If you’ve never heard of BOW(Becoming an Outdoors Woman), then you need to Google it quick. There are programs in every state, usually hosted by your state Wildlife and Fisheries Department. They are put on each year and include lots of fun and informative classes on just about anything outdoors related in your area. Most of the instructors are volunteers with a passion for getting us ladies comfortable with being and doing outdoors sports and activities.

I’ve been lucky enough to go the past few years. I say lucky, because there is a cap limit in Louisiana of 125 women…so it’s a race to get forms filled and mailed and fingers crossed to get in. But I love it and always look forward to it each year.

Over the years I’ve taken Gun Safety, Rifle Marksmanship, Compass Skills, Map Skills, Canoeing, Kayaking, Camp Cooking, Fly Fishing, Wilderness Survival, Birdwatching, Reading the Night sky, and more. And a few I’ve taken more than once. It’s always fun no matter what I take and I always learn something!

Even though my husband and I are really outdoors type people and he teaches me a lot of outdoors things, it’s nice to have an environment where I can go learn and enjoy these things and meet new friends. Also, the moment I finished the Kayak class I knew my husband and I had to get boats! We bought our boats right after and have loved kayaking together ever since! It gets me trying things I might not have otherwise.

This years event was a couple of weekends ago and my favorite class was the Wilderness Survival. They gave us a small kit of items, and allowed us a couple other things from a list. We had to use these items to build a shelter and make fire for the night.
survival kit

Here’s a shot of our group of ladies before we headed out to the woods.
survival ladies

My Survival partner (Jean) and I. Such a cool lady and new friend I made. We hope to do more camping get togethers in the future.
jean

Our shelter along with a few others…
shelter

Boy was it a fun night, but we were oh so tired the next day. We had to spend the entire night keeping our fire going per instructions from the teacher. Luckily it wasn’t too cold for us, but it did get a bit chilly around 3am.

Another favorite was my camp cooking class, we were shown how to cook in cast dutch oven pots. YUM….the food was so good.

Bill Ryan our instructor
dutch

Making a Reuben Cassarole

Here’s my friend Angie from work who came to the camp with me. We got to make the pork loin with mandarin and cranberry sauce. It was *so* good!

Here’s our spread when we finished. The cake on the end was the best most moist cake ever.

In the end it was a wonderful fun weekend as always and I made new friends that I hope to get together with again soon. (Suzette, Myself, and Jean)
new friends