The Adventures of Sandiana Jones

A Happy Fourth and Birthday Celebration!

2010-07-06T13:18:00.001-07:00

I had a pretty nice Fourth of July in the City of Portland and visiting Cannon Beach, OR. Once a year my sister tries to come out here with my nephews so that we can all spend some time together since we don’t see eachother that often. This time it just so happened that we were both free on the fourth of July weekend and they’d be able to spend my birthday weekend with me as well since my birthday is on the 6th. We decided on Portland so I could take them to the ocean which is only 1.5 hours away. We had a blast. We played on the beach, we went to the zoo ( I was VERY impressed with the Portland ZOO. I normally hate zoos but this one was really nice and the animals are well cared for), we went to Saturday market, ate cupcakes at Saint Cupcake and visited Multnomah Falls and the Museum of science and industry. I left feeling tired and happy. It was so nice to see them, and it’s such a short flight for me that I was able to get home in time to unpack, and relax before heading back to work today. Here are some highlights from the trip. I'll post some more photos tomorrow from the trip.
Happy Fourth of July! Enjoy the Summer!
Sandiana

An evening with 2 talented women

2010-06-22T07:53:00.001-07:00

I had the most magnificent kick off to the summer last night at the Boise Botanical Gardens. What a great venue for a concert. There's not a bad seat in the place and you're right by tons of beautiful flowers. It sits at the base of the foothills where a wonderful breeze sweeps across the crowd as you listen to some of the best performances you've ever heard. Let me just say that Brandi Carlile and Jewel were 2 of the most adorable people ever. They both got up on the stage and sang alone with nothing but the guitar in hand....and man what a treat. I'm such a sucker for acoustic performances. Brandi rocked the stage with the great classics of Johnny Cash, Hank Willams, Tammy Wynette, the Beatles, and more as well as her own stuff. It amazes me how she can change her voice from edgy to sweet and classy with every song and sometimes in the same song. While not as big of a fan of Jewel, I certainly enjoyed her newer stuff and she was an entertaining storyteller. Jewel took requests from the audience which gave the evening a more intimate/coffee house feeling. Of course one of the best parts of the evening were the impromptu songs and the duet they did to a Tom Petty song. Sure wish I had a copy of that because you certainly can't find it. I do however have a lead on Brandi's version of Folsom Prison which was phenomenal.

All in all, I'm looking forward to the next time I can see Brandi in concert. If you haven't yet, you don't know what you're missing. So much better than listening to a CD.

Well that's my review of the first concert of the summer that I attended. What a great evening was had by all

Till Next Time

Sandiana

What would McGuyver do?

2010-05-20T08:02:00.000-07:00

So if you ever have to you ask yourself...."If I'm ever dumb enough to forget my tent poles at home but I bring my tent with me....what would McGuyver do in this situation" I can help you out. B, the dogs and I went camping this past weekend and we did exactly that. We had washed our tent after the last camping trip and forgot to put the poles back in the bag. Having arrived at 9pm at night at our destination 3.5 hours from home, we had to improvise, so we McGuyver'd the heck out of this baby. It's a really good thing that I married someone who is also part lumberjack....I'm so lucky! B found a slash pile and dug out 2 pits - 3ft deep to place the pieces of branch in, then packed the dirt tightly around them and Voila! we had two posts to tie the tent to. Then we pulled the truck up next to the tent and stuck the remaining rope from the tent in the windows and rolled them up, staked out the sides, and damn if that tent didn't stay up and house us comfortably for the whole weekend. I was so proud of us! We didn't even get mad at each other, we just went right to work with our duct tape, dental floss and chewing gum! For those of you who don't get the McGuyver reference, I feel sorry for you because that was quality TV, not like the useless garbage you see now.

With tent in tact we were able to salvage the weekend and as you can see from Sage's smiling face, she and Bo had a nice time too. I sipped my coffee each morning on a rock that faced the Beautiful Eagle Cap Wilderness, and in the evening B and I sat on that same rock and watched the sunset. It was a much needed, relaxing break in the woods.

Happy Spring All!

What a Way to end the week!

2010-04-10T08:48:00.001-07:00

What a Fabulous week for me (rare I know). The weather was cold at times and snowy at times but ended on a beautiful note on Friday with me getting to spend the day with an incredibly knowledgeable, former raptor biologist from the BLM on a trip to band owls and inspect nesting platforms in the Snake River Birds of Prey Area. These little screech owls were adorable! It was neat to see them (all 6 of them) huddled up inside their nest box trying to keep warm. Mom and dad must have been confused by the warm spells we had weeks ago because these guys should only belittle eggs right now, and as you can see they are maturing quickly. We took them out of the nest box for a few minutes just to band them and then returned them to where they could sleep off the chilly morning. I Love this photo of our feistiest guy from the nest. He did not like my camera but it made for a cool photo! The scenery photos are where I ate my lunch from and watched Golden eagles riding the currents and a fox looking for ground squirrels to hunt. On our way back to the office we checked out some of BSU's homemade burrows for the burrowing owls and found that they were being used for sure!
At the end of the day John dropped me off and told me he would contact me when the Ferruginous Hawk chicks were ready to be banded. I can't wait! I love ferrugs' and I've never seen one up close. So exciting to be starting the field season off with some seriously cool projects.
More later from the field!
Sandiana Jones :)

Girl Gone Wild

2010-04-08T07:00:00.001-07:00

Well I'm back in the field for the summer and busy with all kinds of projects. The other night I was fortunate enough to be able to go out on a sage grouse capture with a few fine folks from 3 different state and federal agencies. One of the many perks of living in sage steppe country are these guys. An amazing bird that we don't know nearly enough about. To find out more about how to protect these guys and their habitat it's necessary to conduct research on them. These birds were carefully captured and fitted, radio collars and released so that we can track their movements and behaviors. I was responsible for taking a small blood sample which will be sent off to a lab for DNA analysis. What an adventure. We were snowed on, rained on, covered in mud, and hiked over 2 miles in the dark across lava rock beds (I have the gashes and bruises on my knees to prove it) to find these guys. In the end we were successful and the birds were released after a few simple measurements and collar fitting.

If you ever find yourself in the western states that these birds call home I urge you to try and get out to see these guys strut during the leking season which is usually mid March until early May. It is something to be seen and heard for sure. These guys are out on the leks from sun up until around 10am spinning, thumping their wings; producing a loud drumming sound that can be heard from far away, and presenting their magnificent air sacs to area females, all in the name of passing on their genes. It's quite impressive. The air sacs, amazingly enough, are protected by scale like feathers that are pointy to the touch. I was quite surprised when I touched them.

Anyway, it was a long night (6:30pm until 6am the next morning) and I'm still recovering from the lack of sleep but hopefully I'll be back soon with some more photos from some other surveys I've been working on. I've been taking lots of photos I'm just behind on downloading and posting. It's that time of year though for me.

Cheers!

Sandiana

...My true Love Gave to Me....MORE FLIGHT DELAYS!

2009-12-29T13:56:00.000-08:00

Well it was a long and very eventful Christmas season in the Midwest. Most of it was wonderful as was our flight out there. But all good things do eventually come to an end, and sometimes they come to a screaming halt and catapult you from the driver’s seat into a monster brick wall. This was the case with B and I. It started out well enough though. A white Christmas up in Chicagoland with my family, making cookies and sledding with my two favorite nephews, sitting by the fire in the evening playing games and drinking hot chocolate. Then it was chaotic, and wrapping paper flew, and dogs were barking and the loud laughter commenced. And then….. it was a quiet ride down to B’s parents house where it proceeded to rain for 4 days straight, and everything was brown and wet. We made the best of it though, I hung out with very dear friends of mine, and B and his parents and I played endless games and laughed until our sides hurt, and there was gentle tearing of wrapping paper (what happens when kids are not involved I guess….ok I tore some but I’m a kid at heart). We saw more good friends, ate way too much good food and then it began to snow…….and snow…….and snow some more.
And on our last day there, I received a pity call from a ticket agent for the airline we were SUPPOSED to fly out on. He told me, “don’t waste your time trying to get out of this airport, you’re better off driving back to Chicago and making your connections there.” And so we all piled into the car and B’s parent’s (being the troopers that they are) drove us (in the snow storm) all the way up to Chicago again, dropped us off at the airport and headed back home. Another lovely ticket agent told us to count on spending the night in Phoenix on our way home because there was no way that we would make it back to Oregon that night, and so we braced ourselves for an overnight stay in Phoenix, sat down at a restaurant in the airport and waited for our flight to AZ. Since I had some time to kill, I called to the airline. An automated voice said “your flight has been cancelled”. The room started spinning, everything went dark and I felt my blood pressure rise. Even the buzz from the beer that I was enjoying to calm my nerves, was suddenly gone. And then the domino effect. Four trillion other people in that same airport all started receiving the same news on their flights over their cell phones. Faces turned red, Swearing was abundant, babies were crying, mother’s looked haggard and stared at the ceiling hoping to find the answers written on the tiles. Ticket agents got grumpy and rude, slowly the departure board turned from “ON TIME” to “CANCELLED” all the way down, and the lines started to get longer ….. and longer….. and longer. When we were finally able to talk to someone, they told us that the soonest they could get us out was Thursday. I started to cry and say “no no no no no… “ over and over again. My wonderfully calm and assertive husband (who also looks like a terrorist when he’s mad) would not take no for an answer (well except for my no s' which he ignored). He managed to get us a ticket home for Monday….the best they could do.
Thanks to my wonderful sister who braved bad roads to pick us back up from the airport (and take us to the nearest grocery store for adult beverages), we had a nice place to stay for the remaining day and a half till our next flight. My nephews were ecstatic! They were so excited to have us around for 2 more days, and had a full itinerary of games and sledding planned out for us. (Ahhh the eyes of a child….how can you be upset anymore when someone is so happy to see you).
And so we did spend the remaining 2 days playing with the kids and calming our nerves for our impending journey back to the airport with a little coke and a lot of jack….I mean a little jack and a lot of coke. These photos capture the happier moments of the trip. The photos of me strangling the ticket agent and being cuffed and escorted away by the TSA are still being held as evidence, but I’ll post those after the court date.
A big thanks to both of our families for making sure we made it home and had a nice place to stay during our travel delays. We are very blessed to have such great people in our lives. Many thanks to Kate and Ben for sharing your holiday with me (along with all our other friends and family), and a huge thanks to our dog sitter Kathy who kept our pups fed and happy while they awaited our return!
Happy Holidays to All and to All a good night!
Sandiana

Halloween Fun

2009-11-03T07:35:00.001-08:00

Oh what fun we had at Shaney’s Halloween Party. I don’t think I have laughed that hard in a long time and it was all due to Brett’s “Wardrobe Malfunction” He was supposed to be a fat tourist, and after attempting to sit down in his chair, he quickly turned into the “Dirty Old Man” and had all the ladies laughing hysterically. I thought Dan’s wife Chris was going to fall off her chair.
Here are just a few of the photos from the festivities, what a cute couple my friend Mountain Man Dan and his wife Chris make! The Bon fire was toasty, the food was incredible and the laughter and stories were abundant. I totally rocked my witches costume but you can’t see my giant hat because of how dark it is. I had wanted to take photos of Brett and I when it was still light out but he didn’t put his costume on until we got there, as it would have been difficult to drive in….hee hee hee.
The costumes were great. I am hoping to get some of Shaney’s Copies to post as well. She was able to get everyone before people started taking off but I was too busy stuffing my face with cake
It was a good Halloween. I look forward to her Christmas bonfire next and at least I won’t have to dress up for that one! If I do I’ll look more like Chris and I will be a whole lot warmer I’m sure.
Hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween!
SJ

Back to My Midwestern Roots for a Family Visit

2009-10-18T16:52:00.000-07:00

Recently I went home to visit the family in Chicago.. Mainly I wanted to spend time with my Grandma (isn't she adorable in her little Eskimo get-up) (by the way, she's 96 yrs old and still has enough get up and go to sit at a soccer game while it's freezing outside and then spend half a day walking around an apple orchard and pumpkin patch while I take random photos... I hope I have her energy when I'm that old). I love going home in the fall. If there is one thing I miss about the Midwest, it's the fall. The trees are absolutely stunning, the people are warm and friendly and there's always some sort of festival that has something to do with pumpkins, squash, apples or other fruit going on; sending sweet smells of nostalgia into ones nostrils. It's invigorating. I practically burnt myself out in the 4 days I was home, but it was worth it. I went hiking, took photos, hung out with gran, and spent some quality time with my two nephews. Got to take in Ben's Soccer Game (he Rocked!) and Drew showed me how he learned to build a campfire in Cub scouts on my last night there. We had a blast up in Wisconsin at the apple orchard and pumpkin patch that I have been going to since I was a kid. And of course no visit is complete without a night with just the siblings where we sipped wine, got caught up on everyone's lives and carved these three killer pumpkins. SO MUCH FUN! Mine is the skull! I'm thinking I might have to start making it a tradition to head home every fall. Next year I would love to go south to my old university town and hang out with some of friends from the old stompin' grounds and hike through Meadowbrook Park and Busey Woods again. We'll see.

For now there's still more fall to enjoy right here in Oregon!

Hope everyone is enjoying their Fall!

