I am about to start my last year of school at Humboldt State as an undergrad, and I have a lot of ideas of where I would like to be a year from now, but lets start with some highlights of what could possibly be the best summer of my life! It started off with removing annual grasses from the dunes, but what a beautiful summer at the dunes!
Then I was lucky enough to get a chance to go back to Sisters, Oregon where I took a 2-week intensive course in Restoration Ecology which is run through University of Oregon, but any student from any school can take this course.
http://pages.uoregon.edu/ecolrest/index.htm
What an AMAZING experience! We camped for the first week at Metolius River Preserve where we learned about the white-headed woodpecker and how the Deschutes Land Trust and the Deschutes National Forest are managing for this cute little guy by using bark beetle pharamones and topping trees to create snags in which the woodpeckers use.
They also manage for fish populations in the Metolius river.
http://www.deschuteslandtrust.org/protected-lands/community-preserves/metolius-preserve
Then we stayed on campus at Oregon State's Cascade Campus which was a beautiful campus in Bend with views of Mt Sisters for some showers and rest, and got a chance to visit Deschutes Brewery which turned out to have really good food as well as some delicious hoppy beer ;)
We then stayed at Jake's Place, which is private land east of the Metolius Preserve owned by this really nice guy (Ahh wish i could remember his name!) from Portland who is very much concerned with preserving the natural and cultural value of the land. This area was dominated by Big Sagebrush and it was Big Sky country and the stars were amazing! Everyone in the class was assigned a project, and my project was based on data collected at Camp Polk Meadow where the Deschutes Land Trust is restoring Whychus Creek to its original meander after it has been channelized by the Army Corps of Engineers 70 years ago. What a great project! We did pebble counts and learned how to do habitat assessments following the EPA's guidelines. This data was collected at the currently channelized stream and I am really excited to compare this data to the data collected after they restore this section of the stream! But really I can't look at a stream again without going over the criteria for a habitat assessment in my head! While taking this class, one of the teachers Karen owned her own business in restoration so I got to pick her brain a bit to see how she got to achieve that, which is a major goal of mine! She said she learned a lot by working for a private consulting firm, and had enough and was confident enough to be able to get her own clientele! I feel like she has a great reputation in the area for knowing her stuff and she's such a humble and easy person to talk to! Matt, the other instructor is also a humble person and easy to talk to. He has done some amazing work with ants in the Amazon and is an Ecologist through and through. He has a very interesting take on restoration ecology that really made me appreciate this field more because he does a great job of relating restoration to all fields and its importance to everyone. He also has some great jokes and isn't afraid to loosen up even though he seems to put on a tough-professor persona. I also got to meet a few great people from University of Oregon, and get to know some of my fellow HSU students quite a bit better! Nothing like bonding at a fire under millions of stars!
My next adventure is more of a human one, less scientific. I finally made my pilgrimage to the National Rainbow Gathering which was held at Mt. St. Helens in Washington, just 30 miles from Portland. Unfortunately I didn't get to really spend any time in Portland but that's okay because the experience I had at the gathering was unlike any other experience I've had before, and it has shaped who I am now. I think the most memorable experiences were the group hugs, the outright almost obnoxious friendliness, and the overwhelming emotion I felt when I got there and everyone looked me in the eye and said "Welcome Home" I am getting choked up all over again over it all...
If you don't know much about the rainbow gathering, wiki it. But the gist is that it is totally free and held at a different piece of public land every year, where there is water that can be filtered and enough space to hold the some 30,000-50,000 people who come every year!! Along with the countless amounts of dogs and cats! There are about 200 different "kitchens" that pump food out for free multiple times a day to anyone who wants it as well as filters 100s of gallons of water. These kitchens get food donations all year long and people can volunteer to cook and clean, or donate food or goods or money that can be turned into goods and food. Some of the best kitchens were "Lovin Ovens" where they pumped out many pizzas and homemade breads and desserts, as well as the "Medicine Warriors" which produced many different stews and curries yum! One of my favorite places there was a hammock camp where you could lounge in the heat of the day and cabana boys would push you and feed you sushi!! There is a barter circle and a library and many workshops on what the rainbow tribes and warriors do and are about, and thai massage, reiki healing, lots of yoga, dancing and drumming! Also random pocket trades were very entertaining and a great way to meet people ;) My other favorite place was the Dunun Village where they held traditional African Drum and Dance classes and I hung out there every night till 3am! The peak of the gathering though is on the 4th of July in remembrance of the very 1st gathering for peace during the Vietnam War, there was a silent vigil from dawn till noon-yes. 30,000-50,000 people were-for the most part-silent. Then at noon we gathered in the main meadow, held hands and chanted Om! After that we all cheered, held a kids parade, and danced around a peace pole! Not to mention chowing on truckloads of delicious watermelon :)
Another great fabulous thing about getting to the gathering was that I got to meet up with my best friend Ann and our other friends from Boise High who I've missed dearly, Lotus (Carrie Sue) and her son Haze who is almost 5 now! He is the cutest thing ever and it was really healing for me to be around children again! I rode with them back down the Oregon Coast accompanied by Lotus's brother and family which included a 1 and 1/2 year old baby girl and their 6 year old daughter!
