Figure I can blog about this in its own thread, where I take university of Waterloo students fishing, hunting, back country camping, and foraging. Basically introduce them to the great Canadian outdoors.
This past weekend I was chatting to an extended family member who’s son wants to get into hunting. They live about an hour away from my sister. They have some acreage near Ottawa, and have bears. My sister lives on a main migratory route for Canadian and snow geese. So we are planning a swap, I’ll take his son and some students for a bear hunt on his land, then we will head to my sister’s place for geese…date TBD.
Have a wild blackberry foraging and jam session planned once they’re ripe, hopefully this week or next.
Late September, two students plus my dog headed for four days to Northern Ontario for fishing and grouse hunting,.back country camping.
I’m seeing students post on discord that they want someone to take them camping and I’m dieing because I just don’t have the free time.
Hoping to get one free day in the next month to do a pickerel fishing trip on lake Erie.
One of the students was a bit reserved. I asked where he was from, and what program he was in. He wanted to know why I was asking. Lol, I ask everybody that, plus a lot more.
No, but one of the students brought a bunch of jars to catch bugs. Asked me if I have any objection to him catching bugs in the bush. Eh, fine with me.
He chased a fly around our kitchen until he caught it in a jar. Turns out he has a mantis, so the bugs are for that.
This is stuff I don’t experience if I stay in my safe zone socially lol.
I started with fishing, and I still do that. But now I do foraging, back country camping, and hunting as well. Pretty much anything Canadian and outdoors.
Canning with a few uwaterloo students today. Man they really are nerds, they get distracted. They hardly picked the pears they were busy with the farm cats. Then a half hour as they fed pears to the horses. Then jam on the brakes because there was a wild apple tree beside the road, had to stop and pick some. Finally, got 23 liters of pears.
I’m taking a uwaterloo student out dove hunting on Saturday. Awesome because he has a gun license which means I can hunt as well. In Canada you need a gun license to shoot. Of you don’t have one, you can shoot under the direct supervision of someone with a license but only one gun for both people. And since most students don’t have a license, when I take them hunting, they’re the ones shooting.
There’s also some roadside crabapple trees near our hunting spot. Gonna stop in and get permission to pick them, gonna try and make apple butter.
And only three more weeks to my grouse hunting trip. I’m taking two students, plus my dog, way up north to crown land for a grouse hunting and fishing trip for four days. Gonna be fun, just the three of us plus the dog, in the northern bush.
Anyone wants to see all the pics I’m on the gram @fishing_with_nerds.
So I got permission from a farmer last night to pick crabapples on the side of the road. He just laughed. Took an hour and a half though, since we had to get caught up on everything. What he did for work all his life, his kids, my kids, his farm, people that we know commonly, etc. Anyway, we are in good terms. I picked as many as I could before the mosquitoes made me quit, there’s still dozens of bushels there. Currently making apple butter for the first time.
My family was mocking me yesterday for saying that there’s SO MANY apples in the area going to waste. Oh no, apples are falling on the ground and SL can’t sleep.
My son is taking about a dozen jars of my home canning this morning to drop off at farms where we hunt. Pears, apple butter, dill pickles, pickled beets,etc. I should probably take a tour around the neighbours as well, I typically drop some off to them as well. No wonder I can’t keep any in the cupboard.
I was supposed to take a student out dove hunting. His car broke down in Waterloo, 20 minutes from where we were hunting. So I sat in the bush, smoked a cigar and watched the sun set. That’s my kind of hunting.
Too bad because he was texting me every day for the past week he was so excited.
Me; Reading week is coming…any ideas what we should do?
Me: Actually, there’s a marina I could rent a pontoon boat and take about 10 people out fishing. that would’nt’ require much organization from me, though there would be a cost. Hmm. Might think about that.
Students: What day are we going?