Cheers!

Merry Christmas.....wait a second.... what month is it again?

2009-10-05T10:23:00.001-07:00

Well, I couldn’t agree more with Rachel’s Recent post. I thought it was October. I was prepared for warm sunny days and cool nights, time to prep the garden for winter, time for my beautiful mums to shine before the frost murders them, and time to enjoy the “Gradual” decline in temperatures and the “Gradual” changing of the leaves. Instead of fall, I think we’ll end up having Fell. I planned a nice Fall camping trip for Mine and B’s Anniversary. I imagined us soaking up the rays of an autumn sun while fishing by the lake or hiking up the trails with our pups. I imagined sitting by a roaring campfire making smores as the nighttime chill settled upon us.
What I got was this:

This is what we woke up to Saturday morning, and it got progressively worse as we scrambled to pack everything up and head for home. I am not opposed to snow. Those of you who know me, know I usually can’t get enough of the stuff…. You know during winter when it’s supposed to happen! We tried to be tough,

to stick it out, we thought to ourselves “ it’s just a little snow, we can handle that” (the dogs were shaking at this point and pleading with their sad little doggy eyes “please take us home to our gi-normous doggy bed where we can nap all day in comfort, I know we look like tough outdoor dogs but we’re really a bunch of wusses!”
And then this happened,

and continued to happen….. Very Wet, Very heavy and Very fast it came. So, we bailed, and headed to the comfort of our home to delight in hot apple cider and Captain Morgan, and our dogs did this:

(I’m starting to see a pattern with these two)!
Hope you are Enjoying Fall….I mean Winter…. I mean Fall??? Wherever you are!

Happy Anniversary to Us!

2009-10-01T06:58:00.001-07:00

Today is mine and B's 4 yr Anniversary! I can't believe how fast the years have passed. This is also perhaps the coldest anniversary we have ever had. We love this time of year and that's we chose to get married in October. The colors are amazing and the air feels crisper. I look forward to this every year, and what a great time to be celebrating your anniversary with a pretty cool guy that I am happy to still call my bestest pal in the whole world. We had plans to head to the Strawberry Mountains but they are getting snow right now and I'm not quite ready for that yet. So we're headed to Phillips Lake, (a little closer to home) to camp for the weekend. We plan on returning on Sunday and then we'll head out to Purdum's Farm for our carving pumpkins, some pie pumpkins (for making pumpkin butter and puree) and enjoy the backyard with some garden clearing and a fire before it goes to sleep for the winter. Oh Fall how I have missed you and I'm so glad you're back!

Hope all of you are enjoying your fall (well unless you live in Florida and then probably not so much) :)

Busy Busy Summer

2009-08-17T18:16:00.000-07:00

It has been a crazy busy summer. And actually although most of that has been work related, and I have been out in the field most of the summer; in my off time (which is slim) I have managed to say "forget obligations" and have decided that sometimes, a good time is more worth it than doing laundry and catching up on my weeding. Surprisingly I have made some new friends this summer, turned some acquaintances into good friends and have travelled a bit. Over the next few days I'll post some photos from my birthday trip to the coast as well as some of the other things I've been up to. I'm a little behind in posting but such is life for a wildlife bio in the summer months. This past July I was fortunate enough to have my little brother come out from Chicago, my best friend Jon come out from Klamath Falls, OR, and I got to spend time with my wonderful husband.....my 3 favorite guys in the whole world. We went crabbing with my neighbors and their family that were also visiting the coast, and my brother and I spent a little time in wine country, and the beautiful town of Bandon. It really was a great trip and one that I managed to capture the finer moments with on my new camera. Here are some of the photos. The beautiful little pup up there is none other than Jon's new love Ellie Mae. She made her first swim on this trip and I was able to capture her diving into the cold waves of the pacific ocean. She was quite taken with the water after that.

Well I hope the summer finds you all well and enjoying life.

I'll be back with some more photos from the coast and I'll be posting some of my latest pieces of artwork on my craft site soon,

I have been a busy one for sure!

Cheers

Happy Birthday to Me and Adios for a Va-cay!

2009-07-07T06:57:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my birthday. I thought it was going to be horrible, what with it being Monday, and having to work all day out in the heat, and having had a crummy week last week…..but I was pleasantly surprised. It was actually a great birthday. It was nice to not be in the office. Instead I hiked around in the field all day with my coworker Sarah who’s the best. She made me wonderfully gooey and delicious brownies which we both pigged out on, on the way home. I came home to a mailbox full of gifts and cards which is always good, and Brett took me out for a great dinner followed by ice cream cake with a sparkler on top! Plus…..I must comment on how great technology can be. In the last couple of months I have become reacquainted with a bunch of really great people that I have been missing and wondering what happened to them over Facebook. I normally hate these types of things, but this isn’t like MySpace or twitter or whatever. It’s only as cheesy as you want it to be. Anyway I’ve found some of my best friends from the past, including some folks over in Australia and Hawaii that I met while in Samoa, again over Facebook and we have been emailing regularly now, AND I’ve made new friends too.
I came home yesterday and found my inbox flooded with birthday greetings and wishes. It was really great. Brett got me a Dutch oven for my birthday. I had asked for a fly rod, but upon purchasing my new camera I decided that he should wait until Christmas to get me my fly rod. He however, decided I had to have something to open so he got me the Dutch oven. I recently took a Dutch oven cooking class and decided that I would love to have one for camping. When I get back from vacation I’ll have to post some of the photos of my friends Shaney and Dan teaching the Dutch Oven cooking class. Shaney and Dan are masters at this. They spend a lot of time in the back country either on horse packing trips or river trips and they always bring their Dutch Ovens for gourmet camping meals. Their chosen coals are actually cow patties most of the time. Shaney’s says it’s because you can find them everywhere out here. Not sure I would do the same but whatever works I guess. It was a lot of fun. In the class we made some sort of Swiss steak thing which I didn’t eat, enchilada casserole, chocolate cake, cobbler, potatoes, and corn bread. It was awesome. Brett even found and printed off some vegi-style recipes for me to try. I can’t wait to get cooking. I think we may even bring it to the coast. In addition, I also received, my new camera….So much fun, some books I wanted, some homemade gifts from my friend Pam and my sister and some wine… always a good idea!
Brett and I went camping this weekend for the 4th. We found a really beautiful spot along the Malheur River on the National Forest. I will post some of those photos this week when I get a chance as well. We took the dogs with us for the first time too and they had a blast. It was a success, they were well behaved and we’d definitely do it again.
More info on the craft and garden front to come too. I’ve been busy making birthday gifts since everyone seems to have been born in July, and the garden is progressing nicely, though all of this posting will have to wait until I get back from the coast. My little brother is flying out from Chicago on Thursday, and we are all headed to the Oregon coast on Friday morning to meet up with our good friend Jon, our neighbors Dave and Jan and Jan’s sister Dar and her husband. We’ll be crabbin’, beach combin’, hikin’ and relaxin’ I can’t wait.
More when I get back!
Cheers everyone!
Sandiana

Memorial Day Weekend Recap

2009-06-14T08:50:00.001-07:00

In February, our dear friend Jon moved away to Klamath Falls. It's been hard on all three of us because we're extremely tight. Jon has been permanent fixture in our house for the past 3 years that we have known him, often stopping by for dinner and sometimes staying for breakfast. He recently got a new job in Klamath Falls and we were anxious to go and explore his new digs, see an old friend and of course meet his new little puppy Ellie who is too delicious for words. Don't let the face fool you though, she is completely immerced in her terrible puppy years and constantly entertains herself by attacking your feet. For my poor pups it was their tails that suffered the brunt of her puppy frustrations of working towards that set of adult teeth. Sage was not happy with Ellie and let her know it on a regular basis, and Bo being the gentle giant that he is took it with a grain of salt and quickly learned how to evade those needle-like puppy teeth.

Jon has been lucky enough to find himself a quaint little house in the middle of nowhere surrounded by mountains in all directions (lucky lucky guy), and so it was nice to sit outside in the evenings in the fresh air and enjoy nothing but the sound of crickets or the occasional owl, and some good conversation with 2 of my favorite guys.

We spent the weekend in cool mountain lakes surrounded by tall beautiful trees (something we greatly miss in the desert). He was going to take us to this one lake to fish but it was still snowed in so we decided to try our hand at fly fishing. I have always wanted to learn how to fly fish and lucky for me that Jon is a very good and very patient teacher. He was even able to teach Brett a thing or two, and although Brett has said over and over that he had no interest in learning to fly fish, I think he quite ienjoys it now so it's something we can do together.

I had a little trouble because I had to wear Jon's gear. It is not easy tromping around boulders and fast moving creeks in Men's size 13 boots and waders made for a guy who's 6'4" compared to my 5'7"; still with the careful crafting of a hiking stick made just for me and the occasional arm from Jon or Brett I was able to hold myself upright, and fortunately did not go under like a certain husband of mine did.....wish I had caught that one on camera :)

I want everyone to know that my first time ever fly fishing, and ever casting (and I wasn't even doing it right because I was still in practice mode), and I managed to land a record trout! it was a 20" red band trout!!! Jon couldn't believe it and neither could I. I don't think I have ever been so excited. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera because in case I went under I didn't want it going with me, so you'll have to take my word for it. I have to VERY humbled witnesses if that counts.

Those poor boys didn't catch anything the whole day but a couple of baby trout. I had a great time basking in all my girl glory!!! Redneck score : 0 coolest chick ever: 1 GINORMOUS trout :)

They took it well though, and we all had a blast. I am definitely "hooked" on fly fishing and I have asked Brett with a big pretty please if he'll buy me a fly rod for my birthday. We'll see. All in all it was a fun trip. So much so that Brett and I (if we can make it work with jobs and such in the next few years) are considering a move to K falls. We loved it there and the climate is a little more to my liking. Not sure if that would work out for us or not but we'll see. I was also abel to catch some good moments on camera including Brett doing his JcPenny pose for the camera in his fishing gear....better suck that belly in hun!

Well, I'm off for now. We are having monsoon rains here right now and there is finally a break in the weather so I have to go clean up the yard before it starts again.

Hope you all are well!

Sandiana

A Week Spent Hiking in Wilson Peak

2009-06-02T14:07:00.000-07:00

Last week was really hot here in the 90’s to be exact which is pretty uncharacteristic for this time of year. Wouldn’t you know I of course picked that week to conduct wildlife surveys of the Wilson Peak area in southern Idaho. I couldn’t complain though because despite the heat the area on top was beautiful and bursting with flowers and critters of all sorts. I saw everything from wild horses, to bird nests to scorpions and lizards to name a few. I had our fancy work camera and was able to capture a few of these guys as well as the scenery on film. I’m really impressed with the images because of how hard it is to catch wildlife on film. These lizards were pretty tolerant to my size and the fact that I was looming within inches of them to get these photos. I found that as long as I moved slowly and they didn’t really sense that I was going to eat them, they were happy to stay basking in the sun. Of course they were probably wondering why this big idiot was so interested in shoving a camera in their face but whatever. It’s moments like these that I can totally see myself in a Farside cartoon.

It seems that even here I can't seem to get away from scorpions huh? Surprisingly enough this guy was a little bigger than the ones I saw in Texas....and I thought everything was bigger down there!

Anyway, I really had a great few days up there and I'm thinking it might be a neat place to backpack with Brett next spring when it's back to being cooler up there and the flowers are in bloom. I managed to add several more birds to my life list as well, that I hadn’t ever seen before. That’s always a sign of a good days “work?”. Plus it feels good to continue to further my knowledge of my camera as well as the area flora and fauna. I find that it is hard moving around because you always have to relearn everything. There are very few species here that overlap with the other places I have lived in, but that just makes everything more interesting I guess.
Anway, I hope you all are enjoying your summer, will try to post more often and will soon have photos up of our trip to Klamath Falls as soon as I have some free time!
Cheers!
Sandiana

Spring in Hells Canyon.....AHHHHHH

2009-05-13T15:41:00.000-07:00

So this is where I spent one glorious day last week. I had never been to Hells Canyon before getting this job, and lucky for me we have a few Bald Eagle pairs that we monitor throughout the nesting season up there, so I get to go up there several times in the spring. If you ever have a chance to see Hells Canyon I highly recommend it, however I also highly recommend going in the spring. Within another month or so this will all be many fabulous shades of brown, prone to wild fires and hotter than ..... well.....Hell I guess ! We have had an awesome spring this year in terms of moisture and cool temps , so I was amazed at how green everything was, and for once there was an amazing wildflower year. I've posted some of those photos early on this year but this time when I went up there the bitterbrush was in full bloom (the yellow stuff), and there is no greater smell on this planet than a hillside full of bitterbrush I assure you. The deer LOVE this stuff, it's like ice cream to their palates, and as it were, I did see many deer including these 2 scraggly mama's getting in the middle of shedding their winter garb. It was an awesome day out and these photos don't do it justice. I would have taken many more flower photos, but we kept getting hit with monsoon rains on and off all day which made it challenging....wouldn't know it by the look of these photos but I managed to get these in between rain storms and nest checks. Sorry no nest photos, it was too slick to climb the hills so I could look down on the nests. maybe next time.

