shadowland

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Blue

Today I spent all day in the office (this might be the first time thats happened since I got to the CTC, so all in all its been a pretty good run so far...) but it didn't make for very good picture taking.  Then after I went to a "Mother Blessing" party (like a baby shower but with no gifts and no cheesy games, just good food and happy thoughts and matching bracelets for solidarity until the baby is born) which was really nice, but again, I didn't take any pictures.  Sooooo here we are, 9:30 pm and no photo.  I'm a make-do grand champion though, so heres an "abstract" shot of the inside of the tiny spray bottle i keep in my room to keep the cats off of my bed.

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rebel!

today i'm going to bend my own rules....since I left my camera in the possession of my helpers today out in the field and crossed the river channel to help create soil profiles, I have lots of pictures of me at work and none actually taken by me...sooooo here is a shot of me at work.  My roomy picked it out, she calls it the "big straw one" because I am holding a stadia rod (for measuring depth) that looks like a big straw;  I spent the morning measuring depths to clay layer, slip-sliding all over the clay banks of this stream, and tossing that stadia rod back and forth over the river like a javelin (and sometimes chasing it down the river when it didn't quite make it across).  That was the morning, so naturally I spent the whole afternoon damp, clay covered, and pretty tired.  All in all it was a great day at work though!

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ps. oh and you also might have noticed that my blog has a bit of a new look, I felt like it was time for a change.  I settled on grapes for now but I might change it up again soon, because new is fun!

top 10 reasons to visit me in Tahoe!

Got up for sunrise this morning (after a nearly sleepless night thanks to the two large dogs outside my bedroom door barking their little hearts out at the howling coyotes outside...all night long...) and my roomy and i hit the road for Emerald Bay to watch the sunrise...here are some of my favorite shots from the morning:

Ten:

moonshine and waterfall

Nine:

Emerald Bay

Eight:

all of Emerald Bay

Seven:

little lighter now...

Six:

Sunshine!

Five:

professional photogs sell pictures that look like this in tourist traps all over Tahoe for like $100 a pop, and i'm giving you this one for free....you're welcome :o)

Four:

sometimes i have to pinch myself to make sure i'm not imagining how gorgeous this place is

Three:

a stop at the beach on the way home...6 am is the time to go, we had the whole place to ourselves!

Two:

footprints in the sand

One:

LT baby!  

Obviously those are only ten, and they may not even be the top ten exactly, there are definitely more...but anyway theres a taste!  I love weekends!  Back to work tomorrow, but today, I am free!

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my garden!

its been a while since i gave you an update on my little plant babies!  so heres my photo of the day, a happy little pansy:

And here is a photo of all of them:

i now have enough lettuce to make the worlds tiniest salad!

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wilsssssonnnnn!

this is wilson.  he's adorable.  

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fail

Whooopsy, i missed another one.  Sorry about yesterday folks, I spent all day at a training and completely forgot to take a picture!  I was so dissappointed when I noticed that I hadn't posted one for yesterday, but i am even more disappointed now, when I have to post the only one that I took today and its....well...its pretty lame. BUT I promise this weekend i'll make it up to you folks, i'm just dragging a little bit these days, too much to do, not enough time.  So without further ado, here is todays picture:

This is the eroding stream bank that one of the projects that i'm working on hopes to stabilize.  The very top/light brown is alluvial sands, next down is some finer sediment, followed by a clay layer that is folded and moved and bent and crazy looking, this layer was once upon a time the bottom of lake tahoe (when glaciers blocked the outlet and the lake filled the basin) and these deposits are found a few feet beneath the surface all over tahoe. Click to enlarge (if you're interested), its not a great picture, but the fresh erosion from high spring flows has made the soil layers very clear and easily distinguishable.  I think its very cool, but then again, i'm a bit of a nerd. 

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Markleeville

i took this on the way home from a training in Markleeville.  too tired to write more. goooooooooodnight!

