I'm Going to Miss This

This is from our last night in Oregon. Having dinner at Mike’s house, watching Pixar movies, puppy cuddling, and potlucking and thinking about what I will miss about this place:

In a chronological order:

1.The first double wide: beautiful… convenient… yet moldy

2. CREATURE!!!! – Mike, Angela, and Andrew…you understand

3. Cape Lookout Hikes: beautiful first view from above of the ocean

 

4. Figuring out tides on the river… remember the great lakes don’t have tides.

5. Crabbing in Garibaldi

6.Sturgeon fishing! (OOOOOOH My GOD)

7: Steelhead fishing… Mike I know it didn’t fight like you thought, but I had a wonderful time.

8. Thanksgiving with Beedle and Frech

9. THE REDWOOD. PERIOD.

10. Oh wait, THE TRIPOD.

11. Water Pillows

12. Wanda’s Riggery Bacon

13. Hebo Omelet

14. TORI. NEIL. BOB. JOE.

15. AWHAT!!!!! JS

16. Wait! I have an idea! MG

17. WHAT I’M TRYING TO SAY IS!!!- AE

18. Julia’s foot stomp to brother bear (MG)

19. The drink holster.

20.  Bedtime Stories.

21.  Sparks

22.  the “Reverse Tripod”

23. Bathroom-kitchen talks
24. The Beach in December

25. The Rainforest 

26. Head butts (cheers mike)

Miss you all on the West Coast. 

Update on the 25 before 25

25 Goals before 25 years old (in no particular order) as seen at Birthday Reflection

Here we are six months in already! Sheesh I'm getting old!

1. Get into Grad School
 -- Application is in, decision comes between January and February.
2. Finish a 5k race
 -- Signed up for the Samson Stomp and Romp in Milwaukee on Jan 15th with Mom!
3. Continue on my weight loss goal (i'll keep my number to myself ;) im already down 15!)
-- Down 5 more!!
4. Find a job/grad school/something where Andrew and I can actually live together!
-- Well.... or we could just increase our distance 1500 miles again...
5. Complete my Fisheries Management Graduate Certificate with OSU
-- DONE!!!!!

Map of the Nestucca River fall Chinook spawning habitat!

6. Publish a report through ODFW
-- Not sure if my report will get published... we shall see.
7. Learn a new knitting pattern
-- knitting myself a cowl!
8. read 25 new books
-- 8 read so far... will do a blog on my favorites and have a list compiled :)
9. buy myself a new nice road bike
-- Got my eye on a hand-me-down from my good friend Jitesh!
10. Purge all my unnecessary crap
-- this move is seriously helping!
11. Learn how to crochet
12. go kayaking
13. go backpacking for fun not just for work
14. Boundary Waters Trip!
15. spend some good quality cousin time
16. actually keep up with my journal. (whoops)
17. Learn how to tie knots. (embarrassing... I know).
18. send a postcard to Myanmar (hey karrrri!)
19. Be better at skype dates... at least one skype date a month!
20. Get back to my localtarian diet... I have been indulging in a lot of bacon lately... ruh roh!
-- Thanks to friend Mike, been eating Oregon blacktail and black bear
21. Watch more documentaries than Rom Com's... I will keep a tally! haha.
-- 180 degrees South... good soundtrack, beautiful cinematography 
22. Hike Mount Hood. Bam.
-- this might not happen.  :(
23. Visit friends in their new homes (Washington, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Baltimore, Minneapolis, Utah, Ocon (Jan!)(leave me your new home and I will try and visit you!))
-- Missoula to visit Chuck, Laura and Rodney on our trek across 'Merica
24. Visit a Foreign country (Canada counts! I haven't been there in years!)
25. See some more live music in Portland!
-- Saw B.B. King on November 20th! Happy Birthday Andrew!!

Starting over with a big finish

Photo of the icicles from yesterdays float survey

As I sit here scrambling to finish my capstone paper this song came on my Pandora: "These are the Days" by Jason Collett. The lyrics are just my here and now.

How can you leave me at a time like this
You know the ocean where the sun comes up
Is different than the ocean
Where the sun goes down
These are the days
That were never really meant to be won
...
before you regret the days
that were never really meant to won
now that the day has passed away
here I remain true to you again
The morning breaks, it must be fate
Starting over with a big finish

This whole leaving our Oregon experience is starting to feel real.

T-Minus 10 Days

 

How did we get here? We are 10 days away from leaving Oregon!! We have made a list and are slowly making progress on it. 