Hope you're all enjoying springtime where ever you may be

Sandiana

HAPPY EARTH DAY!

2009-04-22T06:21:00.000-07:00

HAPPY EARTH DAY!

Don't blow it - good planets are hard to find. ~Quoted in Time

Nature provides a free lunch, but only if we control our appetites. ~William Ruckelshaus, Business Week, 18 June 1990

The sun, the moon and the stars would have disappeared long ago... had they happened to be within the reach of predatory human hands. ~Havelock Ellis, The Dance of Life, 1923

Close Encounters of a Grouse Kind!!!

2009-04-13T07:03:00.000-07:00

So I thought I would share these photos along with this little story. My husband Brett never has anything to say when I ask him how his day was each day. I usually get a grunt or a shrug of the shoulders, or if I'm really lucky, I get a "Not a whole lot happened". Well friday I came home from work and I asked him how his day was, (he is working for the BLM right now doing sage grouse lek counts), and he turns to me and says "Honey.....I had the craziest thing happen to me today!" FINALLY A STORY!!! And if you are a wildlife geek like myself, it happens to be a good story and one that I would not have believed if he hadn't taken the photos to prove it. So this is what happened:

He was out doing lek counts the other morning and had just finished up and was packing his stuff up in the truck when he noticed this blue grouse approaching. All of the sudden the blue grouse came running right up to him and started strutting and running in circles around his legs, and between his legs etc. Brett started taking photos of this crazy bird as it circled him. Then he knelt down to see if he could get better pictures and the bird climbed up on the back of his legs. This went on for a little while and Brett decided to leave. He was getting in the truck and that darn bird jumped up into the truck and landed on his lap. Brett got him out of the truck but then as he was pulling away the bird chased the truck for about a ¼ mile.He couldn’t believe this bird’s behavior, but it made for some good photos and a good story. And the moral of the story is : Beware of a blue grouse who's searching for love in all the wrong places :)

Hope everyone enjoyed their weekend!

The First Signs of Spring

2009-03-19T20:15:00.001-07:00

I love Crocus's because when they arrive you know that winter is finally over. I took a walk outside today on the first warm day of spring and these beauties were everywhere, and there were a few bold honeybees out and about getting a jump start on a long summer's worth of work. They seemed a little desperate to gather as much pollen as possible fighting off others in the process. Hang in there little dudes, others will be popping up soon.

Hope everyone is enjoying the warmer weather....well except those poor souls in the east and in the upper PNW. Hang in there all you others, your time is coming soon.

Later

Valentine's Day Weekend

2009-02-16T18:41:00.000-08:00

We had a fabulous Valentine's Day Weekend. Brett and I have had a lot of chaos in our lives as of late and so we decided to disappear for the weekend and regroup. I didn't realize how much I needed it until we were up at the cabin and relaxing. We found a fabulous little cabin up in the beautiful and small historic town of Sumpter, OR which is about 1.5 hours from here. The couple that owns the cabin rented it to us for cheap, and so we packed up the dogs and our snowshoeing gear and headed up to the snow covered mountains. No cell reception and a small TV with only DVD as the option to view. So we brought some movies up and vegged out on Friday night while the snow fell outside. On Saturday we found a great forest trail covered in new powder and snowshoed with the dogs for about 4 hours. It was so much fun and so beautiful up there. On Saturday night we met up with some friends that were also up there for a snow mobiling event, and had dinner with them, then we headed back to the cabin to watch a movie and play monopoly. We made chocolate cake and I dove into a dessert wine I brought up there while the dogs snoozed by the fire. I also got a lot of reading done in the mornings while I waited for Brett to get up so we could head out, which was nice because I don't often have a lot of time to read. On Sunday we awoke to heavy snow falling. We were worried we might get stuck up there (which I wouldn't have minded), so we packed up and headed for home. On the way home we stopped by this Powder River trail and decided to snow shoe some more since we weren't in a hurry to get home. The trail was beautiful and the dogs enjoyed the river despite its chilly temps. We didn't run into another soul out there, and we got to try some steeper more challenging stuff when we headed off trail. I felt so tired and relaxed by the time I got home. It was nice to spend some quality time with Brett since our schedules are so crazy. It was quiet and enjoyable. Exactly what we needed, and the first really good Valentine's Day I've ever had. Hope everyone enjoyed the holiday! More to come!

Enough of this Downer Crap....It's Christmas!

2008-12-10T18:21:00.001-08:00

On Saturday I took a break from my Christmas gift making and headed up into the mountains with Brett and our friends Matt, Gillian and their 4 mo old son Talus to pick out and cut down Christmas trees. We did this last year and last year we had beautiful powdery snow coming down on us the whole time. This year it was a balmy 42 degrees out and not very Christmas like, but still fun. we brought a grill up to cook lunch on and we brought up some hot cocoa and peppermint schnapps to sooth our sore muscles from the hike up. This was our view, and this was Talus before we started....already tired, you can see in the end he was perfectly content to hang out and nap while we did the hard work :)

I love forest trees because they aren't uniform and because the experience of searching for just the right one in such a beautiful place is so worth it. We really had a nice time, and in the end the boys cut down some mighty large and mighty fine trees.

Brett and I may not live in the log cabin of our dreams but I sure try to make our meager abode look like one and this year was no exception. After all the crummy stuff that has happened to us lately I am happy to say that just decorating the house a little and curling up in front of this impressive and wonderfully smelling tree with my dogs and my big burly lumberjack has seriously improved my holiday spirit.

Hope all of you are enjoying the season as well

Cheers!

Sandianajones

Physics 101

2008-12-02T07:31:00.000-08:00

Ahhhhh, there are very few things that I actually remember from Physics. One of those is that if you put water in a bucket and swing it around by it’s handle, the water will not fall out (I always thought that one was cool). The other being that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction…..which is sometimes not the reaction that you want. This applies to everything in life I think. For every push there is a pull, for every down there is an up, for every good there is a bad. I like to call it the grand teeter totter of life, which is to say my grand teeter totter.
I always feel like I’m on one end of the teeter totter and some big fat kid is on the other end, slamming to the ground trying to fling me off and then slamming me into the ground upon lift off. Sometimes I feel like the big fat kid has both feet on the ground keeping me guessing in the middle with the teeter totter balanced, but could go either way, and I am hovering, sweating, and trying to brace for impact.
That has been my place lately until last week when the teeter totter slammed into the ground and I fell off.
We knew Brett would probably lose his job in the spring. They just can’t afford to keep him on, we didn’t however know that spring would turn into last week. We thought we had time to figure this out (isn’t that what people always say….I thought I had more time). It blind sided us last Wednesday and left me a total mess while at work trying to pull myself together to get through the rest of the day. I have a good stable job so at least there’s that, and thank goodness we are both healthy and have no kids to worry about, but surviving on one income with 2 people’s worth of expenses does not bode well for us. We were making real progress with saving for a house and our future. It was all going so well, and now what. Normally I wouldn’t worry and I would say that he’ll go on unemployment for a bit and find something else soon, but in this economy, everyone is losing their jobs. Who can hire anyone???? And I’m guessing a wildlife biologist is not high on the economic priority list right now, (not that he can’t get something else…but….).
So I am worried, but it makes him upset when I worry, so I’m telling you all that I’m worried. He gets his last paycheck on December 31, and then we have to have a plan. Oh this always goes this way with us. Teeter totter, teeter totter…..and so on. One of us is happy the other is down, one of us has a job the other does not…..teeter totter, teeter totter, and so it goes.
I have however determined that I will not let this ruin my holiday season. I’m tired of things ruining my holidays. Most of the presents have been bought already and the rest I am making, so that shouldn’t affect us too much, and I have a couple of art orders that I need to get out that will pay some, so in the mean time I will bake, and craft and try not to think about months and months of him trying to find a job and being frustrated with the lack of prospects. It’s got to get better right? Seems like I have to have this conversation with myself often. Right now its bad….pretty bad, but there should be a good out there somewhere waiting for me right? For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction…..right???????

TAGGED..DAMN IT!

2008-11-20T06:02:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Kate, I have been tagged. Apparently I have been a slacker blogger lately so I am going to humor every one and try to come up with 6 random things about myself.

1.) I have a secret love of driving big trucks. I know they are horrible on the environment and your pocketbook, but I love to drive them. We have one that we never drive but when I get to I love it. I like being up high, I feel powerful and safe, like I can drive over anyone who irritates me.

2) I LOVE Tommy Lee Jones, I have no idea why other than he always plays a really strong, confident character, and I find that attractive. Trust me its not the ears, because he does have some big ears.

3) I dream constantly of going to Africa and hiking up to see the mountain gorillas, its become a bit of an obsession really and a goal that I am working towards and saving for

4) I LOVE to sing in the car and I do it often. Bathrooms are great too because they have good acoustics. I used to be a musician, took voice lessons, sang opera, played the cello, clarinet, and piano. I was even a music major before I got the wildlife bug, so weird when I think about that time in my life, but I will tell you I played the karaoke game on PlayStation with our friend and I went platinum.....I still have it :)

5) I hate people, (except for my close friends and family obviously) however much like the chameleon I can blend in anywhere and often can be social enough with people that they think I am a people person. Truth is I like animals way better than people but unfortunately a lot of my job is dealing with people, so I have to be good at it. Inside my head, though I am cussing at them most of the time

6) I have anxious leg syndrome I think. Sometimes I lay awake at night needing to run, or at least that's what it feels like. Brett thought I was crazy until they actually said that it was a real thing. Sometimes I Have to get up and walk around until it goes away.

There now you all think I'm a total freak, as if you didn't know that already
Have a great Thursday!
Later Tators
SJ

Bitter Diatribes on Van Pooling Part 1

2008-10-01T19:29:00.000-07:00

I ride the vanpool to work almost everyday. It seemed to me to be the most economical, relaxing and environmentally friendly way to get me all the way to my place of work in the city of Boise. I enjoy living far from Boise, and I have no desire to move closer. This is what will have to work I told myself. I was actually excited about the vanpool. I will pay my $130 a month I told myself (which is much less than I would pay to fill up my car) and I will kick back and relax, perhaps sleep or read a good book while listening to my iPod and let some other sucker do the driving.
That was my fantasy…..that is until I met the “vanpool people”. Do you see these people above? These are not the vanpool people. These people enjoy their daily commute. They like each other, they respect each other’s personal space, and they come off the van feeling refreshed and happy. They don’t ride with “the van pool people”. Yes, there should be a horror movie written about “The Vanpool People”. The characters would be “the bitchy driver lady” played by Monica (names were changed to protect the guilty), she rules the van with an iron fist, and takes corners like she’s just gotten through doing a bank job. Then there would be “crazy” played by Katie who (as coincidence would have it) is quite involved in the life of another vanpooler, lets call her Patty, (one of the only normal people and I actually like her because she is friends with my friend Kate). It seems that Katie’s ex-husband is now married to Patty. Katie claims that she likes Patty a great deal but that she must have bad taste in men for marrying her ex. I think the reason that he is her ex might have something to do with the fact that she is CRAZY! She thinks she’s the cool kid on the van and likes to let everyone know the inner workings of her personal and not so professional life. (It should be noted too that I do actually listen to my iPod….and yet I hear all of this). She really believes that she is the ultimate martyr in the game of life and every time I listen to Katie speak, inside my head I’m spouting “Bitter, party of one, your table is ready, bitter, party of one…..”
Then there’s “big hair, I have a ton of cats at home, annoyingly chipper lady” played by Gene. Oh yes, people, she is one of my favorites to hate. Let me back up…..It is no mystery to anyone who knows me why I am a crabby hoe bag in the morning. Fact is people I hate mornings. It usually takes me 5-8 cups of hot steamy goodness to make me even remotely like them, and since I ride the vanpool I can’t do that or I would be asking bitchy driver lady to pull over every 3 seconds. SOOOOO…..I don’t talk to anyone, and that also has to do with the fact that I can’t stand most everyone on the van.
And so I try to ignore this woman. I make sure my headphones are in place before we even get started. I don’t make eye contact, I even grunt sometimes. AND STILL……..she makes every effort to engage me, and trust me if I could convey how annoying her voice is over blog I would, but you’ll just have to take my word.
And so with my headphones in place, I kick back and suddenly there is a tap on my shoulder, not from “big hair lady” but from another quieter individual who seems completely annoyed with the fact that “big hair lady” has tapped her, to tap me to get my attention so I can stop listening to my music long enough for her to say “GOOD MORNING SANDY!!!!” in the most Chipper irritating tone one has ever heard. Of which I (probably rather rudely) say “HMMPH” and place my headphones back on my ears and turn around. The final character is “Texting Tina” who is obsessed with her new phone and can’t figure out how to turn it to silent when she texts everyone on the planet, so we get to endure a myriad of wrong notes, in her symphony of drama each morning. She also likes to show everyone photos of her wiener dog that she took with her camera phone. And, she used to have a gap in between her two front teeth, until one day she boarded the van and proudly announced to everyone that she got new teeth and her husband was going to too…..yeah people, these are quality folk.
The rest of the van pool people are more like “extras” in a bad, bad, very bad “B movie”. They are not there by choice but by circumstance. Two of which are the 2 token Men who I feel very, very sorry for. Welcome to the hen house of crazies boys, go home and hug your wives!
With riding the van comes all sorts of drama. People complain because of the stops, and the times, and the order in which we sit in the van etc. I have even been given dirty looks because someone wanted me to be an alternate driver so we had a back up and I was like “Ummm helloooo, I don’t pay $130 a month so I can drive a boat load of weirdoes to Boise everyday, plus I’m pretty sure they would frown upon me listening to headphones while driving and that’s the only way I could handle this venture” so I said no, and Crazy and Big hair are no longer my friends….Sad……not really.
This morning the drama was that Crazy, excuse me “Katie” was buckling and unbuckling her seatbelt. Upon arrival to destination, bitchy driver lady said “I don’t know who was doing that, but you have to remain buckled the entire trip or you won’t be allowed to ride” (insert very bitchy tone). Katie then says “Sorry but that was me, and the reason was that my seatbelt was choking me and I had to keep fixing it” (you should have let it choke you)….then driver (over-reacting) “I don’t care Katie, if you have problem with the rules take it up with the company!”…Katie: “WELL I’M SORRY OK, MAN, I CAN’T BELIEVE I’M IN TROUBLE FOR THIS CRAP!” and slams the door. Driver lady then starts to mutter under breath and to the alternate driver lady about what a hoe bag Katie is. (Am I on the special van or what)
And that ladies and gentleman is my daily commute. Everyday it gets weirder and weirder. I was even invited to one of the driver’s birthday party (I haven’t met him yet btw because he is off work on medical right now….why the heck would I attend his B-day party?!...unless there was free cake, I will do anything for cake… oh and wine).
Anywho, stay tuned for more episodes of the “Van Pool People” because I’m sure there will be more. All I know is that if I die with these people in a car crash, I am going to be really pissed.
More Later
SJ

