Become an outdoorswoman by attending annual DEC workshop

Well, you sure wouldn’t know that spring arrived more than a week ago because it still feels like winter in most of the northern U.S. Maybe this isn’t a bad thing as the cold temperatures are holding the last few feet of snow in check.

Let’s hope it doesn’t all melt at once as there will be some flooding in the flat lands.

The two feet that remain in my yard is like solid water. The hard crust has made for very good traveling the last few days. Though I haven’t needed snowshoes, I bring them with me anyway.

My Uncle Max once went into Siamese Ponds on the opening day of trout season with his friend, Don Cull.

The going was great as they walked the seven miles in on hard crust. The lake was frozen and so were the inlets so the fishing was a bust.

The sun came out and melted the crust about noon when they were only halfway out. They post-holed the next two miles and had to quit as they were exhausted. They built a fire and waited until the crust froze over again.

They walked the remaining mile to the road, getting there about midnight.

Yesterday I saw where a group of four or five had walked up Third Lake Creek without snowshoes.

They could have been in the same fix but the crust stayed all day long.

I’ve taken a few jaunts out on the crust when checking my Beaver traps. I’ve been to West Pond in back of Limekiln Campsite a few times.

Otters had been sliding all over the snow the day I set traps there and they haven’t been back yet.

The Beaver were all working out getting some fresh tree limbs as their food had run out.

Now it’s all frozen up and they are traveling under the ice again. You can see the air bubbles under the ice where they have traveled.

This is so they can go further. They put their flat noses against the ice and suck in air at the bubble spots which allows them to travel under the ice long distances from their lodges.

The kits—Beavers in their first year—learn this trick and also travel with their parents far from the lodge.

A few times I’ve found where the Beaver have run out of food stored under the ice and moved to another location during the winter.

There has to be breaks of warmer weather during the season for this to happen however, which certainly rules out this winter.

All four galleries at the Arts Center/Old Forge are full of pictures, paintings and poems as the new exhibits H2O, Pointilism, and Scenery and Solitude opened last weekend. Photos by members of the Camera Club are hanging in the hallway.

I talked with Nancy LaSalle who does the Pointilism, one dot at a time. She said it takes her several hundred hours to do one piece. Now that’s patience.

I also visited with Steven Fletcher about his exhibit, Scenery and Solitude. It was his first opening and he was very nervous. It was Nancy LaSalle’s first opening as well.

If you haven’t been to the new Arts Center yet this would be a good place to start as it’s a beehive of activity.

The annual Becoming an Outdoors-Woman Workshop is being offered by DEC June 24 through 26, 2011 at the Silver Bay YMCA on Lake George in Warren County.

The program offers weekend-long, outdoor skills workshops for women ages 18 or older and is designed primarily for women with little or no experience with outdoor activities.

Nearly 40 different classes will be offered at this particular workshop.

They include canoeing, kayaking, fishing, fly fishing, shotgun shooting, GPS, map and compass, backpack camping, turkey hunting, day hiking, wilderness first aid, survival skills, archery, backpack camping, bowhunting, camp stove cooking, reading wildlife sign, muzzleloading and fish and game cooking.

Women can even earn a Hunter or Trapping Safety Education Certificate.

The early registration fees ranges from $270 to $290, which includes seven meals, two nights lodging, instruction in four classes, program materials and use of equipment.

Workshop information and registration materials are available from the Dec website at: http://www.dec,ny.gov/education/68.html.

Information is also available by calling DEC at (518) 402-8862 or writing to Becoming an Outdoors Woman, NYS Dept. of Environmental Conservation, 625 Broadway, Albany, N.Y. 12233-4754.

Getting a few Beaver on the boards, but that’s another story. See ya.