I'm an Ohio Outdoors Woman!

You might be an outdoors woman if....you spend the weekend fishing, shooting a bow, shooting a gun, and canning.  Yep. That's me!

This weekend Michelle, Susan, and I went to Becoming an Ohio Outdoors Woman. It was amazing! I can't wait to go again next year. There were 100 women at the retreat weekend to learn outdoors skills like fishing, boating, backpacking, cooking, hunting, etc. We could each choose 4 courses to take over the weekend. Susan, Michelle and I picked different courses except for Archery. Michelle and I both wanted to be Katniss (from the Hunger Games if you didn't know).  All the instructors were experts in their field and were wonderful to work with. Most were men volunteering their time - who definitely have a sense of humor to work with a bunch of women shooting guns for the first time!

Michelle, Me, and Susan

 My first course was 1:30-5pm on Friday and was Fishing for Fun. We learned the proper way to cast a fishing line and two ways to tie knots. I caught 7 fish! I couldn't believe it. They were all bluegill and apparently loved the meal worms I put on the hook. I also learned how to filet a fish. It was easier than I thought and after fileting two crappie fish, I felt confident I could do it on my own. The filets actually looked like the tilapia filets I buy at the grocery store too!  I won a tackle box from the course and got to keep my fishing pole. Now I can fish all the time!

My first fish!

 Saturday morning 8-11:30am, Michelle and I took Introduction to Archery. We used a Mathews Genesis bow (a compound bow). This bow has a 20lb draw weight. To hunt you need a bow with a 40lb draw weight so this bow was only for target practice (darn - those squirrels are always eating our birdseed, I think the bow is the answer!). Archery is something I really enjoyed and could see myself taking up this sport. I was paired with a woman named Margie (we shared a bow) and we hit the target with relatively good accuracy. For my first time I was excited to shoot so well.

Gina or Katniss? I can't tell

 We also had the opportunity to shoot a crossbow. The crossbow had a 125 lb draw weight so the instructor said he would cock it for us. Well we weren't having that! Both Michelle and I tried to cock it ourselves and we did! The crossbow was powerful and accurate. It had a scope that made shooting it with good accuracy easy even for me.

Michelle as an archer

Margie and I with our arrows

 Saturday afternoon 1:30-5pm I went to a canning class. This class had me searching for canners on amazon as soon as I got home. I love cooking and with canning you get to keep the food you cook for a long time. Yipee! This was the only class I took with female instructors. They were fantastic and had been canning for years - even canning venison!

In the class we split up into four groups. One group canned salsa, one did applesauce, one canned freezer jam, and my group made mustard relish. We got one of each canned item to take home. During the class we also got to try different foods the instructor had canned previously.  When I got home, we ate the strawberry jam. Yes, all of it in one sitting.

Canned salsa and mustard relish

 Sunday morning I took a shotgun class. The instructors showed us the proper stance and different kinds of shotguns. I shot both a semiautomatic shotgun and an over under (not sure what the technical term for that type of gun is, that's just what the instructor called it). I only used the semiautomatic a few times. I really liked the over under gun. It had more kickback but seemed easier for me to aim. Although aiming was not something I was very good at. We shot clay pigeons (although they looked like frisbees not pigeons) and I only actually hit 4 (probably 10% accuracy). For my first time shooting that probably wasn't bad.

Me shooting clay pigeons

Putting a bullet in the shotgun

This weekend gave me confidence with some of these outdoor pursuits. I really felt like I could do them after the training I received.  Everyone was so friendly too. I met so many great women and made some friends. Both Friday and Saturday night Susan, Michelle and I played Quiddler so that made me happy obviously!

However, as you can see from the error below, Quiddler online would not let me play the word "texting". Hello Quiddler? Update your dictionary already!

79 points on Quiddler today