Northern Comfort......ahhhhhhhh

2008-08-18T16:19:00.000-07:00

So this is where I just came back from. I left the ever so balmy and dry temperatures of 90 + degrees and headed to the north woods of Minnesota for a relaxing 10 days. What a vacation it was, to be able to not think about how to get another job, or worry about work deadlines etc. I spent the days, laying on the beach reading, hiking, riding a hydro bike, eating ice cream, taking photos, fishing, sleeping in, drinking blueberry coffee, kayaking and shopping for art.

This is how Brett spent his vacation:

Standing around talking.....note, that they all have their hands in their pockets and they all seem to be discussing something that must be in the water, since they're all looking down. I don't know what it is about that Minnesota air but something about it turns Brett into a retired farmer. It cracks me up. If I want him to go somewhere with me I have to notify him about 2 hours in advance so he can have enough time to wrap up his stimulating conversation on what the walleye are bitin' on.....ahhhh vacation.

I feel I got a bit more out of the week but I bet he would tell you differently. Here are some of the photos I took while up there.

It was also good to see our friends Don and Marsha who used to own the resort where Brett and his parents have been going since Brett was a baby. They have all been friends for many years, and they are always fun to be around. We had a big fish fry with them and then went out on their boat. The cool thing about them to is the way that they look at life, so to end this post I'll show you two signs that they have at their cabin that I thought were neat:

Greener Pastures

2008-07-15T20:08:00.000-07:00

For those of you who have struggled with me the past few months and consoled me on the many rejection letters that I faced from various agencies while trying to get a wildlife job that was permanent....I want to thank you. It has finally all paid off, and as of today I will now be the wildlife biologist for a private organization known as Idaho Power.....strange I know. Why would a power company need a wildlife bio you might ask, Well, its in their best interest. They do a lot of work on BLM, and Forest Service land that makes a huge impact on the resource. To counteract that, they hire a team of specialist to do habitat restoration and wildlife conservation projects. They conduct wildlife research and surveys and they develop projects constantly to mitigate their impact on the environment. They also have several properties that they have purchased (all open to the public) that they gear towards wildlife refuges. What does this mean for me???? 40-50% field work as opposed to the 10-20% that I get now, plus no more litigation and government paperwork. They have a whole separate department for that so I just get to do what I love and what I do best. The salary is fabulous even at the low end ( I have not been given a formal offer yet so I have no idea where I range yet because I have to pass the drug test first :) ), the only sucky part is that I have to commute to Boise.

I think eventually Brett and I will get a small car for the commute but in the mean time I am reunited with my great old boss who now works in Boise, and we are going to commute together.

No idea when I'm starting but I wanted to let everyone that I forgot to call, know, I'm so overjoyed and yet so tired from the emotional roller coaster, but this is definitely a good thing, and although I will greatly miss my coworkers and partnerships through the BLM, it was time that I looked out for me, and who knows, maybe someday I will return there, maybe not, but I will stay in touch with the folks who really helped me survive that place.

Hope all is well in your worlds, I'm off to bed!

later

Best Birthday EVER!!!

2008-07-12T18:19:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I got to experience the best birthday EVER! This has only been topped by my 30th birthday of last year where Brett took me skydiving, and although not as long as this birthday, the thrill was amazing and I would do it again in a heartbeat! For those of you who do not know me, it is extremely hard for me to have a good birthday. Because my birthday is in the middle of summer, and so close to a national holiday, it is often forgotten, by friends, and family, and when I was a kid, it always sucked because I never got to bring birthday treats to school. Since everyone was gone for the summer, I was left with no glory of my own to parade around the classroom with my birthday sticker plastered to my shirt and a crown upon my head. Birthdays are very important to me, not only mine, but I love to do cool things for my family and friends. Its the only day out of the year that truly belongs to you.

so this year, my neighbors went to the coast of Oregon for a month and they said to us as they left "you should come out for a weekend". We weren't going to because of the gas prices, but then I thought, this could be my birthday gift from Brett, and we never go anywhere anymore, AND, its really ugly here in eastern OR right now because of the drought and fire season (everything is brown and the sun never quits....sound familiar? ...much prettier landscape than Vernon though), so we went and had a fabulous time.

We spent our days clamming and crabbing, and hanging out on the beach. I tried clamming but sustained a serious injury to my finger (they don't call them razor clams for nothin') so I explored tide pools with my camera and found that to be a much better activity while the boys clammed. I'm not so much the hunter and gatherer. It was nice to be near the water and the weather was perfect! A beautiful 65-70 degrees as opposed to the 105 that I left behind. Dave and Jan left the morning of my birthday after leaving me with a cake and some singing, and Brett and I spent the day exploring various beaches (you can take the boy out of eastern Oregon but you can't take the eastern Oregon out of the boy....he simply had to try and rope something with this giant piece of seaweed), hiking, beach combing and lounging. We also went to the quaint town of Bandon and explored the shops, bought some wine and ate lunch. On the way back to camp we found a nice wooded trail to hike as well. Once back at camp, we headed for the beach with our chairs and wine to take in the last few waves and sand of the vacation, before heading to a nice restaurant with a view of the bay for my birthday dinner. It was a fantastic birthday so much of the relaxation I was craving. I love that it's all in the same state I live in, still it was hard to come back to the heat and the dry conditions.

Another year older, and happy at that!

Cheers

Na na na na na na na na BAT GIRL!!!!!!!!

2008-06-22T06:14:00.000-07:00

Hey, aren't these guys cute? Not the blood sucking junkies you thought they were huh? Though they do have some sharp teeth, some of which I felt quite a few times on this trip....especially those of one really pissed off male that I took out of the net, but no need to worry, although none of us were using gloves, we all have our pre-exposure rabies vaccine, so we're immuned to the disease should a rabid bat bite us. I don't however recommend this if you don't have your shots. Post-exposure vaccination is REALLY expensive and painful and the alternative to that is foaming at the mouth, and eventually croaking and I really don't want that on my head so please please please don't handle wildlife all you average Joe's out there, (and by average I mean the smarter people who aren't willing to get bit repeatedly, lose many hours of sleep at a time and hike to hell and back for peanuts worth of pay and no job security) its not cool to die.

That was my little service announcement and we are now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

So we are part of this state wide push to get as much data on as many bat species in our state as we can catch in order to enhance conservation measures. These little guys are pretty condition specific and habitat specific and since they are known for making their roosts under bridges, in mine shafts and even houses, they face major human destruction and disruption which can eventually kill off a species. So we do surveys every year to find out who's out there and where they're hanging out (pun was intended).

I went to the training session this past week and will be conducting surveys in my district this coming week. The entire time I was trapping this week we caught over 150 bats total which made for a busy week. I am having a hard time returning to my nocturnal roots after so many years working with birds and other critters that operate in the daytime. With every capture, we weighed them, checked reproductive status, measured forearm length and took samples for DNA analysis which is sometimes the only way to distinguish between certain species. We conducted most of our surveys at higher elevations where the nighttime temps were still in the 35-40 degree range, which made it hard for these guys to stay warm while we were processing them. A lot of times after we were finished with them, they would just hang out on us to get warm enough to take off and fly away. They seemed to like the neck region most and were perfectly content to just hang out. As long as you weren't actually holding on to them, they didn't bite at all. Then when they were good and toasty, they would fly off. Our acoustics crew waited for these moments when they could record free flight calls with these little devices (seen in my hand). They would then download the calls into this super cool program called Sonobat which would spit out a computer image like the one shown above, which would tell you (based on freq, inflection, length of the call etc) what type of species you were looking at. This is valuable information for what species you have in an area because you won't always catch all species in a net. I had a lot of fun playing with acoustics, and the guy who developed this program was with us on the trip and he's really nice, fun and really really smart.

So we set up nets in 2 different sagebrush steppe habs, and 2 forested habs during the week. We spent the day hours in the classroom portion of the training and by the end of the week we were all loopy with exhaustion.

On the way home my coworker and I stopped at a bridge where we knew there to be a maternity roost for bats. What we found was pretty cool. ODOT (Oregon Department of Transportation) had put up these roosting boxes to protect the bats from predators and human intervention, and although it's not a close up photo, you can see that they are using them (by the urine stains on the walls and the piles of guano below). You couldn't actually see the bats in them (which is good since these bridges are a past time for heavy beer drinkers, drug users and other assorted shady members of the public). However we also looked at a smaller and older bridge and found one little lonely male hanging out by himself and catching some zzzzz's. There was also a resident Great Horned Owl which was not happy with our presence there, so we moved off after collecting some guano.

Overall the week was fun, the people were weird and kind of irritating but I had forgotten how cool these guys are, and how much I enjoy working with bats. It's been about 7 years since I've worked with bats and back then I was working with fruit bats which are about 4 times the size of these guys and you definitely didn't want to be handling them without gloves!

These guys are little fighter planed equipped with all the latest technology, we think we're so advanced with all we can do with computers and such but these guys have been doing this for hundreds of years before we even thought about it....how cool is that!

So next week I continue the bat work, and I am hoping we catch a spotted bat (they are sooooooo cool looking....much like a flying dalmatian). Hopefully I'll have some more cool photos for you guys.

Till then, I need to go get more sleep.
Hope everyone is well!

Peace Out People

An Oasis In the Desert that is my life :)

2008-06-12T20:12:00.001-07:00

You know, every now and then I stop whatever it is that I am doing out in the field, and I slap myself (sometimes literally) and I think "Holy Shit (yes I swore)... I actually get paid to do this!" Yesterday was one of those days, when I was in fact getting paid to be a big fat kid again and play in the mud, the muck and water catching frogs.....I know I can hardly believe it myself. Just think, if in all the offices all around the globe; if everyone was able to go catch frogs on a day when they are about to kill their cubie mate, or take a baseball bat to the fax machine, what a happier working world we would be. I am fortunate enough to have such a set up, because literally I was about to kill my cubie mate and in the world of science, this is the anger management course you should take :)

For every individual out there that thinks that all eastern Oregon is, is ugly brown desert full of rednecks and Mormons, I urge you to really look at these photos, because, in very few deserts on this planet are there hidden little treasures such as this, which, ironically enough is named "Dry Creek", or Crick (as my coworkers call it, I myself am more refined than that.....yeah whatever).

I went out all day yesterday with US Fish and Wildlife Service, in search of these adorable little frogs, the Columbia Spotted Frog which happen to be a threatened species. So not only was I having the (much needed) time of my life, I was also doing good deeds for wildlife. No one really knows what makes these guys tick but we're working on it. Amphibians in general are indicator species, because their skin is so permeable to toxins in the environment, that they are usually the first ones to let you know there's an issue with what's happening out there. So we caught a whole ton of these guys and placed pit tags inside of them (much like microchipping your dog) that we can scan them for ID. We measured, weighed and turned them loose, but they held there own against us, as it was not easy to catch them. Early on in the morning it was freezing out, so they were sluggish and I managed to get these few really cool photos, but when it warmed up things really stepped up.

What a great day out there, and we saw all kinds of cool other stuff that most people will never see in their life time. Some of it I got photos of and some of it I just stared in awe as my camera hung loosely from my hand. We saw a badger, a western tanager, Deer, elk, cool little water insects, this really cute green tree frog, and these baby redwing blackbirds that had just hatched and were awaiting the arrival of their counterparts. I really needed this... really, if I don't get out enough, I start to become jaded by human activity and indifference about life in general, but every time I get to go and do something like this, it seems to give me the motivation to move on, and the energy to not give up, hard as it may be. Plus I get to practice my photography skills....not too shabby eh?

all of this I assure you though, was not without price. This stretch was 4 miles long (which may not seem that long) except 4 miles on straight highway is entirely different than 4 miles through rocky terrain. We started at 9am and finished at 6pm and I had a 35lb pack on the whole time.