Upon arriving in Eugene I made it to the Oregon Country Fair for my 3rd time, but after the Rainbow Gathering I was a bit disenchanted to my surprise.. I LOVE the fair but it is definitely less of a family/tribe vibe and more of a consumer feel to it. Although I loved dressing up and walking around at the fair, saw Rootz Underground as well as Samba and The Bucky Walters from Humboldt! I also was stressing out a little because my ride I had set up I couldn't get a hold of but I got a chance to go with John, who was a student in Environmental Studies at UC Santa Cruz and was willing to take a little detour to take me home to Arcata :) (Did I mention I got to the gathering with some great Arcata friends but they needed to get back early) This is my first time taking a ride from a total stranger and it was a really good experience for me! Last year I took people home to Arcata from the Faerieworlds Festival in Eugene so I feel my hitchhiker Karma was pretty good :)
Then I made it back to Arcata for another week, and that's when Chris called needed volunteers for his master's thesis at Headwaters Preserve. He was my T.A. in Forest Restoration at HSU and yeah I had a mad crush on his guy since March. So needless to say when I finally heard from him in Mid July I am not exaggerating when I found my self screaming, running, jumping and dancing all over my (luckily empty) house and all my furniture :D So I volunteered for him that day where we were measuring the DBH of some huge old-growth redwoods and we got a little caught up on our summers while out there and saw some beautiful flowers! Also that night we confessed our MUTUAL feelings for one another, so we are seeing how that goes and I just gotta say I am on cloud 9 about that right now!
Then it was time to head south to visit friends and family with my roommate and her friend Johanna who was visiting from Austria. I stayed with my best friend Amineh and I must just mention that she is an amazing and beautiful lady and I am honored to be a major part of her life. She is a 4.0 student at UC Davis studying Japanese and works on campus as a peer adviser and helps in a campus effort to end domestic violence and promote sex positivity. She is my guiding light in all walks of life and I look up to her so much. I also got the chance to see my dad's garden that was once a swimming pool and lets just say I am looking forward to many a jar of homemade salsa and veggies! Then we stayed a few nights at a Hostel at Fort Mason in San Francisco! We had to do the touristy things for Johanna but we really had a blast us three girls and our friend Barrett. We found an off-the-beaten path boat tour in which we bought select beers and hung out with the captain of the boat ;P Also played at the bars and did a little 3am-dip into the SF bay lol. But did I mention that this was my first time staying at a Hostel? Wow! That was an experience I'll not soon forget for sure! Met people from all over- Australia, Amsterdam, Germany, you name it! Also people from other countries seem so much nicer than from the states... hmmm..
