about Becoming an Outdoors Woman. They are already drafted and the photos are ready to go. But, I got distracted. Last fall, my friends invited Hubby and I to their house. We headed to a local fair and then Jason convinced us that it would be really fun to pick tomatoes from the garden and then make tomato sauce. Apparently, I would be one of the kids painting the fence in Tom Sawyer . This year, I went out and bought all of the attachments I would need for my KitchenAid and set about making my own tomato sauce. For the record, I hate tomatoes, so wrap your brain around that! But, I am a sucker for good, homemade stuff. And harvest season. And getting an amazing deal on tomatoes from a great local farmer. As a result, instead of blogging and posting, I did this: When all was said and done, I had 8 pints of corn and 6 quarts of tomato sauce. I am SO ready for the snow to fly - I am like a squirrel collecting nuts =)

We could not have asked for a better weekend for the BOW Skills Weekend. It was crisp, mostly sunny and the excitement was palpable. 106 women, 36 different sessions taught be awesome instructors and most of the Friend of Maine BOW board members were there. It was a time to test our skills, try new things and learn to push ourselves to do things we might have thought we could not do. For me, I wanted to try Don Kleiner’s session: Intro to Freshwater Fishing. After my trip to Jackman , I needed all the help and advice I could get. Big, big kudos to Don! If you can ever take a class he is teaching, do it. He encourages questions, clearly knows what he is talking about and has an infectious laugh. The 6 of us in his session were put at ease and enjoyed having a smaller group to be able to get more one on one instruction. Don introduced himself, his business and assured us that if he could teach kids to fish, we shouldn’t have a problem. He got us started by practicing the ...

I joined the Becoming an Outdoor Woman in Maine board in April because I love the outdoors and write a blog about hunting. I joined because my friend Rabid sent me the application. I attended board meetings and started understanding what is it we do as Friends of Maine Bow. But it wasn't until this weekend that I got it. We help to empower women to be confident and know that they can do anything they put their minds to. From hatchet throwing to freshwater fishing to muzzle loading and beyond, there was no skill these women could not do. We laughed, we cried and we shared stories that linked our experiences closer than I think many of us realized. Over the next week, I will be posting stories about the classes I sat in on, the women I met and my hopes for next year's Skills Weekend

I love fall. I love the cooler air and the countdown to hunting season. I love the prospect of the first snow and being able to break out the sweaters. Fall is when I can finally get back outdoors and relax. And its harvest season. This year, I have a pressure cooker and huge lobster pot in my kitchen. Both have been used for canning. I have beans and tomatoes canned and ready for winter. I have apples and tomato sauce on the list that needs to get canned before hunting season starts and I have no free time. One of the things that is a must for my family in the fall is apple picking. It is one more thing the deer and I have in common; our love of fresh apples off the tree. Last weekend, my Mom and I made our first (of many) trips to a local apple orchard, North Star Orchards. We have been picking apples with the Dimock family for 20 years or more. We are on a first named basis with most of the family, which adds to the draw of wanting to come back again and again. It’s...

I need some advice. Dad and I have 3 trail cameras that are spread throughout our hunting grounds. In the past, we have seen photos like this: But now, we are getting photos of the trees. We have tweaked the timing so they are set for 15 seconds between photos. We have them where the deer are (as evidence by the tracks) but no photos of deer. We have them in the same spots we did at some point last year when we got the above photos. So… What are we doing wrong???