For Military Appreciation Month - House in the Woods

Visiting a cemetery days after Memorial Day was surprisingly emotional for me. As I pushed my almost 1-year old in his stroller past the rows of stones, I was touched by the number of those sites that had American flags next to them.

I thought about those who had given their lives for the freedoms that my son will enjoy.

I also started thinking about an incredible family that I met at a Sportsmans show earlier this spring. Paul and Dee House turned their tragedy into something that I want to support and tell you about:

There is some notoriety that you don't want to have. If you Google "Lee, Maine" you will find articles about the documentary "Welcome to Lee, Maine" and see that Lee is known for being the smallest town in the US to lose more than one soldier in war - specifically the Iraq war. Sgt. Blair Emery, 24 and Sgt. Joel House, 22 were killed five months apart from one other. I encourage you to watch this clip from the movie that is a little longer than the trailer but is a great view into the world of this small community and the impact that the loss of both men had.

Sgt. Joel House died seven years ago this June and since then his parents, Paul and Dee house have created a way to honor Joel's memory and passions. The result is an amazing non-profit called House in The Woods. It's goal is to give soldiers the opportunity to go hunting with their peers and Maine guides to relax, talk and enjoy nature and the beauty of Maine.

House in the Woods welcomes all vets into their programs to enjoy the magic of the outdoors, the comradery of being among fellow soldiers and once you get to Maine, the program is FREE! If you talk with Dee and Paul, you can instantly tell how passionate they are about the outdoors, hunting and honoring their son. You can't help but want to be a part of something like that, especially as a fellow hunter and Mainer.

My goal since first meeting the Houses, is to be more involved with this organization and learn more about what they do and who they help. One of the hardest challenges (besides the fact that I have a young family, work full time and write as my hobby) is that I live about four hours south of Lee, Maine and having the time to get up there has not been as easy as I had hoped. But - I can spread the word and encourage all of you to look into this great organization and maybe even help them continue their mission by sending a few dollars their way. They are working on raising $50,000 for the Legacy campaign.

As time and my schedule allows, I hope to bring you more stories about House in the Woods and its impact on soldiers, especially since Maine has one of the highest percentages (10.5%) of veterans in the US. Organizations like this are too important not to talk about and share. It helps hunters, it helps Vets and it gets people into the great outdoors - is there really anything better than that?

On June 23, 2007 his mother’s birthday, Joel House was killed by an IED while on patrol in Taji, Iraq. He was 22. On November 30, 2007 Blair Emery was killed by an IED while on patrol in Baghdad, Iraq. Blair was 24. Both soldiers were from Lee, Maine. - See more at: http://www.welcometoleemainefilm.com/about/#sthash.VD8HXkAB.dpuf

Taking Turkeys to Texas

There are a few less turkeys in Maine to hunt this year. A few months ago, Maine Inland Fisheries & Wildlife in partnership with the National Wild Turkey Federation , captured and released more than 50 birds into East Texas with the hope of rebuilding their population. “Eastern turkeys are where the restocking efforts originally began,” explained Shawn Roberts, Director of Field Operations for the National Wild Turkey Federation, “We tried in the 1920’s but it didn’t work. We tried pen-raised birds and that didn’t work either. The only thing that was successful was to trap birds and relocate them to good habitat.” “We started this current effort in the early ‘80s and we had to begin looking outside the state to see if we could get them moved in. We didn’t want to violate The Lacey Act so we had to come up with a way to compensate the states that were giving up a resource either by trading other wildlife or paying them monetarily,” said Roberts. Texas is on the very edge o

Utilizing technology to make you more aware

Staci and I were roaming around the woods on a piece of property that she knew. It was snowing and we were chasing deer tracks to see if we could find some early sheds. It was a perfect day to be out in the woods and we were relaxed and not really paying attention to where we were going. We knew the border of the property and we knew that if we walked long enough we would hit roads or the bog and find our way back. We got to a point where we thought we knew where we were but we were not sure. Staci got out her compass to take a waypoint to make sure we were going in the right direction to get back to the truck. I took out my phone and turned on OnX. Within seconds we knew where we were, where the property borders were in relation to us and we could watch the dot (that represented us) on the map move as we walked out of the woods and got closer to the truck. In another adventure, my son and I headed out on a shed hunting mission. When we got into the woods, I turned on the tracker

Where are the women?

This week, my interview with Steve at The Maine Outdoorsman went live. Steve said yesterday 200 people hit his site viewing over 500 pages. That is a lot of people reading about little ole me and hunting. Why? When I think of women who are in the general public's eye and hunt, I can think of 2 - Country singer Miranda Lambert and Sarah Palin. Why only two? Why is the female hunter such a fascinating thing? (I should probably note that I do not have cable so any and all female hunters on the hunting stations are lost to me. I'll keep it to the general public because that's what I am familiar with.) People/media were fascinated by the fact that they could get footage of Palin and her gun, shooting (and gutting) animals but I feel like the nostalgia would be lost if they had the same footage of McCain. Lambert and her hubby Blake Shelton tweet photos of their kills, and comment on what/where they are hunting. I only know this because I follow both. That's it.

and a strong cup of coffee

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