I've been back now for a couple of weeks and got to volunteer for Chris a couple more times and hang out with him more and did I mention he is like the cheese to my macaroni? Yeah I stole that line from Juno but really! Anyway he is a busy masters student so I'm giving him his space just short of an onslaught of text messages throughout the weeks lol! Its usually because I know that he's the only person who'd truly appreciate and understand my over-the-top nerdiness! Did I mention he's a music nerd too!? YES! Nerds UNITE! :D
Work has been coming along nicely, we are executing phase 2 of the Spartina Seedbank Study, where we are mowing 2x2 m square plots to stimulate the seedbank, and within those, placing screens in them to compare the amount of seedlings excluded from seed rain (seedbank only) to seedlings outside of the screens coming from seed rain and seedbank. Meanwhile also collecting soil samples and counting seeds to see if viability has changed since last year in the same plots, ultimately telling us how long the seed bank lasts. This will help for a regional eradication of Spartina from Humboldt Bay to see how many years we will have to manage for new seedlings from a seedbank assuming no more neighboring adults as an influence. Also I talked to my boss about the fact that I have to come up with a senior project and she said there's a project she'd also like to do for the seedbank study that tests the buoyancy of the Spartina seeds, so we can get an idea of how well these seeds can travel in the water. Also she mentioned another question that would be more of a master's thesis having to do with where in the water column Spartina seeds actually reside, and I said Give me a year! So this girl could be the next Spartina expert! Watch out Argentina and Spain! Here I come! ;)
So, it is the 1st week of fall semester at Humboldt State University, where last spring, I received my Bachelor's of Science in Environmental Science with an emphasis in ecological restoration and a minor in wildland soil science. Life is different now. I can feel it. I've thought a lot all summer about what my next steps will be, but happy for now working at Lanphere among some of the best people I've known and in the most beautiful place I've ever worked. Yesterday we had a BBQ for a visiting researcher from New Zealand who told me "What you are doing here is internationally significant." This may have been a comment in passing in the casual setting of a BBQ but it has made a huge impact on me personally. It made me reflect on what I am doing and what personal goals I've achieved and how I might be making my mark in this world. I seem to be someone who, ever since I was little, felt some sort of inherent guilt for human kind and how it has treated our mother Earth, and on top of that, a constant fascination with nature and all of the amazing plants and animals we share this planet with, which has been painful, dreadful, agonizing but also incredible, amazing and humbling. I always wondered why I was put on this planet with this amount of privilege. Why do I have the chance to go to college and most people can't? Or why do I have enough food in my belly, fresh drinking water, a roof over my head and spare change in a jar on my dresser? I think most people in my position don't step back and see how lucky they are to be in this position, but it both tears me up and makes me so thankful. I want to help people, and help undo what my predecessors have done. I realize that these are the cards I have been dealt. This is the state of the world I was born into and instead of feeling horrible on behalf of my species to the other species of this world, I simply must be aware - Here comes the education part - and do everything I can to restore the habitat we live in and restore peace and love to the hearts of those who I encounter. So even though I am now $36,000 in debt, I am thankful for a college experience that is priceless. I have so many professors and employers who are passionate and not afraid to be honest with me on how things are even if it may make me jaded or hopeless. I am too much of a stubborn optimist to become hopeless. I mean, everyone has certain expectations that they have on the world, and I say, even if the world does go to shit and we are totally fucked, I know that I tried my damnedest to help others and give us a chance. I realize we are only in a temporary phase of the Earth, and soon the world we know will not be here any longer. I realize that this too shall pass. I am not resisting that or denying that. All I know is that I can feel okay with these changes, and even if the Mayans were right about 2012, I did everything I could to love and care for my fellow earthlings the best way that I knew how. And what an interesting ride it will be in the coming years.. what a time to be alive! And I know that in my little refuge that I work at, in this little tiny patch of rural northern California, where most people locally don't even know it exists, coming home stinking of salt-marsh, getting attacked by mosquitoes, going to the emergency room for getting horrible poison oak because I needed to plant trees, getting stuck in mud flats when the tides came in, bushwhacking through brambles and thick brush, all of this is significant, and even "internationally significant," bringing people from Spain, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and else where.. This place and the work that I do here is special and it is good work. I saw a quote at Rainbow Gathering that said "Work is the physical manifestation of love." It is doing all of these things. My goals are achieved.
I have also had the opportunity to intern at a local organic farm and learn a lot about how to grow my own food and help in the community here to do more by helping bring fresh food to families. I still have a lot of goals.. grad school is definitely one of those goals, so that for one I can keep learning and growing, and also to be able to have more "power" to make more significant impacts for the sake of the people and the earth. I like it here, I love working hard in the outdoors but I also get a traveling itch sometimes too.. Not sure where I may end up but I thought about returning to my hometown of Portland, Oregon where I'll still be in the Pacific NW which will always be my home. Ideally I think I'd like to start a native plant nursery and permaculture farm as well has have my own business restoring habitats, although if I have everything taken care of, I'd like to no longer have money as something I would need or ask for in return. Work trade, barter for services, that sort of thing.. but as long as I am still within the restrictions of student loan debt and other "realities" of money, I will still work for the $.. But at least in the next 10 days or so, I will be able to take a break from the main stream economy based on little green pieces of paper and metal, and into an economy that I hope to live in one day: a gift economy. Going to burning man in 4 days, where I will feel truly free and I am so excited to spread my love to the people and learn and grow from this! But some goals for post-burning man include, more yoga, a dairy and gluten free diet, studying for my GRE's, and more reflection and work towards my long-term goals. 
