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| Power Style Wellness Connections |
Coming Home in Kentucky
By Mary Cartledgehayes
I’ve gotten to know Louisville fairly well after four years here,
but I knew little about the state’s breadth and depth. I wanted
to know my adopted home more intimately, and especially its
outside bits.
A few months ago, I met the last raven in Kentucky. His name is
Edgar, a tip of the hat to poet Edgar Allen Poe, who wrote
The Raven.
Contemporary Edgar bears little relationship to the “grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and
ominous bird” in the poem. Twenty-first century Edgar is well-fed, shiny-feathered, and
sociable. He lives at Southwestern High School of Somerset in Pulaski County, in the
school’s bird of prey rehabilitation program. (The state’s other such program is Raptor
Rehabilitation of Kentucky, based here in Louisville.) Because of habitat destruction in
eastern Kentucky, Edgar is the last of his kind in the state.
I came to know the bird after I decided I wanted to imbibe more of Kentucky’s spirit. I’ve
gotten to know Louisville fairly well after four years here, but I knew little about the state’
s breadth and depth. I wanted to know my adopted home more intimately, and especially
its outside bits.
That’s how I happened upon Becoming an Outdoors Woman (BOW). The program,
developed at the University of Wisconsin in 1992 and brought here by the far-sighted
Division of Fish and Wildlife Resources in 1995, has allowed more than 3,200 women
from across the state to develop their outdoors skills. For instance, a January event was
held at Kenlake Resort State Park on the southwestern edge of the state. There I
photographed bald eagles from a boat; learned how to identify trees in the winter; yelled
“Pull!” and with a shotgun shattered the clay pigeon arcing toward me; ate blackberry
cobbler to my heart’s content; and used a compass successfully for the first time. It was
also at Kenlake that I met Edgar the raven up close and personal, not to mention a
barred owl, a great horned owl, and a bald eagle named Independent.
Kenlake was my second BOW event. My first was at Pine Mountain State Park Resort in
the Cumberland Gap area. There I stepped back in time. Fifteen or 20 of us were
playing Follow the Leader as park naturalist Dean Henson led us up a mountain. At one
point, kneeling to show us a variety of moss, he said, “You’re seeing and hearing the
same things today that Daniel Boone saw and heard here the first time he stepped into
Kentucky.”
Stuff like that makes me woozy, in the best sort of way: I love reminders that I’m a curly-
haired piece of flotsam in the river of time. That weekend, I also loved watching elk roam
a habitat restored after mountaintop removal mining, tying a fly I’ll use if I ever go fishing,
and seeing firsthand the frosty white traces that indicate woolly adelgid is destroying
Kentucky’s hemlock trees.
Beth Spivey-Minch, the volunteer director of the program, wants people to do three
things at BOW: have a good time, meet and make new friends, and learn about an
outdoor activity to pass on and share with family and friends.
People at BOW events have learned, among other things, how to make turkey calls and
nature journals; to kayak, canoe, shoot a bow and arrow, cook over a campfire, measure
and score antlers using the official Boone & Crockett Big Game system, and to hunt with
birds of prey. But not everything is taught in classes.
Here are some incidental things I’ve learned:
Quail are disappearing from Kentucky. Black bear are reappearing. Burning bush and
Asiatic bittersweet are still being planted, even though they’re bullies threatening to wipe
out our indigenous plants. A snake in a 70-degree building is cool and muscular to the
touch. Possessing the feathers, eggs, nests, or anything else belonging to a songbird or
raptor is a felony. Kentucky has four native magnolia trees. You, too, can learn to make
deer jerky. Most everybody loves banana pudding.
At dinner one evening, I got to talking to a group of college roommates who meet up
regularly at BOW weekends. I asked what pulls them to these events.
Anne Wade of Louisville said that it’s the chance to learn new things. After a moment’s
thought, she added “It’s also just being outside.”
Donna Glass, who lives across the river in Jeffersonville, built on that idea, saying, “It’s a
chance to see God’s creation, to dwell on that, to see God’s presence.”
Her remark reminds me of a friend, a China missionary who was in her nineties when we
met. My friend was captured in a Japanese invasion of China at the beginning of World
War II. She was a prisoner of war and had a nervous breakdown on her return home.
She went to her family’s mountain cabin in North Carolina, built with death benefits
received after her brother’s death in World War I, and there she sat.
Years later, she and I had left that cabin and were on a mountain ridge observing a fiery
sunset when she said, “The mountains healed me.” Kentucky’s mountains have healed
lots of people, as have its lakes and caves and pastures. That’s why I’m convinced that
home is more than a house, an address, a feeling, and a state of mind (even though it’s
each of those things). Home is also a geography, a biology, a botany, a herpetology,
and an ecology. Just as our presence influences each of those things, they can
influence us, and also inform, inspire, educate, calm, and heal us. You don’t have to go
to a BOW event to get those benefits. All you have to do is slather up with sunscreen
and mosquito repellent, slap on a hat, and go outside and play.
The next BOW event is September 19-21 at Lake Cumberland. For more information,
call assistant coordinator Naomi Wilson at 800.858.1549 or go to www.fw.ky.gov and
click Special Programs on the toolbar.
A similar event will be held at Big Oaks National Wildlife Refuge Madison, Ind. on June 7.
The Big Oaks Conservation Society and Big Oaks National Wildlife Refuge are hosting
the fourth annual Outdoor Women. This one-day program offers women ages 14
encourages fun and success in the outdoors.
Registration forms can be downloaded from: www.fws.gov/midwest/bigoaks or www.
bigoaks.org or call the office at 812.273.0783.
Registration deadline is May 17. Cost is $50.
