My adventure at the range!

It's Claire again! This time I'm going to tell you about the fun I had at a shooting range a few years back.

My parents like doing target practice and all that, but I'm more an archery girl (what I wouldn't give for a bow of my own!), so I was allowed to wander around in the awesome forest right next door.

I always have to do a "ta-da!" pose whenever I get somewhere new. Even though I have siblings, I haven't lived with them since I was a toddler, so I don't constantly have other kids picking on me for being silly. So I can be as silly as I want.

Here's the entrance to the forest. I guess there's someone's little cabin there if you go far enough. At least, that's what Mama told me. Maybe she just didn't want me going too far?

Izumi came with me to take pictures. She didn't want to be in front of the camera this time, but she let me have all the ones with me in them!

We found a deer print! Izumi is a city girl, so she wasn't then used to seeing signs of wild animals everywhere. 

Look at this great creek! It was way too cold to go wading in it, but I'd love to come back during the summer.

Could you imagine Anne's horror if she saw me sitting here? It looks really muddy, but it was mostly straw. I wonder where it came from?

I soooo wanted to climb across this tree branch. Izumi told me that it would probably break under my weight and that if I fell, I was on my own. 

So we found this thicker, safer log to climb on. I mostly just wanted to practice my balance, anyway.

I think Izumi was on a low branch to get this picture.

My best friend can take better portraits than some professionals!

This is kind of a gross one. We found the disembodied hand of some wild animal here. Both of us shrieked when we saw it, but then, of course, we needed proof for future generations.

Look at these rocks by the creek. Don't they look like stone books? Evangeline would have loved them.

This is me pouting about the freezing water. 

But I cheered up significantly when we saw some little fish! Or maybe tadpoles. I don't know.

Come on, what's a Claire Adventure without a little tree climbing?

One day I'll get Izumi to try climbing more than a foot off the ground. One day.

I hope I can come back here soon! It's been way too long. Maybe when the endless snow lets up.