Just a little story and some pics to share with you a day in the life of a wilderness woman...

 Feb. 1st found me and Emily enjoying a day in Lanesboro, MN with other ladies from WITO (Women in the Outdoors), a division of the NWTF (Nat'l Wild Turkey Federation). It is run the same way as the BOW (Becoming an Outdoors Woman) only WITO accepts girls at 14 yrs old. Even though Emily is just 13, they said she could come and participate too. :-)

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 First on the agenda for Saturday was Snowshoeing, only we didn't make it to that class. Emily, my teenage daughter and I, had gone out right after an early breakfast, well before the first class was to be held, and hiked up towards the scenic overlook.

 I don't think "towards" was the correct word to use.
With all the intersecting trails, and me not looking at the trail map I had along with me, we got off course. The sky was very overcast that morning and I couldn't tell where east was. After much time lumbering up and down hills Emily asks for the fifth time, "Are we almost there?" and finally, "We're lost, aren't we?"

"No Emily, we're just temporarily displaced."

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"If we make it back in time, do we have to do the snowshoeing class?  My legs are tired and my ankles are sore."

"If" we make it back? She asked "IF"?! Had she no faith in her mothers orienteering ability?

 "I'll use my cell phone and see if we can change to a different class, since we're already taking our morning hike, albeit without snowshoes."

 Well, out there in the country, high in the tree-covered hills, I couldn't get any cell phone service, so we, (actually, if truth be told, Emily) decided we should just head back the way we came. We would just follow our tracks back. This would mean we would have to find the scenic overlook at another time. Perhaps I'll use my map then.

 Breathing hard and heavy after hiking for an hour, we got back just after 9:30 a.m.,  with the first class having just started minutes earlier. We asked if we could please  possibly change to the indoor archery class while we tried to catch our breaths.

"Sure! not a problem!"

 We headed over to the archery class and became part of a group of 7 archers. Some of these ladies were pretty darn good! They should seriously consider getting themselves a bow of their own! 

 I took some pictures of the archers at the line, with my Emily on the end.

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 I had brought along my own compound bow, so pulled it out and showed them what a bow with all the bells and whistles on it looked like. I also showed them a picture of the wild hog I had just shot with my bow a few weeks before, letting them know that a woman could kill something with a bow. One said that she was now going to hunt with a bow. ALL RIGHT!! :-)

 After archery class was lunch. Then Emily and I would part ways for the next class, as she wanted to try her luck at rock climbing and I wanted to try ski-jooring for the first time.

 Well, first and last time for me with the ski-jooring! I've never been graceful on skis and with an added hyper work dog pulling me (read that as "yanking", "jerking", and even "mocking" me) I ended up on my butt, my side and even my face, 8 times (or possibly more, but who's counting?) too many on one trip! Here is just one wipe out to prove it:

http://residents.bowhunting.net/tumbleweed/wipeout2.mpg

 The sport looks so easy, but when you have long sticks attached to your boots, and Husky-mixed dogs pulling you, it's like you're really in another dimension. Another dimension that I don't feel I belong in. (I'm still feeling the pain of the multiple wipe-outs!)

 Next class was dog sledding. Now that's something I can handle, as I have done it before. Talk about an exhilarating ride!

Emily re-joined me for this class, (she loved the rock climbing course and did very well!) and since she is such a featherweight, they added another dog so there were 3 harnessed to the sled, and she got to ride inside the sled while I rode standing on the back runners. We had 2 Husky-mix dogs in the lead with a Doberman mix named Scooby, pulling up the rear. He really did look like ScoobyDoo.

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 The dogs know the commands, "Let's Go", "Gee" and "Ha", but don't know a command for "stop". This was all right with me, as I had no intention of stopping before the dogs did. I love that "wide-open" feeling, going as fast as possible, with my hair blowing wild and the wind in my  face. It reminded me a lot like being pulled in an innertube behind a boat, only instead of water, the medium would be snow, and instead of a warm humid day, it was a comfortably cool, snowy winters day.

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 It was a wonderful ride that was over with all too soon. Emily and I wondered if we could get our lab/sheperd/retriever mix to pull us on a sled. This would take further consideration.

 The route that these dogs had to take was right past the scenic overlook. It was sectioned off with an orange emergency fence to keep the dogs from taking us over the cliff into the treetops and half iced-over Root River below.

It could happen with dog names like "Renegade" and "Psycho".

 Being that we never could find the overlook during our mornings hike, we decided to stop at this time, before the sun went down for the day, so Emily could see where I had MEANT to have taken her earlier. She liked the view and had to throw a snowball over the cliff, just to commemorate the occasion.

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 This was the first time Emily and I had ever gotten away together as not only mother/daughter, but just as friends. We decided it wouldn't be the last either.

~Tumbleweed