I MISSED ANOTHER DAY!

So sorry i forgot another day, but i posted like a billion the day before (i exaggerated only slightly there) and todays makes up for it, because while it isn't a wonderful picture, its awesome in that its a bear.  thats right, i hung out with a bear at work today.  He wandered toward us for a minute, then off the other way.  Here he is, leaving us be:

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working hard..

I hug trees.  Especially 100 year old incense cedars.

I found this guy today...its a Misumena Vatia I think; they can change colors to light yellow and dark yellow depending on the surface they're on.  This guy was on a Tiger Lilly, so he was bright!

Wildflowers!  I can't identify these, but they're perrty!  

A beautiful doe stopped by to say hello too!

This is my job.  I walk around in the woods and make sure streams are healthy.  Then I try to ID flowers and bugs for fun!  

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full moon

howl on.

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Aloha!

Today we hiked from Echo Summit trailhead to Lake Aloha in the Desolation Wilderness and back, around trip total of about 10 miles.  Aloha is beautiful and I recommend the hike to anyone; coming in from this trailhead is not only beautiful but also less strenuous then the Glen Alpine trailhead and MUCH more beautiful, skirting Upper and Lower Echo lakes for the first 3 or so miles.  We did hit some bits of rain and passing thunderstorms on the way out as well as the way out, but magically, the sky cleared up when we got to the lake and the sun shined for our fabulous swim in those blue waters.  The best part: swimming in Aloha, for sure.  The worst part: the aptly named "mosquito valley," a shaded and moist area where you will be snacked upon by dozens of mosquitoes!

Looking back at Upper and Lower Echo Lakes

The beautiful Lake Aloha, yes there is still snow at this elevation, no it did not keep us from swimming.

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ponies

when walking the dogs this evening we found these beautiful ponies out in the meadow.  This is my super grainy. super high ISO attempt at getting a shot of them under the (almost) full moon.

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TOMATOES!

After months of nurturing and loving and watering my little tomato babies....finally i have some little green tomato babies!  Annnnddd here they are!

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beach?

Today was a fabulous day of work, involving floaties and measuring the depth of a pond on a property that we had to hike out to.  Then lunch at the beach and a quick swim (to get all of the pond scum off) and then back to south lake to take ground water readings at another project site....but unfortunatly I took no pictures during all of that SO you get photos of the beach where my roomy and I rode our bikes after work:

I love that this is a 5 minute bike ride from my house.  Tahoe is Awesome.

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Project Tour

Today at work I spent the latter part of the day on a project tour, looking at upcoming and completed project sites.  This picture is a successful restoration project; the creek you can see had been diverted when a sewer line was installed in the meadow.  The water pooled around the manholes and created such a draw that it dried out the whole meadow.  This channel was completely constructed and has raised ground water levels and restored the meadow to its original moisture content and therefore vegetation, habitat, and hydrology.  Very cool!

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big day

today was a big day: at work i did rapid stream assessments and hiked cascade creek from 89 down to Tahoe in an effort to locate any unhealthy areas that might need attention.  Then after work I bought a craigslist cheapo mountain bike (not awesome, but far better than what i had).  And then, while we were in the garage playing with my new bike i looked out across the street and saw first a coyote and then my first Tahoe bear.  He was slinking across the neighbors yard, right across the street!  Silly boy didn't notice that the neighbor was sitting in his chair in his driveway, not 10 feet from the bear.  When I said "is that a bear?" to my roommate he turned around, jumped up, and chased the big lug off his property and up a tree in the vacant lot next to his house.  Sadly I didn't get a picture of the bear or the coyote, but I did take this one at work:

and its alright i guess....not a bear or anything though...

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resto crew

Today I worked with the restoration crew all day at work.  I really liked working with a crew; the crew leader figured everything out and told us what to do and where to be and it was a wonderful departure from our normal work existence of frantically trying to get way way too much work into one day.  Plus...we built this fence!  

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sushi sunday

Sushi night!  Yay!  Caterpillar roll.  Good stuff.

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life is a beach

I spent today at the beach, putting on buckets of sunscreen and still accidentally getting sunburnt.  Here it is, Nevada Beach, Stateline, NV.

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jello

this about sums up tonight, and why i'm not updating this until 4:30 am, and everything.  Jello.  Shots.  Goodnight!

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without further adoo....

Here is that flower I promised you oh so long ago!

and here is todays photo:

ahhhhh! its kittttttty!

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long day!

I'm sorry, I forgot.  I didn't send the flower photo to myself but PERHAPS I will remember tomorrow!  To be fair, of the 10 and a half hours I worked today, I spent only about 45 minutes of it in the office.  All the rest was out "in the field" as we like to call it.  I spent the day mapping trails on a CTC parcel and working on estimations of volume of fill needed to repair a badly eroding trail.  The bright side:  the trails led to the top of a rock overlooking the lake that was downright gorgeous.  The down side:  I probably hiked the equivalent of climbing that rock 4 times in my efforts to GPS all of the trails on this particular property.  Anyway, because I have forgotten again to get a hold of yesterdays picture, today you get a bonus picture; because 2 is better than 1.  Here are TWO lovely photos from my day, taken from the top of Eagle Rock overlooking Lake Tahoe.

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problem...