I can only type at this point because it doesn't require the use of my upper arms or legs.

Off to bed now for me after a bath in Sports Creme.....its hell getting old!

Cheers!

More Garden Tour Photos

2008-06-06T15:02:00.001-07:00

Aren't these colors amazing!!!!!!!!!

I can't wait until next year's garden tour!

2008 Malheur County Garden Tour

2008-06-01T18:06:00.000-07:00

Oh man, was I jealous attending the 2008 Malheur County Garden Tour.....so many ideas, so much money, so much time, what's a gardener to do ! The garden tour was Saturday from 1-5pm and there were 7 gardens on the tour. I went alone because my friends were busy, but I'm actually glad I went alone. It gave me time to feel inspired, and relax a little, and go at my own pace. Each garden had classical music or bluegrass playing outside, refreshments, and with the weather absolutely perfect, it was really wonderful to be out. These are photos from the first stop. This garden was my favorite and I can only hope of having something so beautiful some day. If I had a place like this I would never leave my house, and I would spend every day out in the yard with my artwork or a camera, or a good book. how depressed these guys must be when winter comes huh? Their place was huge and every turning of a corner was a new surprise. In addition they had a really impressive vegi garden. Hopefully some day I will have as nice a place. We'll see. I'll post the rest of the photos throughout the week but for now, I'll just post these few to get your green thumbs itching!

We also went to Gillian and Matt's house for a BBQ after and had a great time. We all played Badminton (which I haven't played in years) and drank way too much whiskey but it was a lot of fun and a great day to be outside. I get to take tomorrow off from work which is a much needed break for me, and so I plan on working in the yard and trying to get ahead of my weeds before I have to leave town Wed-Fri.

Hope everyone is well!

Frustrating Times

2008-05-08T12:24:00.000-07:00

I apologize ahead of time for the tour inside my brain that this post will follow, but I'm having a rough day at work and as I am not always so brutally honest about my feelings in my posts, I feel that I just need to get this out on screen and out of my head, and who better to share it with than those closest to me... so here goes:
So I've been recently thinking of moving again if I can find a permanent position someplace else. This is a hard time for Brett and I because it seems like all we do is sit and wait for something to happen that will put us in a comfortable spot so we can start to enjoy life a little. I have been a wildlife "tech" at the B*M (the names were somewhat changed to protect the guilty) for over a year now and have been repeatedly screwed out of permanent position after permanent position and I am starting to believe that it's just not going to happen for me. I cannot continue to be a seasonal employee because we can't live off of what I am making right now. I am constantly on a job hunt right now and it's a frustrating time for me. Its pretty hard to fit in at work lately because, of my small group of friends here I am the only person who does not have a permanent job (a topic that comes up a lot) and I am (oddly enough) the only person who is not a mom...side note there but it makes one feel rather out of place, and it's also a topic that surfaces a lot. (Don't worry I'm not going to go pop out a kid to fit in).
It's been really making me grouchy lately and I'm not sure what to do with that. I certainly don't like feeling like this, its not really my normal MO, and on the weekends I forget about it but when the weekday comes here I am again, turning in circles and banging my head against the wall.

So why am I writing all this? because I just need to get it out of my head so I don't feel so badly today. I need to let people I care about really know what a challenge I am up against lately, maybe I could get some words of encouragement or understanding...maybe. Brett and I knew that finding wildlife jobs for two people would never be easy but I never thought it would be this hard, and the increased cost of groceries, fuel, etc is partly driving this, but it's more out of frustration. It's hard to watch everyone else around you find decent jobs and have some security in doing so while you are holding 2 degrees in your hand and waving madly saying "what about me? I'm still over here?". So, instead of fighting it in order to stay here, I am trying to come to terms with the fact that I will have to move at some point. It may not be today it may not be next year (or it might), but I am positive that I will have to leave here in the near future or risk going completely broke. This has certainly been a step up from ole Vernon Texas and I like it here a lot, but I can only hope that the next move will bring me that much closer to a dream I've had for some time now. Time will tell.
I hate to sound so morbid, but its been a rough couple of weeks and I think I just need to go home and rest, spend time with Brett, shut out the outside world.
I sure do love what I do, but currently I am not doing what I love and that's a frustrating place to be, though I am trying my hardest to make the best of it and taking the time out in the field to take photos of beautiful flowers, and enjoy the fresh air and the wildlife.

Here's Hoping for brighter Days!
Have a good weekend all!
SJ

Never a Dull Moment In My Life

2008-04-29T07:15:00.001-07:00

This morning I come to you with another tale for my ever growing novel about all the craziness that seems to fill my life on a daily basis....some of it funny, some of it ironic, and some of it just plain crazy. This is my little brother Wayne who is perhaps one of the coolest people I know, and one of my best friends in the whole world. The thing about him, is he really enjoys his privacy and his space, and he doesn't often answer his cell phone when people call, or even call them back when they leave a message. This is normal for him, and normally I don't think twice about it. The other thing about him is that although he may come across as gruff at times, he's really a softy and tends to end up befriending lost souls that he feels sorry for, plus he's really nice to old ladies and cashiers at the grocery store and I find that admirable. One of the lost souls that he is associated with is his very disturbed friend Kent (his fishing buddy). Kent is a bit 'off' mentally, has a bit of a drinking problem and is a compulsive liar, and still my brother puts up with him. No one knows why.
So last night Brett and I are chillin' on the beer porch and the phone rings. It's my mother (let it be known that my mom is not good in emergencies....she always thinks the worst and she always panics about everything!). She is sobbing hysterically and all I can get out of her is "Your brother....your brother....." so naturally my heart starts racing, as I'm trying to figure out what's wrong. Not to mention the fact that, she thinks something has happened to her son and I'M the first person she calls???!!! The one who lives a billion and a half miles away???? Unbelievable! I was like " mom who have you called so far? Have you called Laura (my sister)???" She replies " No, I've called no one, your the first person I've called" (Insert mental head slap).

Well, Kent apparently was drunk since like 3pm and called my mom at 9pm and told her that my brother was missing, that he called Wayne at 4pm and he never called him back and that his dogs hadn't been let out and the house was dark. SO Kent takes my brother's dogs over to his house (he doesn't have a key to my brother's house by the way...) and sends my whole family into a panic because my brother wasn't answering his phone (he was out to dinner with friends from work which no one knew and work had said he left at 4:30pm), my sister was busy calling the sheriffs department, my mom was calling hospitals and my brother had no idea what the hell was going on, except that he was now playing back his messages of all these hysterical family members wondering where he was when all he was doing was having dinner with people from work. Brett finally got a hold of my brother and my brother was like what the hell is going on and why are you people so crazy (its all pretty funny now, but wasn't at the time). I guess my brother was furious at Kent and really let him have it. In addition to sending his family into a panic, Kent also kept calling my brother's work looking for him so my brother got a call late last night from his boss checking on him. He was pretty embarrassed.
So I think Kent is out of the picture for good, which is probably for the better, but I'll tell you what, I was so emotionally exhausted from the whole event, and just relieved that my brother was ok, that when I got off the phone with him, Brett already had a glass of wine waiting for me which I promptly drank and then went to bed.
I think no matter how far I live from home or try as I may to escape the drama, I just think that it is part of my life and will end up making one hell of a novel some day.
Hoping that all your days are more normal than mine!
Cheers!
SJ

2008-04-22T09:29:00.000-07:00

Humankind has not woven the web of life.

We are but one thread within it.

Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.

All things are bound together. All things connect.

--- Chief Seattle

Happy Earth Day! Be Kind to the Earth today and everyday. Afterall we only get one planet.

-SJ

Doing good things for wildlife

2008-04-09T10:04:00.000-07:00

Well the title of this blog says it all. This is what I have been busy with lately which is why I haven't posted in a while. Doing good things for wildlife is what is very important to me (obviously) however, when you work for the government, it becomes one of those impossible tasks (depressing I know), because by the time the red tape is layered on and you cut it off, you're either completely drained and you give up or its too late to complete the project or task.

As many of you know, we had one of the worst wild fire seasons in a very long time, this past summer. Much of our critical Mule deer and Elk winter range habitat was burnt up in the Juniper Reservoir fire which totaled over 27,000 acres. We were supposed to get money to replant it with a very important winter range forage called bitterbrush (Purshia tridentata - I'm trying to learn my scientific names). We put in for $97,000 worth of seedlings to plant and got 0.....that's right NADA..... I was really discouraged by this, and here I sat with a bunch of volunteers from the Mule Deer Foundation who wanted to do a good thing by contributing funds to what we were going to do, to plant this area. What was I to tell them?

Well I did some digging (there is always money somewhere you just need to know who to bully and where to steal from :) ) and I found out that we had $40K in another fund that was going to get taken away if we didn't do something with it. So I have been working really hard to write up a contract to be able to use this money to purchase bitterbrush. It's all coming together despite the fact that we have hit some road blocks along the way and have had to revise this project a couple of times. Needless to say my big victory for the week is that 450 of the original 600 acres that was planned, will be planted with bitterbrush. 250 of that will be this year and 200 will be next year and I did it!!! I have been in the office all winter and about ready to go crazy and kill someone. Yesterday I got to go out with two of my very cool coworkers and head out to this site (a really cool place) , hike around and GPS potential planting sites. It was pretty cool up there and then it started to snow really hard and it was neat that I was taking photos of Sagebrush buttercup (Ranunculus glaberrimus) while it was snowing. We have been having some crazy crazy weather that's for sure. It was so beautiful out and as it turns out, it was exactly what I needed. A day out in the field did me some good. Anywho the photos above are of the burned area, and as you can see the snow started light and then got heavy so we had to bolt out of there or risk wrecking a truck or worse getting stuck up there. So that's what I've been up to. The weather is supposed to start getting better this weekend and I am sure I'll have some gardening and recreational photos to share. I am planning on trying out a new bike trail this weekend or taking my kayak out on the first run of the season.

Hope you are all well!

Cheers

Oh yeah I'm still alive.....

2008-03-16T07:47:00.000-07:00

Hey people,

Sorry I've been so absent. There are many reasons why. Mainly I've been really busy and haven't done anything particularly interesting to warrant blogging about it. I hope that will change with summer and the upcoming field season. I have some cool field projects coming up and I can't wait to take some photos. So what's been going on? Well a few weeks ago Brett and I headed up to Bogus Basin in Boise (say that ten times fast) to do some last bit of snowshoeing before Spring hits the mountains, which I don't think will happen anytime soon. It's kind of nice that you can revisit winter again if you should so choose by heading up or you can get back to spring in the valley. It was really beautiful up there and I think I've had my fix for this year. I am definitely ready for spring....not summer but spring definitely. I threw in this photo of Bo just because he looks pathetic. He's not fond of taking a bath....labs who don't like water???? ok they like water just not soap apparently. So we've been spring cleaning our dogs and snowshoeing.....and working which is taking up most of my time these days I really need to start working on that plan of mine to become independently wealthy.

Oh yeah and I have big plans for the beer porch out back this year. I'm thinking tropical oasis in the desert??? What are your thoughts??? Yesterday I bought some Sago Palms to flank the beer porch, and I bought some paving stones to make a path by the herb garden so the dogs can stop running through mud. That's really as far as I got, but baby steps people, baby steps. I want to get some outdoor carpeting to put on the porch to keep the wasps out of the holes in the wood and then I think we'll pick up some nice chairs for around the fire pit and maybe some hanging ferns......it all looks nice in my head.

I know you're thinking this is a heck of a lot of trouble to go through just to enjoy a beer, but then again you don't know how much my job is killing me right now. I need to trick myself into thinking I'm on vacation every night so I don't kill anyone......

Anywho, as projects get under way I'll post some more photos, and I'll try to include some entertaining stories as well (I was so much more creative in that hellhole I call Texas...people just aren't as ridiculous here I guess, irritating but not ridiculous)

Well I hope everyone is well, more to come

Cheers!

Lunar Eclipse

2008-02-20T14:38:00.000-08:00

Hey people, in case you haven't heard there is a Lunar Eclipse happening tonight and the next one won't happen until 2010 which I realize is only 2 years away, but you never know where you'll be in 2 years... you could be dead, who knows, so why not go and take a gander this evening eh? The peak for us here in Mountain Time will be 8:01-8:51pm, so you midwesterners will have the pleasure of seeing this beauty at 9:01-9:51pm and east coasters... well you get the idea, just add another hour onto that, and for you folks to the right of me, just subtract. It's that simple. I think Brett and I are going to take a little drive away from the light pollution of town to see this puppy in all it's glory. I hope you all get a chance to stop what you're doing tonight and go out to be amazed. Afterall we all know there's nothing on TV these days, so you have no excuse.

Enjoy!