We had our end of season party on Friday and the Nestucca Crew dressed up as "White Trash" because our basin is sometimes referred to as the South County Funk Hillbilly Town, so we dressed the part.

Now for a day of cleaning, packing, laundry and working out.

Go Pack!

Who says you can't go home

Roomies!

Well, as of yesterday all of our plans changed.

Andrew's grad project is a bit short-funded so I would only be able to volunteer 2-3 days every two-three weeks. Hmf. Volunteers don't get paid... just in case you were wondering. So, the question was do I (a) go down there find an apartment and a part-time job for the two months he will be down there (b) foster out our kitten (again) and live with him in the field house and be a volunteer or (c) stay with my parents for a while (rent free) and get a job back home while looking for work/apartments out in Maine until I get accepted at University of Southern Maine or Andrew gets back from the Gulf.

So naturally, I chose door number 3, choice c, rooming with the 'rents. I feel a little like a puppy with my tail between my legs, but it really isn't like that at all. It will be a good time for me to catch up on finances and spend time with friends and family.

So for all of my friends and family in the Midwest, can't wait to see you all! And if any one has any job opportunities (waitressing, barista, bartender, anything), I would welcome the opportunities!!

hot sand on toes, cold sand in sleeping bags

Rodney coming out of the surf!

Having a house with no internet except through your phone makes this blog difficult to keep up with!

Chinook season has been busy as always, working long nights and long days. I can't believe it is almost over already! It seems like we just started! Right now, Andrew and I are trying to pack up our house, save money for the drive across America, have fun, work, and stay sane all at the same time. We shall see how that works out haha. 

I am also knee deep in my capstone project, which is proving difficult to make any head way on with unstable work schedule and internet access. But as mom said today: "If it was easy, everyone would do it." She was full of one liners today ;)

Our good friend Rodney came out to visit for a bit! That made Andrew's month! They floated the river, Rodney surfed the ocean in his creek kayak(!), they played music, and we all drank some growlers of delicious beer from the Pelican Pub. Overall a good weekend.  

Good ol' Fizabeth came and visited us as well on her way down the coast! She got a job in California playing with salmon and our house was about half way on her move from Washington. We put her to work with us one night marking Chinook to get her ready for her new job. She did awesome and was good luck, she brought in 8 keepers (wild adult Chinook salmon)!!

 Hopefully as we slowly start to get back on the day shift, I can blog more often. 

 I will leave you with a song my lovely friend Ashley sent me, which is a new favorite of mine:

 And a bit of picture purging, to give you all a peek into what our life consists of!

View from our campsite when we fished the Cascade Lakes

Rodney surfing in the creek boat!

Andrew playing on our deck at the old apt in Wheeler

Also, a few new favorite artists:

Suzanna Choffel

First Aid Kit

The Head and the Heart

 

Have a good weekend!!

you and me goin fishin in the dark!

Andrew and I at our new found river spot behind the doublewide!

Well here we are in the depths of Chinook season again! We have been already tagged over half of the fish that we tagged last year, with a lot of season left! So that is a good sign for our marking skills, AND for the fish run!

Bit Blurry, but a good sized wild adult male chinook! (About a meter long!)

Coworker Julia on our Tagging mortality float (Found none!)

It hasn't started raining....yet. So the fish are still holding down near the mouth of the river, once a little bit of rain comes we should be elbow deep in them! (Keep your fingers crossed!) Working nights has caused all of our crew to feel like we are in a time warp, so if we don't call or write in a timely manner... it's because we generally have no idea what day it is, and are generally not awake during normal business hours. Please forgive us. We will be back to the real world come November.


7 Days until we are back home for the Marty and Cassy Wedding extravaganza! Yahoo!

Hello Again!

Back deck at our friend Jitesh's

Wow, it has been awhile since my last post!

It has been a full year since Andrew and I moved out to Oregon and for our last few months here we are back where we started! I am sitting in Stimulus Coffee Shop looking out to Cape Kiwanda in Pacific City working nights marking Chinook salmon and living in a doublewide trailer. This past year has been a constant adventure... living in 5 different homes both together and separate from each other, many different jobs from marking Chinook to banding cormorants we have been all around this Oregon coast.