I did take a photo for today, I swear!  The problem:  I took it on the work camera, made plans to email it to myself, and then promptly forgot after heading from the room where I have to upload the photos back to my own computer....SO I have a really cute photo of a wild lily for you folks, but you'll have to wait until tomorrow.  Sorry!

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annnnd more veg monitoring..

Another day at work....today I spent all day here:

completing our final veg transect (and therefore all of our spring veg monitoring for the year!) at one of the CTC projects.  HURRAY!  I will not miss veg monitoring, it involves lots of activities that really hurt your back, like sitting on the ground and cutting and sorting every scrap of plant life in a 2 by 2 foot plot.  This one below took me 2 hours

:

So yeah, pretty psyched to be done!

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eye spy

BUSTED!  I did lots of cool things today (camped out on some friends lawn in Kings Beach last night, we to the beach first thing in the morning and then to greenfest put on by the Sierra Green Business Council, followed by watching the world cup game at a bar with a million other loud and rowdy fans, went to a craft fair on the way home and even did my laundry!)but I didn't take any pictures during any of it...sooooooooo heres a last minute picture of my eyeball.

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Suzy Lake

This morning Reyna and I hiked up to Suzy Lake in the Desolation Wilderness.  It was a beautiful hike to a beautiful lake that was a lot more secluded than Lake Tahoe.  The best part?  We packed in Reyna's inflatable raft and small hand pump and floated around in the lake on a little boat!

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Beetroot Hummus

Its been a while since I posted  recipe and today didn't turn out anything like I had hoped it would, so I did what I always do when something doesn't go my way, or I'm unhappy, or stressed, or bored, or happy, or excited, or disappointed, or thrilled, or whatever, and I cooked.  I bought some beets at the farmers market on Tuesday and was going to make my award winning roasted veggies (they really did win an award once, but I have since lost that recipe and made up a new one because its really only about the spices with roasted veggies, all the rest is easy.  Well, the spices are easy too...but I digress.  Anyway I opted out of the roasted vegetables because that feels more like a fall food so I scanned the web for beet recipes and found this little gem for Beetroot Hummus.  I've never made hummus before so I figured I would give it a go.  I did a few things differently from the recipe, first, I didn't measure the beets or the chickpeas, so my ratio could be way off, but it looked good to me.  Second, I used canned chickpeas so as to skip the soaking them overnight step, and also because I already had them.  Oh and one more thing, I don't have a blender or a food processor, so I used a little electric mixer that I picked up at a thrift store, sorta like you would to make mashed potatoes.  Lessons learned: Beets are much tougher than potatoes and don't "mash" quite so easily, and also, hold a plate or towel over the bowl while mixing unless you want your kitchen, clothes, and face to be speckled pink (aprons also highly recommended).  So mine came out slightly chunkier than traditional hummus, and also a rather alarmingly bright magenta color, but it was still pretty tasty none the less.  Some photos:

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mural

Tonight my roomy and I went to a little cafe called Free Bird and watched ET outside projected on a white sheet.  We rode our bikes there and then haphazardly rode them home in the dark after with only one headlamp between the two of us (mines still in Africa, with allllll kinds of my other stuff)  Anywho at the building where we watched the movie there was a mural.  Try to figure out whats part of the mural and whats not:

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Mr. Motley

This is my roommates dog (other dog, I posted a pic of Wilson here) looking for all the world like the giant puppy that he is!  What a cutie pie!

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yesterday and today...

this is a little bit confusing, but I hiked Tallac on Sunday, July 4th.  I posted the picture at 1:00am, when I got home from the fireworks, so it says monday, but it was sunday, and I forgot to post one on monday.  In fact I didn't even take one (for shame!) so now I am posting 2 from today to make up for yesterday...if that makes sense...anyway heres one I took first thing this morning, not my usual style, but pretty funny none the less:

This is my lovely coworker Lauren, modeling the old leaky waders that we cut the boots off of.  Pretty hobo-tastic, wouldn't you say?

This is a shot of the fresh lavender i picked up at the farmers market today to make my room smell nice, and boy does it ever! 

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Mount Tallac

Today I hiked Mount Tallac, the tallest peak bordering lake Tahoe.  I've never stood at 9735 feet above sea level before this afternoon.  Then I watched fireworks and now i'm going to bed because i'm sore (i have blistered feet from my old, falling apart hiking boots...they've been so good to me over the years but it might be time to break in a new pair) bed time.

(Emerald Bay and Cascade Lake and Lake Tahoe as seen from the summit of Mount Tallac, and that white stuff in the foreground?  snow.  On the 4th of july!)

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flower

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heavenly

(this is for yesterday, today's will be posted later today)

Last night was the 20th anniversary gala fundraiser for the Tahoe Baikal Institute and I was invited to rub elbows with donors.  There was a silent Auction, signature drinks, and the best part, it was held at the top of the tram at the lodge at Heavenly ski resort; so we spent the evening out on the balcony enjoying the fabulous band and watch the sun set over Lake Tahoe. Heres my favorite shot of the night:

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long day

i'm too tired to even try to post anything better than this crappy black and white is snapped outside of the Tahoe Environmental Research Center today while I was waiting for someone to let me into the lab to pick up my veg samples.  here it is...

now its time to sleeeeeep.

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