In my senior project on may 19 I finished painting the building were people sit for the shooting range. It did not take that long and it was pretty easy. After I finished that I started clearing an area in the woods so that people could see a deer target better than they could before. I cut and moved brush and I also cut down small tress. This makes the deer target much better.

Lucas Windsor

Senior Project Week 3

May 22, 2016

            This was my last week of senior project. It was one of the best experiences that I had during my Proctor career. It was a great week and extremely fun. I did a lot of things during this week that I did not expect that I would do at all during my senior project or my Proctor career.

            One thing that I did not expect to do at all was when I was told that I would spend my day with a conservation officer. I was very excited about this, as I want to become a conservation officer for my career. During that I day I helped stock fish and set up a training course for new officers. That was one of my favorite days during my senior project.

            Most of my week was pretty typical as it has been. I finished painting the areas that needed painting. However, another thing happened that I did not expect. During my last day a bear that was in the city of Manchester had to be moved. I was actually able to witness the bear being released into the woods so that it would be further away from people. They brought in two wild life biologists in order to do the moving of the bear. They actually used a type of cage that was a cage mesh and you could actually see the bear inside of the cage.

            I had a very good last week of senior project. It was very fun, I learned a lot, and there were things that I expected to happen and things that I did not expect to happen. I could not have asked to have a better senior project nor could I think of one.

Today was my last day of Senior project. I went out with Tom to drop off a backhoe so that it could be fixed. After we dropped it off we went to the fish hatchery to look at the fish that were there; they looked very big and hearty. We had lunch at a nice restaurant. After we ate our food we got to watch a wild bear get released back into the wild. It had been up a tree in Manchester. It was a really great and really fun senior project I would do it again in a heartbeat.

In my senior project today, I finished painting the target holding area for the gun range and then painted the area where the people sit for the gun rage. The entire target area looks good now. It was a good day and the conservation officer I meet the other day came over as well. During the day that I spent with the conservation officer we talked about different types of fish and that there are not that many conservation officers in NH. It was nice to see him again.

For my senior project today, I had to paint the small parts of the fence that I did not get and managed to finish that up pretty quickly. We also had another field day for people who took the online course so that they can get their hunter safety cards and hunting licenses. I tagged along with another 'shoot or don't shoot' course and it was really fun. I learned even more about how to teach people. After the field day ended I started painting the shooting range. However I was unable to finish before the day ended.

Today for my senior project I helped out a NH game warden. I meet him at 8:30 in the morning at a police station and he drove me over to a decommissioned prison/jail where I meet 3 other conservation officers and a lieutenant  who was in charge. I helped them set up a training course where they walk around in different rooms with an unloaded hand gun and shoot at targets. We left that a bit early, at around 11:00, so that I could go help him stock fish. I was having a lot of fun until I fell into the river. That was not too bad as the water was not very cold. Right after I fell in, the conservation officer got a call about a search and rescue. I stayed with the fish stocking people, who were very nice, and helped finish stocking. After I finished with the fish they brought me back to my car and I headed home. It was a great day.

Week 2 Reflection

            I had a very fun week during week two of my senior project. I started off by scraping the paint off of the fence at the Hunter Ed center. It is one of the first things you see when you arrive. It took a very long time as the fence was very big and had many different sections. Though it took a long time, it was will worth it. Now it looks much nicer when you drive in.

            Another thing that I felt very good about was when I managed to finally get very large nails out of some 4X4 beams that I had been working on for a very long time. This made me feel so good because it was very tiring to do this and it was also very difficult to do. Getting the nails out makes them safer and gets them ready to be reused for another area.

            The next thing I did was observing a hunter safety course. This course was for people who took most of the class online but they had to have face to face instruction for the gun safety part of the class and had to do a ‘shoot or don’t shoot’ course. This was a lot of fun to watch and gave me ideas on how to teach people hunter safety.

            A lot of people like to go hunting. Owl Brook Hunter Education Center helps them do this. Thanks to their facility they are able to teach many people hunter safety so that they can buy a hunting license. They are extremely important to the NH Fish and Game Department, as it is a safe place to do training. They also teach people how to become hunter safety instructors. The majority of the classes I have seen at Owl Brook tend to be middle-aged people, however there are occasionally younger kids. There are more men than women in the classes; they are trying to get more women involved. They are also encouraging kids to take the classes and even have special programs for them. It is a great place and New Hampshire is lucky to have it.

