From Outdoor Pursuits to Outdoors Career

My Roots

My roots are in the outdoors. I grew up rodeoing, camping, fishing, and learning to shoot a bow. I enjoyed all things outdoors, and like many of us I spent as much time outside as I could. The men in my family were hunters and outdoorsmen, and one of the greatest memories I have about it is how they would all get ready to head north to hunt right after Thanksgiving every year. The excitement was palpable, and I was never asked to join in. I guess it was the opinion that the women didn't engage in that realm, it was a men-only activity, the great hunting camp tradition. I wasn't even taken hunting until I was in my teens.

I remember being woken up (beyond early in my teenaged opinion) to hike down into the valley below our house but wasn't told much more than that. I was so excited! I always wanted to be part of it all, and maybe half way down the mountain I was told I was too noisy and to go home. I can still remember the long walk up the pasture, tears in my eyes not knowing what I did and why I wasn't quiet enough.

Hunting as Self-Sufficiency

Flash forward after my noisy first hunt to years later and I was looking for a way to become more self-sufficient and show my nearly teen son that as a newly single parent, I could do anything I set my mind to. So, I took to the woods, all that first archery season I had so many amazing encounters, looking back now I think God must have been smiling on me because those first brush blinds were so rough! But I still have some amazing videos of a few very inquisitive doe to remember those first fall hunts.

I didn't get it done during archery season, but I did get a buck on the opening morning of firearms season that year. I had watched the deer movement, tracked where they fed and bedded and set myself in the perfect spot to achieve my goal: self-sufficiency with good, lean, renewable protein food source that I knew where it came from.

Lifestyle Becomes a Career

That was just the beginning of a life full of adventures in the outdoors. I quickly realized that I have a passion to introduce people to all things outdoors—and that led me to become a certified instructor and mentor, traveling across the country with organizations like Shoot Like A Girl.

I love to get new people excited about all that the outdoors has to offer, especially public land use. I also have a small piece of property that I am working towards creating more self-sufficient food sources and am slowly restoring my almost 150 year old farmhouse. To say life is busy sometimes is an understatement, but it almost always involves something outdoors related!