'Tiz the season for blaze!

We are just finishing our first week of blaze. Because hunters are allowed in Deep Portage but not within a certain radius of the building we still take precautions with our classes. We deck them out in blaze orange! :) Enjoy the cute kids!

This is Kalle (can you find her in the blaze hat?) with her field group.

All of the kids wear these blaze "pennies" for every class. They put up with them pretty well, but don't find them fashionable. I just tell them that blaze is the new pink and that it matches their eyes. :)

This is Mason and Kyle from my group. They were here Mon.- Wed. and I miss them already.

This is a group up at the Tower. The blaze just makes them glow don't you think? :)

Here's the view of DP in Nov. Its amazing how much you can see with the leaves gone. I can see lake side homes that I didn't know were there!

We say goodbye to our 4th Chaska group tomorrow. There is 6 total. In Chaska they have 3 middle schools that spread themselves between 3 weeks, each coming up for 3 days. They are a big group with lots of enthusiasm to keep us on our toes and laughing while we work and play in the woods. :) One more week until Thanksgiving break! It's going to be great! Miss you all! Thanks for reading!

Fabianna's Deer

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I should warn you, if you have a weak stomach or just at lunch or are an advocate for PETA you should not look at this posting.

As some of you know, I have been getting educated on hunting while I'm living up here. Last weekend was Rifle Opener. While I didn't go hunting myself (like I would get anything anyways) but my friend Fabianna did and she got a young buck on Sunday. I'm beginning to think that she is the "Woods Whisperer" because she always sees such amazing things when she's out there. Saturday she saw tons of deer, a porcupine, and a male grouse in full mating display for some chicks. Gees!

Fabi is a great hunter. I asked her how many rounds you typically go through when you are out there. She said, "one." You shoot only when you know you have the shot, when you know you are going to hit a vital organ to kill the deer instantly. Fabi teaching fire safety and hunting camps in the summer and definitely practices what she preaches.

These are the two hunters. Fabi is the one in the red hat.

Charlotte and I pulled off the hide just like they showed us in the video. We are going to donate it to Hides for Habitat which sells the pelt for money and the money goes towards conserving and protecting deer habitat.

After we did all of the butchering this is what was left. We pretty much used it all. After this we tossed it in the woods to be food for the smaller animals.
This is the cutting and packaging team. It was great that we all helped with it. I liked learning all the meat parts and now I have a much better appreciation for the butchers that prepare my meat. :)

After all of our work and clean up Fabi made us an excellent venison dinner. We ate the back straps. (see I learned something!) It was so good! Yum! It was also cool that it was meat that had never touched the fridge. :)

Extreme weather, hello Minnesota! 10-26

A couple weeks ago we had some crazy weather here at DP. We went from sunny, to wet, to wind, to snow.... like I said, hello Minnesota! :)

This is DP rainy. The kids were troopers for our classes.

This a day after the day once the kids have come in. Time to dry out. :) I think it looks so cute!

The wind was so severe that we actually take some precautionary measures for our classes. The wind was making the trees sway so much that we wanted to watch were we took the kids in the woods. I wish this could have been a video so you could really see these huge trees swaying.

The very next morning we had snow! It didn't last long but isn't it so pretty? :) It's just a preview of what is too come.

Casey's Birthday 10- 15

For Casey's 30th birthday we pulled out all the stops. We took him fishing on a pontoon we rented. Casey is a pretty modest guy and especially on his birthday he didn't really make a fuse. But you only turn 30 once so we had to celebrate. :)

Here's Dale, the director, driving the pontoon.

Emily and Caitlin were enjoying the ride.

Charlotte and I found something really funny apparently. I can't remember what it was but we had a hey day together laughing at pretty much everything.
The pontoon wouldn't start so we had to call for help. Does this sound familiar family? I felt bad taking a picture of our situation but I just found it so commical because it happens to our family all the time. :) I still love John and Chris (dad's boat and motor).

We had to wait a while and Caitlin had to pee. She was cold and crabby.

I couldn't help taking another picture of her pouty face. :)

We had a great time together in spite of our odds. It was cold, we didn't catch a thing, and th boat broke. Happy Birthday Casey!