Adult Wild Chinook male

This season with ODFW Chinook is off to a great start, but I find myself trying to soak it all up because we will be leaving the Oregon Coast for good in a few short months. Our futures are becoming more and more clear with each passing day, we will be moving to Louisiana for January to March working on Andrew's graduate project with common loons in the Gulf, then up to the Northeast to band all the loons we can before we start grad school in the fall at University of Southern Maine. Andrew will for sure be starting at USM next fall, and I have gotten my GRE scores and am gathering my application materials carefully to be sure I am accepted as well.

Will try and keep you all more updated...I am trying to take more pictures of the Chinook than last year!!



GO PACK GO!

I think I'm Growing Feather's but I'm Not Sure of It! -Cloud Cult

The Crew all Geared up to head to the stream

 The new job is really fun! We camp near the headwaters of the Trask River here in Oregon. We have 14 streams that we study 8, 5-m plots in. Half of the plots in each stream will be in a logging area next year and half will be outside of it. This allows us to determine the effects of logging on the streams. My crew is in charge of the amphibians (Pacific Northwest salamander, Pacific giant salamander, and tail frogs (tadpoles and adults)). Other crews are studying flow, macroinvertebrate densities, substrate, fishes, and sediment deposits. They have been doing this study for 4 years and next year the logging begins, after the logging is done they will do 4 more years of collection. In past years the amphibian crew marked certain individuals to calculate a population estimate. We aren't marking this year because of the logging break, but we are getting a fair amount of recaptures!

Me with a Pacific NW salamander

A recaptured dicamp

 The salamanders are marked with an elastomer tag, or a dye injected into their skin. The combination of colors and location of mark allows us to identify individuals! We can look back in the database for this combination of marks and find out how much it grew (length and mass) and where it came from (what plot it was marked at). I am having a great time, my crew is fun, camp is awesome, everything is great... except for salmonberry and Devil's club- two plants that are everywhere next to the streams and have obnoxious thorns that are determined to poke every possible surface of my body. Arrg!

salmonberry

After last week of work, I went and joined Andrew capturing cormorants on the island! It was pretty awesome! We wore coveralls because of how disgusting the tunnels are... filled with sand and cormorant poop... but it was really awesome seeing the banding done! I am still pressuring him to guest blog... hopefully while I am on this next 8 day stint he will find the time ;)

Andrew and I in coveralls

Well, that is a bit of an update on my adventures out here! I will be out in the field from Wednesday to Wednesday this coming week, then flying to Minneapolis for Will and Erin's wedding and family and friend camping fun! Can't wait!

Birthday Reflection

Idaho Birthday

 Well, I am now officially 24 years old. uff da. I had so many cards, call, texts, and Facebook messages it was unbelievable. Thank you to all who made my day so special. Andrew is currently doing the dishes as part of my birthday present :) He is never home for very long, so doesn't do them very often, a great present! I was looking back at my last few birthday's and so much has changed in the past few years, for #23 I was in Idaho, #22 I was in Trout Lake, #21 I was in Madison. I feel like quite the jet-setter!

Madison Birthday (21st!)

Trout Lake Birthday

So now I have some goals I want to accomplish before I turn the big 2-5 (ugh).
25 Goals before 25 years old (in no particular order)
1. Get into Grad School
2. Finish a 5k race
3. Continue on my weight loss goal (i'll keep my number to myself ;) im already down 15!)
4. Find a job/grad school/something where Andrew and I can actually live together!
5. Complete my Fisheries Management Graduate Certificate with OSU
6. Publish a report through ODFW
7. Learn a new knitting pattern
8. read 25 new books
9. buy myself a new nice road bike
10. Purge all my unnecessary crap
11. Learn how to crochet
12. go kayaking
13. go backpacking for fun not just for work
14. Boundary Waters Trip!
15. spend some good quality cousin time
16. actually keep up with my journal. (whoops)
17. Learn how to tie knots. (embarrassing... I know).
18. send a postcard to Myanmar (hey karrrri!)
19. Be better at skype dates... at least one skype date a month!
20. Get back to my localtarian diet... I have been indulging in a lot of bacon lately... ruh roh!
21. Watch more documentaries than Rom Com's... I will keep a tally! haha.
22. Hike Mount Hood. Bam.
23. Visit friends in their new homes (Washington, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Baltimore, Minneapolis, Utah, Ocon (Jan!)(leave me your new home and I will try and visit you!))
24. Visit a Foreign country (Canada counts! I haven't been there in years!)
25. See some more live music in Portland!