The Results Are In

2008-02-11T08:34:00.001-08:00

Well, it so seems that I am not a complete idiot when it comes to photography after all. As you may have guessed from the previous post, I entered the district wide photo contest for the BLM. All of my 7 photos made it to state (thanks to everyone who helped me choose which ones to send), and they announced the winners this morning at our all employees meeting. I ended up taking home 2nd place in landscape for the above winter scene. I was really proud that I even won anything, and the fact that it was this one made me even happier, because this was one of my favorites! I'll get $50 in prize money for winning second. I also received honorable mention for my Sepia toned photo of Dago Gulch which is where we put in some guzzlers last spring. I certainly didn't expect to get anything out of this let alone 2 things, so I had to share with everyone.

I apologize for the lack of posts but I've been swamped with meetings, work, home projects and the like. I'm hoping to get back into posting regularly soon.

Hope everyone is well!

Cheers

Photo Contest!!!!!

2008-01-17T07:54:00.000-08:00

Ok so I need some opinions... I am no professional photographer by any means, but I am still learning and would like to learn, and hope to one day really have a knack for this....anywho, BLM is hosting a photo contest for all employees. I have decided to enter. You can enter up to 7 times in any combination of catagories. The catagories are :

Wildlife, Landscape, People/Recreation, Artisitc, Plants, At Work with the BLM, Cultural

My coworker Diane has selected the following of my photos that she liked and I need to narrow those down to 7. This is where you all come in.....especially Rachel (I'm counting on you !) Please look at the photos and post a comment on which ones you like for which catagory(optional on the catagory thing..... I don't want to stress anyone out ). I would really appreciate your imput. I have to turn them in next week by Thur. so let me know and thanks!!!!!

The bighorn Sheep Release

2007-12-18T05:03:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone, I am finally catching up on downloading and organizing my photos. So I am finally posting the Bighorn Sheep photos from the release that we did a couple of weeks ago about 2 hours south of where I live. This is the type of thing that I really love about what I do, getting the chance that no one else gets to get up close to these magnificent creatures. It's what really makes all the other crap worth it. Although I can't help feel sorry for these guys, to one day be out on a mountain happily grazing and then next thing they know they are being chased down by a helicopter, netted, air lifted into a horse trailer and dropped off some place completely different from where they started out with a radio collar on their neck. It is after all for the good of their kind, since everything seems to be so out of whack all over the planet, its projects like these that now have to be conducted if the species is to survive in this state. That part I hate. I hate that everything is so messed up but I don't think I'd have a job if it wasn't so it's 6 of one and 1/2 a dozen of the other and if you think about it too long and hard you can drive yourself nuts, so for this one day, I went out, released some amazing creatures, then went for a pretty cool hike with my coworkers. All in all it was a really nice day. Still I wish I could say to these guys and have them understand "heyI know this is weird, and it's going to suck for a little while and I know you don't like the necklace you've got now, but it will be off in a couple of years and you will survive all this.... we're not as cruel as you think we are", but I think that's just the caffeine talking this morning.

Cheers Everyone!

FYI

2007-12-12T06:43:00.000-08:00

For those of you interested, I finally posted the photos from the Oregon Coast. However because I started the post in November, it put it in Chronological order which means you have to scroll down in the blog past 2 posts to (I think) to see the photos.
That is all
S

Catching everyone up.....

2007-11-12T18:05:00.000-08:00

Well it's been a busy few months here and we've been entertaining friends and family as well as traveling quite a bit. I have been too busy to post lately so I'm trying to catch up. In September my bro came out to visit me and we had a blast. His visit was much too short though. We ended up doing some target shooting with my pistol, we hiked up to a beautiful hotspring and enjoyed the quiet, the warm water, and a few beers, and we hung out with my friends, played with the dog (At the time Sage was still an only child), and my brother cooked a lot of fabulous food for us. I miss that kid so much and I was sad when he left. He's one of my best friends and we always have so much fun when we see eachother.

Prior to my brother coming out to visit, we went to South Dakota for friends Amy and Eric's wedding. Brett was in the wedding and had a blast catching up with old college buddies. I had never been to SD before so it was a great trip for me. Brett took me around to all his old hang outs and we met up with his old landlords who he rented this house from while he went to school. They live out in the country and have tons of beautiful property around. They also raise buffalo and showed us their herd. The best place they own though in my opinion is this really cool old house that faces a pond which they call The Little House on the Prairie. When you go inside it looks like the real little house on the prairie. They rent it out to people from time to time. I thought it would be really cool to stay there but it was really cold and windy while we were there and there's no indoor plumbing :)

It really was a good time and I'd like to go back there again. His friends and their wives were so nice and made me feel really welcome.

And finally, Recently we went to the Oregon coast which I'll post photos from that a little later (there are so many good ones that it deserves its own post)!

But we had two new recent additions to the family.....one I already posted about which is this little devil

And the other....the more expensive one is .........

Our car was officially dying and we were torn on what to buy. with gas prices being what they are I really didn't want to drive Brett's truck to and from work, however we still needed something Brett could fit in, that was good in the snow and got decent gas mileage. The best buy for the money was this guy which is a 2008 Ford Escape and we love it. We were able to get a really good deal on it because Brett qualified for a friends and family of FORD program, otherwise I'm not sure we would have purchased it. In any case it should last us a long long time, and in the mean time I will be enjoying the inhalation of new car smell! I love the color too....it's called Kiwi.

Well that's all the new for now, I have to go break up a dog fight between the kids, I hope everyone is doing well and I hope to see you guys over the holidays!

Cheers!

Sandiana

Ahhhh....The Oregon Coast

2007-11-07T11:53:00.000-08:00

So here are my images from the beautiful Oregon coast. I had forgotten to post these after the trip since I got busy with other things and so I am posting them now. We went to Rockaway Beach in October with friends Kate, Chad, Brian and Michelle, and we had a blast! 4 fabulous days in a beach house by the sea, fishing for crab, watching the sun rise and set over the ocean, playing with my camera and enjoying great food, wine and good friends. We spent the days, crabbing from the dock and trying to keep the seals form stealing our bait, we also toured the Tillamook Cheese factory and a winery as well. The weather was cold but sunny and the people in Rockaway beach were fantastic especially the girls who worked at the Dragonfly coffee shop who spilled the beans on all the local hot spots for fishing as well as giving us some kick butt recipes for crab. She was really cool and it should be noted that should you ever find yourself in Rockaway Beach, be sure to stop by the Dragonfly because they seriously have the best White Chocolate Raspberry scones I have ever had!

In the evenings we tried our hand at clamming which was fun, but challenging. The ones seen in the bucket up above are cockles which are the easiest to find. The others we tried we did by the light of a full moon and had absolutely no success after hiking 1.5 miles to get there and then spending 2 hrs trying to dig. It was still fun though. I think my favorite part of the whole weekend was just roaming the beach with my camera alone and listening to the ocean. We did end up having a bonfire on the beach one night which was awesome, but it was really cold out so we didn't stay there too long.

I can't wait to go back, but I think we'll head there in the Spring this time when we can bike, whale watch and perhaps camp. I took some fairly cool nature photos on this trip but did not want to bog down the blog with 1,000 photos so I'll post some of my favorites on my crafty website for people to look at.

I hope everyone is well and enjoying the holiday season. Its freezing up here, there's snow and I am a happy camper. This chicky does not fair well in the warm temps!

stayed tuned for other spots this week from the bighorn sheep release that I helped out on and our venture to the mountains for a really cool Christmas tree.

Cheers!

-SJ

Pretty Pictures...Don't give up on me!

2007-11-01T11:31:00.001-07:00

Ok, So here are some pretty pictures ( I took these while hiking up to one of our guzzler sites a week ago...what a beautiful fall day it was outside!) so that you won't get bored and give up on my blog. My name is Sandy and I am a Blog Slacker. I can't help it, I've been swamped lately, borderline depressed from stress and sleep deprivation, and other related items. So far I'm still employed though for how much longer I'm not sure. I'm applying for my boss's job since he is moving up and out but it's hard to say if I'll get it or not. I refuse to be hopeful since it usually backfires on me. In the interim, we have a new puppy named Bo (see previous post) who continues to exhaust me while at the same time cheering me up with his goofy awkwardness and silly expressions ( I doubt that Sage would agree on this...well except for the exhausting part). we also recently took a break from our daily rituals to travel to the Oregon Coast with friends. It was a blast and a much needed break. I will hopefully post photos of this tomorrow night, but suffice it to say that it was hard to come back to the desert after spending so much time on the beach listening to the waves crashing the shore everyday. Still I'm glad that it's always within reach as opposed to a several days drive or flight from any place else I've ever lived.

In other news. Brett's mom was diagnosed with breast cancer a couple months ago. Even now I can't believe that I'm typing and saying this. I didn't mention it before because I wanted to keep things private for her sake. That being said, she is doing remarkably well with her chemo treatments and the doctors are very optimistic for a full recovery. we're all hoping for the best and trying to be supportive from very far away which is difficult. So it's been a challenge for us to stay on top of everything lately but we're doing our best. We try to talk to friends and family often, but it's not easy sometimes, but it doesn't mean we don't love and miss all of you bunches.

Signing off for now, I hope you are all well!

-SJ

Meet Bo

2007-10-15T19:31:00.001-07:00

Well everyone, I'd like you to meet our latest pride and joy, 'Bo'. He is a 10 wk old black lab, and we acquired him Saturday night. Brett and I had a Pheasants Forever banquet this Sat. and they had this little guy up on the live auction. I was in charge of parading him around so people could see him and I felt horrible about it because the little guy was so overwhelmed and scared of all the loud noise and people. I quickly became attached to him and when I saw who was bidding on him, I couldn't bare to let him go home with any of these people so before I knew what I was doing, I was bidding on him, and as fate should have it....I won. Lucky for Bo. Brett and I weren't entirely prepared to take on a pup just yet, and so it's been a little bit of an adjustment, but we're adapting, and so is Sage although she is adapting way worse than we are. She is not happy giving up her only child status but every once in a while I catch her being nice. She'll get used to it, I did....after all I hated my brother when he was little and now we're best friends!

Well I have more photos to post from my brother's visit out here and our trip to SD but I wanted to get these photos in first, since everyone has been asking about our little guy. Enjoy!

-Sandiana

Back from Maine!

2007-08-30T17:16:00.000-07:00

Well I know we've been back for a while now but I haven't gotten the chance to share photos so here they are. It was amazing in Maine and despite lots of people everywhere and a few undesirable moments with the weather.....it was a fantastic trip. I love being by the ocean and we got to spend every day there which was fantastic. It was unseasonably hot while we were there and although it was hard to resist swimming in the ocean....the water was SO cold. While we were there we went kayaking around Acadia National Park and saw harbor seals, Osprey, crabs, and dolphins which were too far away to get a photo of, we also went whale watching but I don't have the photos from that developed yet so you'll have to wait. We camped in Acadia National Park which was wonderful and we did lots of hikes. We tried to steer clear of the most popular trails and so we managed to find a few deserted trails owned by TNC which were some of the nicest we went on. And of course we had fresh lobster which was Brett's favorite part of the whole trip... doesn't he look cute in his Lobster bib? I had to take a JcPenny photo in mine :)

And for those of you wondering about the random glass of beer photo..... that was a blueberry ale that I tried there which was SOOOOOO GOOOOOD! I was so happy drinking it I had to take a photo. It was hard to come home from such a beautiful place and we were so happy while we were there that I think we'll go back again and maybe see some of the things we missed, or other parts of the the coast.

I'll post more photos when I get them developed but these were some of my favorites.

Later
SJ

Chief Joseph Days

2007-08-04T07:02:00.000-07:00

Wow, we had so much fun up at Chief Joseph Days..... too much fun..... the kind of fun that hurts days afterwards, but none the less, fun. My friend Michelle (seen above with my friend Kate) is From Joseph and she invited myself, Brett, and friends Kate and Chad up with her and her fiance Brian, to hang out with her family, camp, drink way too much, kayak and enjoy all the festivities. It was a blast. The boys went out on Friday to scout for Elk, and so the girls loaded up the kayaks with some ice, beer and SPF and headed out to beautiful Lake Wallowa.....This lake is so beautiful and the water is so clean (rare I know)( I had to take a photo of how clear the water was) that you can see about 30 feet down to the bottom. We swam (chilly but so refreshing in the 90 degree temps), kayaked and met some random people out in the middle of the lake to hang out with, and then returned home to get ready for the Rodeo. Rodeos aren't really my thing, but it made for some great people watching and was a little different than what I experienced in Texas. There were no confederate flags at least :)

Saturday we all stumbled to the Parade in town which was the longest parade I have ever been to. We left after 2 hrs and it was still going! They had representatives from all the area rodeo clubs plus my favorite part which was the Nez Perce tribe doing their traditional dances and wearing their traditional garb. It was pretty cool to watch. They even had their tee pees all set up in town at their camp. Later that day we shopped a little in town, and then Kate and Michelle went back to the rodeo and Brett and I went out to kayak and swim in the evening which was really nice. We even saw some nesting ospreys and a young mule deer while we were out, but no bears. It was too hot. All in all it was a fabulous weekend, and I was sad to have to go back to work, but we plan on heading up there again sometime in the near future and making a trip out to the even more impressive, Redfish Lake in ID. Hopefully the fires will taper down and I can get some decent photos. These are pretty hazy because of the smoke coming in from Hells Canyon ironically enough. Anywho I hope everyone is having a great summer. My sis and the kids as well as my bro in law are in town so we'll be busy this weekend and I can post more photos later.

