peach pie!

So today I made a pie from this recipe but I don't get any until tomorrow because I made it for my work picnic...so I'll let you know how it goes, but I can tell you that it looks pretty delicious!  Here it is, my photo of the day:

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Happy Birthday Mom!

Gotta start with a Happy Birthday to my Momma!  I wish I was home so I could bake her a big fancy-schmancy cake!  Another Happy Birthday goes out to my former co-worker, Miss Sara!  Hope it was wonderful!

I have been working so much lately with my bug sampling finally in full swing I hardly have time to take a photo of the day, so heres a work photo because thats my whole life these days.  This is the river I spent 9 hours playing in today...not so bad when you consider most alternatives (cubicles don't hold a candle to this!):

 Next I have a semi-recipe for you...well its a whole recipe really, but I just used it to jazz up left-overs.  So a few days ago I made that big bowl of pasta (recipe posted here) which I was hoping would last me through the week so I wouldn't have to worry about any more cooking.  Well it has, but I'm getting a little tired of the same thing for one to two meals a day and I had some left over ingredients I needed to use up to this is what I did:  I sliced and sautéed the remainder on the onion in olive oil, when it was translucent I added a splash of wine and some of the left over veggie broth from the pasta.  I tossed in the other bag of sun dried tomatoes I had bought and let it simmer for a few minutes to soften the tomatoes.  After that I added another can of chopped olives and one of sliced mushrooms, and a fresh farmers market eggplant sliced and then quartered. I poured it all into a wok and added the rest of the chicken broth, cooking it down until there was very little left.  This was good on its own, and would probably make a good side dish, but instead I tossed mine into the leftover cold pasta and tadaaa!  Same flavors, so it all fits, but just different enough to be new.  Also, I dusted it with some crumbled goat cheese just like before and yumm...it did not disappoint.

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feather

Found this at work today, when we were bug sampling in the Upper Truckee River.  

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a photo and a recipe

I started my day off by getting caught up on some things i was supposed to do for work...sounds worse than it is, mostly I just walked around this meadow (below) and wrote down ground water depths at monitoring wells.  It was more like a morning walk than work really...

Anyway after I finished up at work I stopped into the grocery store and picked up what I needed to make this pasta dish I remembered making (and loving) a long long time ago with Miss Merry.  I found this recipe, which was close to what we followed, but not quite so naturally I edited it to my liking.  This is the recipe I used:
Boil water for the pasta and while you're waiting heat a bit of olive oil and butter in a saucepan and add a few cloves of chopped garlic.  Sauté until it smells great but don't let it burn.  Add about half of a medium sweet onion and sauté until translucent.  At this point I also tossed in a few chopped mushrooms too.  When the onion is done add a splash of dry white wine, chopped sundried tomatoes, and some vegetable broth and cook on medium heat until it reduces to about half the amount of liquid.  Then toss in drained artichoke hearts, capers, and a small can of chopped olives.  Cook until all ingredients are heated through and add directly to cooked pasta and toss.  Serve immediately, the recipe calls for fresh grated Parmesan, which I'm sure would be delicious, but I used fresh crumbled goat cheese instead, amazing!  Below is the result: warning, its strong stuff and requires no extra seasoning, but if you are a fan of capers and sundried tomatoes then you will love this dish!

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minor setback

I inadvertently left my camera in a friends bag for a few days...but now its catch up time...and yes, I did actually take a photo each day for the ones that i've missed.

Thursday:

The meadow by my house, on my evening walk

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Friday:

Mt. Tallac as soon from a sailboat in the middle of the lake!

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Today:

Motley...(too hot for his socks)

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the most beautiful day at work

A few of the sites i saw at work today....

This flower i can't ID...hard to find because its so average looking...

These ones are a little more interesting....these are called Pine Drop - Pterospora andromedea

And these are called Columbian Monkshood - Aconitum columbianum

This is the view from the rock we climbed to eat lunch.

And this is the view from the road/trail we walked back to the car.  What a beautiful day!

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Tahoe Summit

Today I spent the morning at the Tahoe Summit in Sand Harbor on the East shore of Lake Tahoe.  I was going to write about the speeches made by Senators Reid and Feinstein, or the opening prayer led by an ageing Washoe Elder whose family members have roamed these shores since long before there even were senators, or the way the lunches we made in compostable containers with compostable plastic cups, but the syran-wrapped cookies were made in Texas (how sustainable), or even the disappointment I felt when I heard the prosperity plan for the coming years here in Tahoe involves trying to stimulate a feeling of community because well, tourists like a feeling of community when they come to visit places.  I was going to talk about all those things, to address what they referred to as a "lack of young environmental professionals in the area" (A lack?  Environmental professionals are everywhere up here.  Nearly everyone on the CTC crews, building their fencing, seeding their soil, cleaning up their urban lots, all of then have at least 2 year degrees in environmental fields.  Forest Service crews are filled with experienced environmental degree holders just trying to make ends meet.  The AmeriCorps program in the Sierra Nevada and here in Tahoe has become so competitive that people with masters degrees and doctorates are competing to volunteer up here.  There are plenty of young environmental professionals here, more than I've known anywhere else in my travels, so whats the matter?  There are no jobs.  These people are all working their butts off for 10 hour days doing little more than labor just to make ends meet and only to get laid-off every fall and hope to god they get their job back every spring.  The tourism industry up here has created an extremely variable and seasonal economy, I know so many people up here that spend their summers working long hours on a crew and their winters living off of unemployment and skiing, thats not a recipe for success.  Theres only so many years someone can comfortably do that before they have to find something year-round, before they need to get out of the tourist clogged streets of beautiful lake Tahoe, before they can't handle being asked by some other idiot stopped in the middle of highway 50 on a busy day where the lake is.  Tourism has created a transient town here, a group of people who come and stay for a few years, can't find real work, and move on to another place that offers them more opportunities, thats why you don't have a community.  Tourism is not the answer to Tahoe's economic woes, it is part of the cause.  Thats just my opinion though, and maybe thats because I am a young environmental professional with a decent resume and a respectable degree here in Tahoe looking for a full time job and being offered a second full time volunteer year, haven't I volunteered enough already?  Haven't I paid my dues?  2 full years of living at the poverty line for the experience has been worth every minute, but how long do I keep working for free before I recognize that I have $35,000 in student loans hanging over my head that I will someday need to pay off.   You want to hang onto people like me Tahoe?  Give us jobs that pay real money to do real work, don't demean us by making us work for free for years or laying us off every fall.  But thats just me...)

Anyway, I was going to say all of that but when I got out my computer to start writing my roommates cat came into my room and peed on my brand new comforter and just-washed sheets while I was actually in my bed and I got too angry to want to do any writing at all.  Heres a promise I need to make to myself and actually keep: when I move out of this house I will NEVER live ANYWHERE with a cat again.  Period.  End of story.

So heres my photo of the day, not a good one, but acceptable.  The Senators up on Stage in front of the Shakespeare on the Beach backdrop at Sand Harbor:

But mostly, the backs of the guys in front of me's heads.  Okay I'm done whining.  Thanks for putting up with me!

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