Ok folks, thank you for being so wonderful to me on my birthday and all the other days too. I will expect you all to help me get through this hefty list! :)

Now I am going to go sit on Dave and Jitesh's back porch in the sunshine for a barbeque! Yahoo!

i get by with a little help from my friends

On the last float of the season!

These past few days have been wonderful. I have seen my favorite Vanessa and Scott Hood in Seattle, Fiz and Nick Heredia came to visit, phone calls from Nick Wellenstein and Benny Fullerton, and back porch sunning and drinking with the tripod. It has been a great past couple days, and the good times keep a rollin! As soon as Andrew gets off work today we drive down to see Chris, Jen, Drew, and Alison from Northland!!
Also can't wait for July... Will and Erin's wedding! Surrounded by camping with friends and family. Cannot cannot cannot wait!

Yahoo!

Pick yourself up and Try Again

Minnesota Tulips

Well, the week of mourning is over. Andrew found out he didn't get in and we both went through the angry stage, sad stage, and now we are rebuilding. Everything happens for a reason, and we weren't meant to be in Maine. 

Ohhh They missed each other! Andrew, Marty, Rodney, and Brian

 We had a lot to take our mind off of these things: I went to visit him on the island, and even better still Max and Lorraine's Wedding! It was such a beautiful ceremony...tornado sirens and all. We danced the night away and caught up with everyone, it was so wonderful. We spent the night with Andrew's sister Janelle and boyfriend Bern the night before the wedding and Trout Laker Samantha Reuter for breakfast before the wedding. So wonderful. We didn't get very many good pictures from the wedding, so when I get some from friends I will share them here!

I spent a few days on the island with Andrew, which was a blast! He is back to capturing these dinosaur birds... but afterwards I am going to try and convince him to guest blog about his experiences!  He has lots of stories and pictures to share with you all! Here are just a few from my visit:

Double Crested Cormorant

Lots of Double Crested Cormorants

Radio telemetry!

Well, life goes on, and we are stronger and smarter for it. Keep us in your thoughts!

Well, there you have it.

Dear Jessica:

The graduate committee met yesterday and we are unable to offer you a position into our program for 2011-2012 due to an excessive number of candidates competing for only a few spots. This is an informal letter but I know that you are (quite rightly) eager to hear our decision. You will receive an official letter from the graduate school. We encourage you to apply again next year and to maintain communication with Dr. Karen Wilson. We wish you the best of luck,

Regards,

Jeff Walker

 

 

 

I guess I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up, I just thought with the professor wanting me to work with her, and she had funding that would mean the admission was just paperwork. Now we have left a message to see the status of Andrew's application. 

Oh, yes. They make terrific pair. They went together like lamb and tuna fish.

With Andrew living close enough to come home once a week, we have started "dating." Ha! We have been going on little dates each week (insert awwww here): two weeks ago we made sushi together, last week we mountain biked around the Nehalem River, and this week we hiked Mt. Neahkahnie. We are trying to make the most of our Oregon days, as we are hoping to move to Maine in the fall (yes, admissions is moving slower than molasses insert frustrated grumbles here).

View from the top (Yes, the sun was actually shining!)

Photo especially for Gene East!

We are also getting ready for a few more traveling adventures: Max and Lorraine's wedding in a few weeks, Will and Erin's wedding in July, and Marty and Cassie's wedding in October! I am a sucker for weddings, so I cannot wait!!

*Title is a quote from the movie Big Daddy!!*

Music Friday!

I have been chuggin along with work and school and in the meantime watching movies, listening to a lot of new (to me) music... So I thought I would share it with you all... because there is nothing else new going on here!

Tallest Man on Earth "Little River"

Feist and Ben Gibbard "Train Song"

Kanye West "Lost in the World"--Warning... rap music mom and dad :)

And then for all you country lovers.....

Jason Aldean "Dirt Road Anthem"

Have a good weekend, and GO BREW CREW!!!!

a very happy birthday.

Last week Andrew and I went down to visit Dunham and Jenn for the Du-ham's birthday. (For you non-Northlander's) Dunham was in Moosebeard and the Beardless Bandits, Andrew's college band. We packed Ginny the kitty and introduced her to C &J's two kitties... they had a blast and so did we.

Dunham in his spiffy BLM outfit teaching us about tidepools

Jenn and I roving the tide pools

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I swear I was looking at the surf and not just peering at chris and jenn...

Andrew practicing cormorant capturing

The sun is finally out, I have gotten out of my crafting slump... new projects are on the rise my friends!

I am now however in a music slump... any suggestions?