WITO

Been without my baby girl for about six weeks now.

Doin' double time around these parts, which should explain the lack of posting going on. 

She has been with the Sweet City Cousin doing some intensive tutoring with a really amazing lady, and is absolutely blossoming. 

We got to meet up last weekend for a Women In The Outdoors retreat at Lake Tenkiller in Oklahoma. 

I had never been to one of these, but would definitely do another--it was great fun, and there were so many classes, i gotta go again...it was darn near impossible to choose four out of thirty-nine possibilities!!

Our first pick was "Wilderness Cuisine and Wild Edibles."

We thought it would be more of a walk through the woods pointing out "you can eat this but not that" kind of thing, but it turned out to be a very interesting and engaging Native American lecturer, full of lore and tradition; and then a bunch of cooking.  I was delighted, but Ellie May was less than impressed with the cooking part.  She was a good sport about it, though.

Most important fact taken away from the lecture:  AS A GENERAL RULE...red berries good berries white berries bad berries.

We shelled a bunch of acorns...

...and ground some into flour for acorn scones (interesting, but a tad bitter--would have to be real hungry,) and some were caramelized in bear fat with sugar and cinnamon.  Those were fabulous.  Could have made myself sick on 'em.

Let me just say, if anyone ever shoots a bar, i would love to have the fat to render.  It was different than regular lard, not solid, and in the jar, was a touch gamy smelling.  Not really gamy, i guess, but funky.

But oh, when ya put it in a pan and get it hot....it was Divine!!

We sauteed some yard onions it the bear fat for a poke weed quiche (YUMMY!!) and everyone kept coming over asking what smelled so good...and it gave the quiche a really great flavor.

I am now a HUGE fan of bear fat.

Here we see Ellie May concocting the quiche...

Other members of the class made persimmon ice cream and the star of the show was a dip made with poke, chickweed, and wood sorrel. 

Can't tell you how good it all was.

Next we went to a knife forging class. 

Unfortunately, the knife forging instructors were a couple of grumpy old men.  Make that VERY grumpy old men.  We forged the knives, but didn't have a good time doing it.  It left a bad taste in Ellie's mouth, and she begged off the Basic Blacksmithing class the next morning, in favor of flint knapping, which she enjoyed.

Sad thing was, though, that the Basic Blacksmithing class was a hoot.  The instructors were happy and humorous, and everyone had a great time.

The pictures are of one of the girls in the class, but i did the same thing when it was my turn.

We took a piece of stock and had to draw it out and put a point on it.

I would say this was some hot stuff.

Then we put in a series of bends and curves.

There were two forges going, one gas, and one coal.

In the end, we ended up with the hook on the left.  I closed my hook up more than the others did, as i intend to use it in the barn, and don't want the bucket to get knocked off.

The knife is on the right.
But then you figured that out, now, didn't ya.

The final class we went to was Wilderness First Aid.  Once again, we thought it would be a walk in the woods with a "use this plant on bee stings and that plant for sunburn" kind of a lecture, but it turned out to be a general kind of thing.  Didn't really learn much, except for one very interesting tidbit. 

Did you know that Duct Tape is made in a sterile environment?  In dire circumstances, you can use it to bind wounds.

Of course it is going to hurt like the dickens when you have to take it off.

Hopefully, if you are in a situation where duct tape is the option, by the time it comes off you will be in a hospital on a morphine drip, and it won't matter anyway.