Mary Cartledgehayes is a regular writer for Today’s Woman.
By Mary Cartledgehayes
I’ve gotten to know Louisville fairly well after four years here,
but I knew little about the state’s breadth and depth. I wanted
to know my adopted home more intimately, and especially its
outside bits.
A few months ago, I met the last raven in Kentucky. His name is
Edgar, a tip of the hat to poet Edgar Allen Poe, who wrote
The Raven.
Contemporary Edgar bears little relationship to the “grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and
ominous bird” in the poem. Twenty-first century Edgar is well-fed, shiny-feathered, and
sociable. He lives at Southwestern High School of Somerset in Pulaski County, in the
school’s bird of prey rehabilitation program. (The state’s other such program is Raptor
Rehabilitation of Kentucky, based here in Louisville.) Because of habitat destruction in
eastern Kentucky, Edgar is the last of his kind in the state.
I came to know the bird after I decided I wanted to imbibe more of Kentucky’s spirit. I’ve
gotten to know Louisville fairly well after four years here, but I knew little about the state’
s breadth and depth. I wanted to know my adopted home more intimately, and especially
its outside bits.
That’s how I happened upon Becoming an Outdoors Woman (BOW). The program,
developed at the University of Wisconsin in 1992 and brought here by the far-sighted
Division of Fish and Wildlife Resources in 1995, has allowed more than 3,200 women
from across the state to develop their outdoors skills. For instance, a January event was
held at Kenlake Resort State Park on the southwestern edge of the state. There I
photographed bald eagles from a boat; learned how to identify trees in the winter; yelled
“Pull!” and with a shotgun shattered the clay pigeon arcing toward me; ate blackberry
cobbler to my heart’s content; and used a compass successfully for the first time. It was
also at Kenlake that I met Edgar the raven up close and personal, not to mention a
barred owl, a great horned owl, and a bald eagle named Independent.
Kenlake was my second BOW event. My first was at Pine Mountain State Park Resort in
the Cumberland Gap area. There I stepped back in time. Fifteen or 20 of us were
playing Follow the Leader as park naturalist Dean Henson led us up a mountain. At one
point, kneeling to show us a variety of moss, he said, “You’re seeing and hearing the
same things today that Daniel Boone saw and heard here the first time he stepped into
Kentucky.”
Stuff like that makes me woozy, in the best sort of way: I love reminders that I’m a curly-
haired piece of flotsam in the river of time. That weekend, I also loved watching elk roam
a habitat restored after mountaintop removal mining, tying a fly I’ll use if I ever go fishing,
and seeing firsthand the frosty white traces that indicate woolly adelgid is destroying
Kentucky’s hemlock trees.
Beth Spivey-Minch, the volunteer director of the program, wants people to do three
things at BOW: have a good time, meet and make new friends, and learn about an
outdoor activity to pass on and share with family and friends.
People at BOW events have learned, among other things, how to make turkey calls and
nature journals; to kayak, canoe, shoot a bow and arrow, cook over a campfire, measure
and score antlers using the official Boone & Crockett Big Game system, and to hunt with
birds of prey. But not everything is taught in classes.
Here are some incidental things I’ve learned:
Quail are disappearing from Kentucky. Black bear are reappearing. Burning bush and
Asiatic bittersweet are still being planted, even though they’re bullies threatening to wipe
out our indigenous plants. A snake in a 70-degree building is cool and muscular to the
touch. Possessing the feathers, eggs, nests, or anything else belonging to a songbird or
raptor is a felony. Kentucky has four native magnolia trees. You, too, can learn to make
deer jerky. Most everybody loves banana pudding.
At dinner one evening, I got to talking to a group of college roommates who meet up
regularly at BOW weekends. I asked what pulls them to these events.
Anne Wade of Louisville said that it’s the chance to learn new things. After a moment’s
thought, she added “It’s also just being outside.”
Donna Glass, who lives across the river in Jeffersonville, built on that idea, saying, “It’s a
chance to see God’s creation, to dwell on that, to see God’s presence.”
Her remark reminds me of a friend, a China missionary who was in her nineties when we
met. My friend was captured in a Japanese invasion of China at the beginning of World
War II. She was a prisoner of war and had a nervous breakdown on her return home.
She went to her family’s mountain cabin in North Carolina, built with death benefits
received after her brother’s death in World War I, and there she sat.
Years later, she and I had left that cabin and were on a mountain ridge observing a fiery
sunset when she said, “The mountains healed me.” Kentucky’s mountains have healed
lots of people, as have its lakes and caves and pastures. That’s why I’m convinced that
home is more than a house, an address, a feeling, and a state of mind (even though it’s
each of those things). Home is also a geography, a biology, a botany, a herpetology,
and an ecology. Just as our presence influences each of those things, they can
influence us, and also inform, inspire, educate, calm, and heal us. You don’t have to go
to a BOW event to get those benefits. All you have to do is slather up with sunscreen
and mosquito repellent, slap on a hat, and go outside and play.
The next BOW event is September 19-21 at Lake Cumberland. For more information,
call assistant coordinator Naomi Wilson at 800.858.1549 or go to www.fw.ky.gov and
click Special Programs on the toolbar.
A similar event will be held at Big Oaks National Wildlife Refuge Madison, Ind. on June 7.
The Big Oaks Conservation Society and Big Oaks National Wildlife Refuge are hosting
the fourth annual Outdoor Women. This one-day program offers women ages 14
encourages fun and success in the outdoors.
Registration forms can be downloaded from: www.fws.gov/midwest/bigoaks or www.
bigoaks.org or call the office at 812.273.0783.
Registration deadline is May 17. Cost is $50.
Mary Cartledgehayes is a regular writer for Today’s Woman.