Cheers!

Sandiana

A trip to the east coast

2007-07-23T15:22:00.000-07:00

We are making our first trip to the east coast in a month and I am so psyched! Brett and I had some free travel vouchers to use and so we decided to go somewhere we've never been before. we have both always wanted to go to Maine and even though it would be nice to go in the fall when the leaves are changing.... I need a vacation yesterday so we are going in the summer so we can still take advantage of swimming, kayaking and such while the weather is still warm. I'm so excited. We are flying into Portland on the 21st of August and then driving along the coast to Acadia National Park, while kayaking and biking along the way. We'll be camping in Acadia for the majority of our trip and then heading back to Portland on the 27th to fly out. I bought a guide book on Acadia today and so Brett and I will be spending our mini vacation up in Joseph, OR (this weekend for chief Joseph days) researching and planning our big vacation to Maine.

that's all just wanted to share because this is the only thing that hasn't made today totally suck.

Hope everyone is having a nice summer

Cheers

Sandiana

Bad News for the West

2007-07-17T21:14:00.000-07:00

Can you comprehend 20,000 acres???? This is what it looks like when 20,000 acres gets torched. It may just look like blackened hillside, but it was once completely full of Sage brush, various forbs, Aspens, bitter brush and other species all important to wildlife. This area was some of the best habitat that we have down here in terms of deer and elk winter range and it's all gone now. driving down the road to the fire camp it was hard for me to keep my eyes from wandering off the road in amazement at the devastation that today is still growing. Just when we start to control one set of fires, 4 more pop up. That's what happened today. I had to pick up some smoke jumpers in Ironside which is about an hour NW of Vale where I work. I then took them back to their base in McCall ID....another 2 hr drive for me and 2 hrs back. By the time I got back, a full storm system had come through the area, bringing lightening and more fire. We now have 4 new fires in addition to the 3 we are already trying to fight, and resources are slim. How many more acres will we lose before summer's end? Hard to tell, but I thought I would share some photos to show you what the news isn't showing you.

More on the others at a later date!

Cheers

Sandiana

The Best Birthday Ever!

2007-07-10T05:45:00.000-07:00

Wow, what an amazing birthday! As you can tell I took to the clouds for my big birthday thanks to Brett, who made it possible for me to be able to cross something off my life list of things to do before I die. He surprised me with it Friday night and Saturday I did the jump so I didn't have time to back out. I was pretty nervous I'm not going to lie, but it was truly the most amazing feeling. I didn't get sick , cry or even swear a whole lot.... that's progress. I did a tandem dive and my instructor was really cool as was the other guy that went with us. And so I dropped from over 10,000ft, with a 40 second free fall at 120 mph. Didn't feel like 120 mph because with the wind resistance it just felt like you were floating, and then the parachute came out and it was a quiet float to the ground with a pretty soft landing. We were supposed to land on our butts, but I had trouble getting my legs up that high (no comments please), I guess my quad muscles still need some work, and so I did a knee landing but it was really soft so I wasn't hurt at all. I would do this all again in a heart beat because it was that fun. I am also thinking of looking into the schooling for it. It's amazing how hooked you get on it right away. I can't wait to go again. Brett and I are going to do a jump for our anniversary in Oct. I can't wait. So after the jump he and I went out to breakfast and I called everyone I knew to let them know that I was still alive, then I came home and crashed and got called in to work fire that evening. So all in all an extremely eventful week, and weekend. I got some wonderful gifts from friends and family and lots of great cards. So thanks to everyone, and I hope everyone is having a kick butt summer

Later

Sandiana

Come on Baby light my Fire

2007-07-07T16:41:00.000-07:00

Well after a series of dry thunderstorms and strong winds ripping through the area last night, we find ourselves in the middle of one hell of a fire season. Brett and I stepped outside last night after the storm and could smell smoke instantly. After my much anticipated birthday surprise this morning (more about that later to include photos as well), we headed home from Boise and there was a message of desperation on my machine, from the BLM. And just like that it's begun, and I am currently on fire assignment on my birthday weekend from now until who knows when. We currently have 16 major fires in action right now, and more could come about in the days to come....good times. Anywho not sure when I'll be home again, but hopefully I'll be able to post some photos soon of the birthday event. It was my best birthday I've ever had hands down. And Brett is the best husband ever! More later, I'm off.
-SJ

Got H2O?????

2007-07-05T12:44:00.000-07:00

Here's where I was on Tuesday. See the mountain in the background with the little notch on it? I was up there. seems small in the photo but I assure you it's not. The hike is long and strenuous, especially when it is 105 degrees outside....well I guess up there it would have been about 95 degrees, but still. I started my day at 10am. got to the base of the mountain then, ate a sandwich,drank a liter of H2O and started to hike up to GPS a fence line. I had my camelback with me as well. I consider myself an experienced hiker and have never had trouble running out of water or getting lost etc. Well, I never did check the inside of my water pack to see how I was fairing and because of the weight of my gear in the pack I thought I was still carrying water weight so I continued on with my day. At 2pm I finished GPSing the fence line, and was about to hit an old jeep trail and start the hike back to my rig when I realized I was completely out of water. I was a little panicky at that point but still felt pretty hydrated to I kept hiking, hoping to make it back to the rig before dying of thirst. What happened next was rather unexpected. Heat exhaustion hit me hard and fast and I was down in a matter of min, feeling sick,dizzy, weak, hot, tired, and my mouth felt like sand paper. Luckily I had a radio with me and after several minutes of trying to talk myself into hiking on and trying to make it back to my vehicle, I decided to call for help. I knew I was about 8 miles out in steep terrain with no water in 95 degree heat and I was not going to make it. That call was made to dispatch at 2:15pm. rescue first responders did not reach me until 4:45pm, They did not get me off the mountain until 6:30pm and I did not reach the hospital until 8:30pm. A very long day for me but I have never felt so happy to see people in my life and more importantly drink water. I was still feeling a little silly about having to call for help until they took my vitals and told me my Blood pressure was really high, my breathing was shallow, I wasn't sweating and my temperature and heart rate were also elevated to nearly dangerous levels. I never did pass out (which was good) but I remember having a hard time communicating with them and staying awake. All I wanted to do was sleep. When they finally got me into the ambulance and hooked up to an IV I was starting to feel much better and everything was returning to normal. So it was a very long day and long week. I'm still feeling tired and they said that was to be expected, I've been ordered to stay in doors for 2-3 days and if I go out in the field next week I have to go with someone which is fine with me. It was a pretty scary experience and I worried that people would think I was foolish and didn't bring enough water when the truth was I brought a lot of water but my body was using it twice as fast and I probably needed to be drinking about a gallon and a half of water out there, if not 2 gallons. The moral of the story is Drink lots of water and never underestimate the needs of the human body, it's not something to mess around with. for today I am sitting in the air conditioning filling out workman's comp paper work. I'm sure the BLM will be pleased with the $5,000 bill I racked up on Tues. just glad I didn't have to pay for it.
Ok I'm off, stay safe, stay hydrated, stay happy this summer.
SJ

"A Seven Hour Tour....A Seven Hour Tour"

2007-06-24T15:03:00.000-07:00

Oh my what a weekend! Rachel came into town to visit this weekend and because we have both been a little stressed out lately we decided to make the weekend a whirl wind of fun activities. It was to be a quadathalon....(yes we made that up) with the main events being Kayaking, biking, crafting and drinking! I should have known when I woke up on Friday morning that the day would not go well. It all started when I tried to transplant my butterfly ginger outdoors only to dig up someone's dead cat in our yard. The smell was horrendous and I kept envisioning scenes from Pet cemetery in which this cat would haunt my house at night because I dug up it's decaying corpse. It was not pretty. Rachel showed up at 12:30p and I thought the day would begin to get better. We headed to Meridian to get her a kayak only to face about an hours worth of traffic, we couldn't find the kayak place, when we did they said they didn't rent at that store so we had to go to Boise. By the time we actually got to the put in it was 5:30pm.....mind you we started our day at 1:30p. All was well on the river for a while, some technical light rapids but nothing major. I had never done this river stretch before so I was relying on my trusty guide that apparently was written about 8 yrs ago! The guide said "follow the widest portion of the river for most of the way, when you get to a spot where you can't tell which side is wider, go right" .....ummmm......we stayed right for the most part and I'll be damned if I ever encountered a portion where I couldn't tell the difference. Well somehow we ended up on this canal (unknown to us) and all was still well until we encountered a tree in the path that would not allow for safe passage, I was going to try it anyway but I was glad that Rachel talked some sense into me....that meant however, that we had to trudge our way through hip deep marsh water loaded with Mosquitoes, hike the boats up the hill full of stinging nettle and thistle... and more mosquitoes until we could pass the obstacle, and I would lose my paddle along the way, swear my head off and have to go back through it twice more to retrieve paddle and come back. The photo above shows me paddling the road to safe passage :) We were going to tell everyone that the river was running a little low. Hey what can I say, at that point it was either get really pissed off (oh wait we did that too... in fact I believe there was a lot of swearing involved mostly by me) or get loopy and take goofy photos. There's also a photo of the crap that we walked through but it doesn't look nearly as bad in the photo as what it actually was.

So there we were back on the river (or so we thought) and we suddenly hear rushing water... much like that of a waterfall, So we paddle to the bank again, get out to look and realize that we are in fact on the canal and we are about to head for an irrigation dam with a 3ft fall....so we get out.....blah blah blah... mosquitoes....swearing....cut up by barbed wire.....yada yada yada. Continue paddling, find the river we are supposed to be on, call husband elated that our journey is almost finished only to find out from husband that we have 3-4 more miles.....GRRRR! At which point I think we were done and the only thing keeping us going was the prospect of Burger King and Jack's hard lemonade. We got to the take out at 9:30pm, bit up, dirty, cut up and pissed off. The best part of that whole day is seen in the above sunset photo with that challenging stretch in our dust, the sun at our backs and the kayaks in back.

Although the river stretch was pretty, I think we would have enjoyed it more if we weren't so busy panicking about where we were and how we were going to get out of there with more than 1 pint of blood left in our bodies.

In any case we scrapped all plans of great ambition for the rest of the weekend and just enjoyed a beautiful Saturday at the Boise farmer's market, REI, the yarn and fiber store in Ontario, and then home for a relaxing afternoon of hanging out, eating dessert, drinking wine and going for a mild bike ride. Much better than Friday's activities. We can definitely save the quadathalon for another weekend.

Hope everyone had a fun an interesting weekend too!

Cheers Sandiana

Been a while

2007-06-14T16:35:00.000-07:00

Well I'm sorry it's been so long but June is turning out to be a crazy crazy month for us starting with the fact that Brett's parents surprised us with a visit. They are still here until Tues. and we are having a good time showing them around. We took them to Boise last Sat. for the farmers market, a trip to the Boise Co-op and coffee with some family members who live in Boise. They had a great time. we haven't done a whole lot since then, since I have to work but i did hand them BLM rec map and they have done some sight seeing on their own. We were supposed to go to Hells Canyon this weekend for a jet boat ride through the canyon but Brett's dad threw out his back and so we've cancelled. not sure what we're going to do instead but I'm sure we'll figure something out. last night we had friends over for dinner and we had a huge feast on fresh seafood from the coast that they brought back from their trip. I haven't eaten that much in a long time. It was incredible. Other than that I've just been working and trying to find free time to work on my manuscript, kayak, bike and craft. I have discovered I am not that good at juggling all that, but I'm trying. Well hopefully I'll have some photos to post in the next couple of days from their visit. Until then I hope everyone is doing well
Take care
Jones

Guzzler Project

2007-05-08T19:51:00.000-07:00

So this weekend was extremely eventful and exhausting. I started my job with BLM last Monday and was immediately thrown into a guzzler project. For those of you who don't know what that is..... it's not a drinking event, .....I guess the simplest way to explain it is it's a tank that is buried in the ground with what's called an apron on top (shown above....the black thing) that catches snow melt and rain in the mountains and filters and sends it to a drinker tank (the tan thing) where big horn sheep and other wildlife can have a clean drinking source during the hottest parts of the summer when water is scarce. They started doing this specifically with Bighorns because their numbers are decreasing and one of the theories as to why has to do with blue-green algal blooms in primary water sources that are killing the sheep. Anywho many of the sites where we put these things are hard to get to, so materials and often personnel are flown into the sites, hence why I have a flight suit on and helmet. It was a lot of work, (we had 85 volunteers show up that we had to feed) and at times it was frustrating and tiring, but we also had good food, beautiful scenery (especially the stars at night), no injuries, and we made some new friends. Oh and did I mention the good looking men I got to spend my days with.....I'll tell ya those helitech guys sure do make my job nicer especially when I get to sit at a site with them for 5 hours! Anywho the highlight of course was the helicopter ride. There's nothing like seeing that country from the air and we saw some bighorns too which was cool. I was flown to the highest site and then I hiked down with a lady I met there. The hike was beautiful but it kicked my butt, that and all the heavy lifting and such, I still feel like rubber legs. All in all it was a good weekend, I'm just sore and tired and haven't had a break. Looking forward to this weekend for sure! Well enjoy the photos. I'll post some more later this week.