Friday I finally finished painting the fence that I had been working on for so long this week. It felt good to finally finish painting it, especially after I worked so hard on it. The fence was in very poor condition and had been painted in a long time. After I painted the fence it made the entire place look a lot nicer.

I finally started painting the fence that I was scraping today and got a lot done. I will probably finish painting it tomorrow and start on a new project. As you can see the fence really needed to be painted. It is the first thing you see and will make the place look a lot nicer.

 

Today we had a special day for Hunter Ed. We had a field day for the online class. The students were taking the course online and had to have a hands on experience and face to face teaching on gun safety and how to shoot guns. They also had a shoot or don't shoot course. I watched one of the shoot/don't shoot courses and they did really well. I also took apart part of a fence and finished scraping everything. I also waxed some bows this keeps the bow strings from getting all frayed. It was a good day.

I finished converting the 4X4 from winter to summer today. After which I started scraping away at another fence. The Owl Brook Hunter Education center is in Holderness, NH and has hundreds of acres of forested land. They do hunting, outdoor and wildlife management training. They also do workshops and special classes, such as conservation officer training which was happening today. As part of their training, the conservation officers had to get peppered sprayed so that they new what it felt liked. It's not all fun and games being a Conservation Officer!

Today I scraped the rest of the paint off of the fence that I am going to stain. There was not enough time to stain it so I started making four-wheeler ready for the summer time, as it was set up to drive on ice. I did this by taking out screws that were put in certain places so that it would not pop the tires. Another cool thing was that there were conservation officers training there today.

            In my first week of senior project I learned what it means to do hard work and that there is always something else you can do. Such as from cleaning guns to pulling out nails from a 4X4. The highlight of my week was when I took a class on how to teach hunter education. After a five hour class and a test, I got certified. I was, by far, the youngest person in the class. What I learned about hard work and teaching hunter ed is extremely important and is a very good life lesson.

            My senior project has been very enjoyable so far this week and I have been having a lot of fun working at the camp. I do not think I could get this kind of experience no matter where I go or what I do. I feel very lucky to be able to do something like this during my high school years. This has been a great experience so far. 

            Many of the tasks I had to complete were very necessary and had to be done. For example when I had to take the nails out of the boards it was because the boards needed to come out of the ground and it would not have been safe to leave them in the boards. I understand completely why I had to do the things that I did.

            So far most things have gone almost exactly as I expected. I knew that I would be doing maintenance throughout my senior project. However one thing that I did not expect was that  I was told that I may stock fish in rivers. I am very excited for that.
            I feel that I have benefited because of all of the hard work I had to do for my senior project. I feel I now have a better idea what a hard day's work means. I can already tell that this is going to be a very important experience for me.  I am very grateful for that and I cannot wait to get back to work on my Senior project.

Today for my senior project I finally finished taking the nails out of the boards. Which I placed next to a shed. After that I had to fill in the ruts the boards created after I took them out of the ground, which was not that hard. After I finally finished doing that I started scraping the paint off of a fence so that I could stain it. They were training a few new conservation law officers today.

Today I had to keep on taking out very large nails from the boards today which was difficult. However after lunch I got to help people in a gun safety course with skeet shooting. Skeet shooting is where you shoot an orange disk, called a clay pigeon, that is thrown in the air with a machine and you then must shoot it with a shotgun. The people taking the test seemed very nice and after that I helped them clean the guns.

Today I got some work done as I removed the rest of the 4X4 and removed some nails from them. However It started to rain again so I was forced to go back inside and clean more guns. However it was still a good day I had a lot of fun

For my senior project today I had to do a lot of work. When I first got there I had to replace the target holders on the gun range. I then had to rip some 4X4 out of the ground. Before I could even finish taking out the 4X4 I had to set up the 3D archery course, which took up most of the day. After I finished the setting up the archery course I finished it off easily by attaching string to some compasses. All of this work needs to get done for their busy season.

Today in my senior project I met Tom Flynn and Eric Geib, they  were very nice people. I met them at the Owl Brook Hunter Education Center, which, as the name implies, teaches hunter education.  Unfortunately most of the work they had planed for me was outside and it was raining so today I cleaned guns. It was a good experience. They provide guns for the classes they teach and it is important that they are clean and safe.