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vegetation monitoring

Okay, veg monitoring is not my favorite activity (when I learned how it was just Lauren and I one by one cutting all the plants out of a 2 square foot frame on the ground and sorting them by type, sunburning my knees and making my back ache; we finished our first (very diverse) plot in just under 3 hours and we knew we had 7 more to go) but today I found that it can be a lot better when there are 5 people all cutting in that same square.  We set an all time record, finished a (not so diverse) plot in just about 10 minutes.  We finished all three of the plots we were supposed to get done today with time to spare, and we only have 9 left to go!  

I'm talking, of course, about my project that I am leading with participants from the Tahoe-Baikal Institute's Summer Environmental Education Program.  This afternoon we spent a half day doing our vegetation monitoring out in the meadow, they will finish up tomorrow and on Wednesday morning while I am away at a training and then I'll be back on Thursday to begin mapping remnant stream channels in the meadow with GPS.  We work on this project for a week and a half, spend 2 days creating and practicing a presentation (I'll be the advisor, not a presenter) and then my group will present their findings on the state of the meadow vegetation with relation to groundwater levels and their recommendations as to which historic channel would be most beneficial for use in a possible future restoration project.   

This is one of the participants, from Mongolia.  She is holding a Stadia Rod for scale, to show the height of vegetation.  I chose this one as my photo of the day for today because I just love the clouds.  

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And Happy Mauritaniversary to all the RIM Pirates who set out with me on that fateful day to begin a 2 year journey that lasted only 14 months.  Heres a throwback photo for nostalgia:

Me and my We.  

Funny how sometimes it feels like living in a different culture in a far away place speaking a different language felt more comfortable than trying to understand the complexities of my own.  

i'm baaaack!

I know that it has been simply AGES since I updated this thing, and seriously, apologies all around!  I have been working roughly 50 million hours a week and for my first month and a half here I had no internet at home.  I do now though, and as promised, I will continue my challenge!  it may be a little tough to get back in the swing of things but i'll do my best not to let you down again!  First things first, here is some of what you missed:

Early morning fog at our spring training down in Coloma, CA.  All of the pictures of flowers below are ones that I took at our campsite during our week of training:

Sunrise on our second or third to last day in Coloma.

The weekend after spending an 80 degree week in sunny Coloma, we were back in South Lake where we got snowed on some more.  On the way back from a trip down to Carson City, NV to do some shopping   I grabbed this shot of snow clouds over Lake Tahoe from highway 50.  

 I spent the snowy Friday before memorial day painting at Fredericks Cabin on fallen leaf lake.  I couldn't resist snapping a shot of a rather white Mount Tallac sticking its head up into the clouds.

A short hike up to a sweet waterfall and my favorite picture of the day is this little guy, who must have had good luck begging from tourists before since he was not afraid to show off his round little belly to us.  No, i did not feed him, in case you're curious.

The sunset at Fred's after our memorial day BBQ...still quite a bit of snow out there...

Nevada Beach in Stateline, NV.  No place like Tahoe to lay in 80 degree sunshine and stare at snow covered mountains!

This is how I get to work in the morning, or at least its how I had to go when high spring flows flooded the bike trail I usually use.  This is probably one of my favorite commutes ever.

Amazing waders for amazing ladies...somedays i quite enjoy this job.

Upper Truckee Marsh...just another day at work...

Last weekend I got to hang with TBI and go with them on their small plane trip around Tahoe.  I rode shot-gun in a 4 person plane and snapped a few shots of the mountains and Emerald Bay while I was up there.  

This one is the Tahoe Keys, the most unnatural creation I have ever laid eyes one.  Its a neighborhood in which every house has their own boat slip.  Interesting, but unfortunately not great for the environment.  

And finally this one, the beautiful Bear River at my friend Lucy's house, where we camped last night and swam this morning, so yes, as this photo was taken today, it can be considered my first "photo of the day" since I quit sooo soooo long ago.  that means its time for one of these:

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wow...its been so long since i've done that!  how very exciting!  Thats all i've got in me for now, I really should have been in bed HOURS ago.  I have a very very busy week ahead of me, but i'll do my best to keep on top of my photos!