Take care all

Sandiana

A Little Bit A Monica.......

2007-04-14T13:56:00.000-07:00

Well well well, just when I thought that I wouldn't have any interesting characters to write about in my new home. Then came Monica, a teacher friend to Marie, (which is how we met), a total bitch to her very submissive husband Mike, and now an alcoholic stalker.......who knew things could be this interesting in any other place besides Vernon, TX. It seems to be that no matter where I go the over dramatic, whiny and often insane seem to follow me, and just when I can't take it anymore I seem to change zipcodes.... which is not a half bad way to escape the inevitable craziness that seems to follow. So Monica.....how do I describe her. INSANE. She is married to this quiet little computer tech who she dominates in all aspects of their marriage. In looking at them as a couple it is much like looking at the monkeys at the zoo. You can't help stare and wonder. Monica's favorite past times are shopping, talking about how skinny she is (while telling you exactly how many carbs are actually in that 78 oz banana split you're scarfing down... exaggerating of course), berating her husband and humiliating him in public, blowing money like there's no tomorrow, and drinking to get drunk which now leads to her newest favorite activity which is sleeping around behind her husband's back. FANTASTIC individual. She also likes to tell people that she has done nothing wrong and they are all insane for spreading lies......except for one tiny little fact...... I happen to be friends with one of the guys that she slept with behind Mike's back, and incidentally stalked incessantly until just a week ago when he told her to get lost. Why do I know all of this you might ask.......well because someone pasted a huge sign on my forehead a long time ago that said please let me in on all your problems and drama and feel free to talk to me about the most intimate details of your life at all times.......I wish I knew how to remove the sign. In any case I thought that my novel was near done but it appears that I have still more characters to add. Monica is by far the most crazy person I have met here, and she continues to amaze me with her antics (i.e. being spotted by another teacher's husband in the park, in her truck with some other guy......who was indeed not her husband) Ummmmm........Ontario......small town.......and you're a flippin' teacher!!!!????? Wow..... we have a real genius on our hands here ladies and gents.....oh and did I mention she and her husband are trying to have a kid? Well they may end up having a kid.... hard to say who the baby daddy will be but none the less. Hmmmm....... my thoughts on this whole business, well I have never actually known someone who has actually had a real affair before so that's a new one..... it makes me sick. As frustrated as I get with Brett I don't think I could ever do that to him..... and I think because I am a no bullshit kind of person. If the marriage is over you owe it to that person to make it over and say it out loud. To me, going behind their back and starting something else is the cowards way of doing it. The fact that it was a friend of mine who I respect is a difficult one for me. He claims at the time he didn't know she was married and it only happened once, but I was there that night (not at the actual timing of the incident obviously) and there were times where he should have known.....maybe he chose to ignore it. One thing I can say is that he is owning up to his fault in this equation. He is taking responsibility for his actions, and trying to move on and apologize to his friends. He is embarrassed and feels badly about what happened, but still... right now I have a hard time hanging out with him and not thinking about it only because I know her husband who is a nice guy and who I know would be so deeply hurt by all this. And how do I be around Mike knowing what I know.
I would like for it all to go away. I would like to not know what I know but they chose to include me for whatever reason. So I pose the question to all you bloggers out there......because......marriage is hard, it's about compromise, and giving when you don't want to, and understanding, communication and the like.......so then, that being said how do you make it last? Especially when you are the type of person who needs people and also doesn't need them at the same time like me? Why is it so hard these days to stick with it? are we a generation of wanting better? Do we actually think the grass is greener on the other side? or are we simply always on the run from reality? I wonder that myself sometimes because although I love Brett and would never do anything like this to hurt him there are days when I think how simple it would be to be single again and only have me to deal with.....as I am sure he thinks the same thing from time to time.....so what stops us all from being single again????? I think for me I try to stop and see the good things he brings to my life. I try to not dwell on the petty little details because I see (from past experience) that life can be over in a second, and do you really want to leave this earth having been angry at the person you're supposed to love over laundry not done, or a dirty dish in the sink (this is of course not to say that I don't get angry at those things, but I try..... I'm only human..... trying is at least something and more than most people do)......I don't know, I'm rambling.....
hard to say I guess. I guess life gets in the way. Or as John Lennon once said "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans". I guess we just don't stop to see what is right in front of us most days, and we would rather seek other adventures instead.
Curious about all your thoughts.
Have a good Sat. night
-SJ

Just another day....

2007-04-11T07:27:00.000-07:00

Well here are some photos of the bees that have been visiting my plants in the yard.....well that is until last night when we have 20 degree temps out and I think everything is dead now. What the hell is going on with the planet anyway? Never mind.... that was a rhetorical question. So I'm actually pleased to see honeybees in my yard because 'They' say that the populations of honeybees are declining all over the US due to destruction of native plants, pesticides, killer bees, you name it..... in short everything caused by human fuck up. In any case Brett and I took the camera outside and got some photos of these guys, and now I'm obsessed with honeybees, because I'm reading this fictional book called the Secret Lives of Bees. At the beginning of each chapter they put all these little tid bits of information on honeybees, so the other day I decided I needed to eat more honey. I started looking up info online about honey, and bees and the value of wasps on the planet (because I killed 2 and felt bad)..... Ok NOW I know I really need to go back to work. I was sitting around yesterday thinking.... so this is what it's like to be crazy. To have nothing to do but sit around and obsess about social insects, and look up random information on the Internet.....AND then Blog about it. Also I have done my fair share of out of control shopping on EBay. I had to ask Brett to put a firewall up for that site (kidding of course). But fear not, my days as a desperate housewife are numbered. If all goes well I will be gainfully employed on the 29th of this month. That is to say if all of my 'People' that I sent the little government questionnaires to responded in a positive matter.... which is to say that they didn't circle 'she's crazy and shouldn't be allowed near sharp objects or flammable substances ( that's a joke by the way ... in case they're watching!). I have one more questionnaire to go and then I should be in the clear. They really are ridiculous though... I think one of the questions was "Do you even know this person" Brett really wanted to mark 'No', anywho I digress... but when does that ever not happen. Ok this has gone on long enough I'm obviously in a weird mood today but I feel like I've got my writing groove back. It's been gone since Texas... not enough material here I guess.... Or is there???? I think I can dig up some material at the BBQ that I am going to on Thursday night.... stay tuned. Until then have a good week all, I need to go read about super volcanoes! :)

-Jones

Let Spring Begin

2007-03-27T14:50:00.000-07:00

Well as it turns out Brett and I didn't go camping after all this weekend. Instead we decided to take advantage of the awesome weather we were having and start cleaning up the yard and making garden beds for herbs, flowers and vegis. It's not much yet but I have big plans for the yard. We got a lot done although the photos don't show that. The yard was a mess and we worked hard both days cleaning it up. I bought the greenhouse shown above so I could start some seeds outdoors, the triangular garden will be a butterfly garden though I only have 3 plants there so far... more are on the way. The long rectangular garden is the herb garden and so far I have planted 6 different kinds of herbs. Finally is the little garden inspired by my trip to Portland. I have planted bleeding heart and moss there, and I have some ferns coming soon that I will be planting there as well. They turn a beautiful orangish-yellow in the fall so that should be interesting. We still have plans for a vegetable garden and some wildflower gardens in the front of the house but we have a lot of work to do.

I think I was a bit antsy in planting so soon because nature gave me a slap in the face 2 days later. For the past 2 days now we have had gusting winds of 40 mph and cold cold temps. We are supposed to have freezing temps tomorrow night so I had to rush out to the store today and buy a huge plastic sheet to cover the plants with. I guess when they say to wait until May to plant around here, you really should listen. It's hard to take that advice though when on Sat it was 73 degrees and sunny. I hope all my plants survive this cold spell. Anywho more photos will come later, for now I'm staying indoors and drinking tea.

-SJ

Good Travels

2007-03-23T08:35:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! It's been a while but I have been traveling a bit lately and haven't been home really in two weeks. I went to Chicago for a visit with family and upon returning I had 2 days to get unpacked before my friend Mary flew into town from Chicago and we packed up and headed to Portland, making a stop in La Grande along the way so she could meet Rach and pet some elk. We had such an amazing time it is hard to sum it all up in a short blog. I'll probably be posting photos from the trip for the next few days so as not to overwhelm this post but these are some of my favorites. Shown above is a beautiful view of the most famous structures in Portland along the river front where Mary and I stopped to eat some fudge that we bought at the Saturday market, beneath the flowering crab apples trees. It was a Beautiful day out and everyone was enjoying the weather. Also shown is Mary at the tea house we went to inside the Chinese gardens in China town, The creek and mossy covered rocks of Forest Park where we took a wonderful hike on Sunday afternoon with her friend Ryan, The hostel where we stayed Sunday and Monday night (it wasn't the best experience for either of us especially after feeling so at home staying with Kris and Ryan, but it was interesting none the less), the tasting room at Clear Creek Distillery where Ryan works and we got to taste some of the brandies that they make there....notice our pink cheeks.....they were strong :), and finally for those of you who don't know who she is (shame on you because you should) The wonderfully talented Patty Griffin..... we were fortunate enough to get some last minute tickets to see her show in Boise, ID on Tues night which was surprisingly not sold out (probably due to the fact that the place wasn't being raped by ticket master). So those are some of the highlights. I made notes along the way and will be posting my own little guide book to Portland in the next few days as I get a chance to get my thoughts together. For anyone who is about to travel there or who has hopes of traveling there in the future I have some great recommendations..... it really is a beautiful and very friendly city with a ton of stuff to do and see, and the drive up there is amazing. Closing for now, I hope everyone is well, and enjoying the first days of spring

Cheers

Sandiana

Not a whole lot going on

2007-02-27T06:50:00.000-08:00

Well, Feb. has turned out to be weird here in terms of weather. It started out that we were up to 60 degrees a couple days a week and this weekend we had thunder, lightening, buckets of rain which turned to hail and now snow. I'm wondering where the locusts are. I'm enjoying the snow though.... one last winter hooray! I went to Boise yesterday and Bogus is completely covered in new powder which looks so pretty. I think Brett and I will head up there for some snowshoeing this weekend. We were going to head up to McCall but it's a little too far for a busy weekend day trip so it will have to wait until next year. March is completely packed solid for us now. I head home to Chicago next Wed, Mary comes to visit me the following Wed, and then Brett's parents are finally coming out for a visit. Oh Yeah and in April I start working !!!! I got a wildlife job with the BLM and although it is only a temp 3 month position, there's a chance for future full time employment with the feds which is great! Not that I want to work for the BLM for the rest of my life, but hey it's a start and the guy I'll be working with is really cool and I get to live at home which is even better. So things are looking up for the desperate housewife, and I am going to really enjoy my last month off of work!
So not much else going on, we went to a Basque dance this past weekend.... those of you not familiar with the culture they are Spain's own entity from the Pyrenees mountains. It was a cultural event and our friend's daughter was dancing in it. There was dinner, plenty of booze, a sheep involved and a really bad band made up of 50 yr old men who played really bad versions of CCR and Led Zeppelin music as well as some country..... it was sad but I guess I should have drank more. It was only just last week that I learned I was not attending a 'Bass Dance' but a Basque Dance. I was confused what with all the hunting and fishing events here I thought we were supporting Bass Forever or something. In any case, Julie was cute in her little costume (she's 4) and it was mildly entertaining. Marie got wasted and proceeded to hang all over Scott slobber all over the table while trying to tell the same story over. We met a cool girl there though who runs rafting trips in Bend and so I think Brett and I are going to contact her about doing a trip in the spring, possibly with John and Rachel.
Ok the other thing I have is more exciting. Ben and Kate are now Proud parents of little Boy Asher Saul Lubchansky. I have not seen photos of him yet because he was born on the 25th and Carle Hospital hasn't posted new photos yet, but I'm sure he's beautiful. Congratulations guys..... guess I better start knitting.
Ok I'm outta here.
Peace Out People

More Snowshoeing

2007-02-18T09:41:00.000-08:00

Well this Saturday it was 60 degrees here in Ontario.... I can't believe we are having Spring conditions when it should still be cold out, and even more so I can't believe that my fellow Illinoisans are still being hammered with snow and cold temps and we are warmer than them right now. That being said, Bogus Basin ski area in Boise still has snow.... well at least for now, so Brett and I headed up there this Saturday for some snowshoeing. Even though we were at 6,000 ft, it was still in the upper 30s maybe 40 degrees up there and so as you can see Brett was quite comfortable snowshoeing in a t-shirt. It was strange and it made for sketchy trails since the top layer of snow was melting. We had a great time though. The trail we took was pretty challenging at times, lots of rough terrain and steep climbs. We now know we need to bring poles next time to steady ourselves on the more difficult stretches. We were up there for a good portion of the day. I really like my new snowshoes and Brett now wants to buy a pair. in any case the scenery from the top was amazing. I hope there is still some snow left when my friend Mary comes out because it would be fun to head up there again. The rest of the day was spent in Boise and we finally headed home around 6pm, and I went to bed to read, my muscles aching from the afternoon. Well I hope everyone had a great weekend, and I am interested to hear of Kate had her baby over the weekend.

Take care everyone

-Sandiana