A Position of Transition

“Adventure is a path. Real adventure – self-determined, self-motivated, often risky – forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. Your body will collide with the earth and you will bear witness. In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind – and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you.

Nothing will ever again be black-and-white.”

-Mark Jenkins

One of the most fundamental laws of the natural world is that nothing is static.  Everything changes, a constant state of rearranging, adapting, shifting.  Sometimes the changes are slow and subtle; the diverging of a new species of dragonfly with a novel vein pattern upon its wings.  Others are quick and harsh; an earthquake that destroys, rips, and forever separates the old landscape from the new.

And so it has been with me.

The past few months, during which I have been apologetically silent in the cacophonic world of cyberspace, have been characterized by a gradual shifts in thinking, of abruptly re-learning of who I am and who I wish to become, and how to go about getting where I want to go, metaphorically and literally.

Here is a brief summary:

Considerations of a career transition had been lurking in the back of my mind since last summer, for reasons largely outside of my control.  Naturalist-interpreter positions such as mine are not known for their permanency, and the mental weight of not knowing where an income is going to come from for half of the year had begun to take its toll.  I had made a few inquiries, sent off a few applications, bounced ideas off of friends, family, and mentors, but at the time was content with slowly letting go of what I thought my future was going to be and refocusing on something that would both make me happy AND allow me to have my very own address again.

I probably would've continued dilly-dallying around, but during a follow-up visit to my family doctor in early August it was discovered I had developed Type 1 diabetes.  Now while that seems pretty cut and dry, I can assure it is not.  I'm still a bit of a mystery to every medical professional I've met with or been referred to (four in all), because I'm not typical. 

I'll be as brief as I can: Diabetes is essentially a condition where your body is unable to process glucose (sugar) to use for energy, and this inability is linked to insulin deficiency and/or insulin resistance.  Insulin is what helps move the glucose in your bloodstream into your cells to use as an energy source.  If you don't have enough insulin, or your body isn't using it efficiently, your cells start starving and glucose starts building up in your system and wrecking havoc.  Type 1 diabetes is autoimmune, meaning somewhere in the past year or so, my body's immune system started attacking the insulin-producing beta cells in my pancreas.  Fewer beta cells means less insulin, means higher levels of blood glucose.  Eventually, your immune system wipes out the beta cells completely and you become insulin-dependent (shots, shots, shots, errybody!), usually within a matter of weeks to months.  Type 2 diabetes is more of an insulin-resistance condition, where your body is producing insulin, but maybe not enough of it or it's just not working the way it should.  Instead of the sky-rocketing glucose levels in Type 1s, you see more of a gradual rise.  At some point, Type 2s will also become insulin-dependent (another chorus of Shots!), but generally not until several decades have gone by.

So why am I a strange one?  Because I'm a Type 1 that acts like a Type 2.  I have the autoimmune response, but at 14 months since the first indication, I'm still producing my own insulin and am on what's been referred to as a "baby amount" of insulin.  I'm not going to go fully into all of the details, fascinating to me as they are, because the whole story is a blog post in and of itself.  Currently I take a few shots of insulin a day, watch the sugar and carbs, get my daily cardio in, and continue to engage in futile attempts to get Michelle Obama arms. I have highs and lows like every other diabetic, but the sugarbetes has not held me back from the things I love most, cooking, traveling, and exploring all manner of wild and not-so-wild places continue to take up most of my time and energy.

Including skiing in the nearby Sandhills State Park after a much anticipated snowstorm

The last blog post hinted at the now-pressing decisions about my career, and ultimately I decided to branch off from the duties of naturalist ranger and strike out in a new direction, that of teaching science full time in the classroom.  As I make my way through the checklist to employment, I'm filled with both excitement at a new beginning, and sadness at leaving a life I loved so dearly.  For the past few months, my days have been one big executive meeting after another between heart, head, and pancreas over what exactly it is I need, and want, to be doing.

For now, I grapple with the urge to take off running to the Driftless as I usually do, the place where time can stop and responsibilities and life decisions are few and far between; where the reliability of oaks is the source of all the steady I need.  For now, I come to grips with diabetes in fits and starts, sometimes forgetting the titanium medical alert on my wrist, and other times staring at the small dots from the small pricks of small needles on my stomach in the mirror for longer than I should.  For now, it would be a stretch to say I am content, though I have little to complain about, but no adventure was ever found by staying on the same path. 

Certainly this new road has a few more markers than I'm accustomed to, but yet when I peer into the distance I cannot see the end of it.  The possibilites are as endless as the dusty path in front of me, and as I let myself consider the potential, the smallest glimmer of hope and purpose lets itself be known. 

Why I Need Obama to Win

I talk a lot about nature on here.  And family.  And friends.  And birds.  I don't really get personal.  After all this blog originated only as a way to keep the aforementioned family and friends abreast of my nomadic adventures.  Personal stuff belongs in conversations, not on the internet.  So I debated with myself long and hard before clicking on the 'Publish' button. 

As you probably guessed, this post will have a slightly political tone to it, but I want to make it perfectly clear to everyone that I am not an expert, not an analyst, and have taken exactly two political science classes in my lifetime.  I have a tendency to only study up on policies and proposals that affect me and my loved ones because that's all my overburdened brain can handle on any given day.  I'm not out to change anyone's minds on the upcoming election, I'm just after a bit of understanding and compassion from the Far Right who seem to think the worst of people like me on the Far Left. 

So to begin, I have to creak open the door and let a few personal facts slip through:

I'm a hard worker.  I come from a family of hard workers.  My parents raised me to be independent to a fault, and to see the work through, no matter what that work might be.  Not bragging, just saying.

I double majored in undergrad and maintained a GPA well above 3.5.  I had a 4.0 through graduate school where I earned a Master's and a Graduate Certificate.  Under my belt are four seasons of working and volunteering for Departments of Natural Resources and the National Park Service, usually at the same time.  (Before you go all Hatch Act on me, my season has already ended, so I no longer have the burden of having an opinion while in the government's employ).

I've never gone on unemployment or any form of government welfare, even though there were times I qualified and was even encouraged to sign up for both.  I never wanted handouts unless I absolutely had no other choice.  Even now, with my future once again uncertain, I know I won't sign up because I still have options and Plan Bs, Cs, and Ds.

My idea of splurging is buying locally raised bison meat or fleece-lined winter hiking pants.

I'm a healthnut.  I exercise every day.  My weight today is a mere two pounds more than when I was in high school, which is smack dab in the middle of the 'healthy weight range' for my height.

My vices include red wine, horoscopes, and Grey's Anatomy reruns. 

I am the girl who eat salads, and likes them.  The girl who rarely goes out to eat, and prefers to cook at home.

I am the girl who runs, walks, hikes hills, and occasionally putters around with yoga, pilates, and kettlebells.

I am the girl who has Type 1 diabetes.

I am the girl who can only afford the crappy insurance, because I followed my heart when it came to choosing a career.

I am the girl who will benefit from the Affordable Care Act (ACA), what many of you know as "ObamaCare." 

I am the girl that needs the government to step in and stand up to health insurance companies who deny me coverage because of my 'pre-existing condition.'

Type 1 is an autoimmune disease, which means that somewhere along the lines, my own body starting attacking the insulin-producing beta cells in my pancreas.  Insulin levels drop, leaving glucose to float around in my blood stream and cause all sorts of mischief.  Silently buried in my DNA until the genes for it were triggered.  No one can tell me by what, the vague answer is always "environmental."  But it was there all along, pre-existing where no one could find it.

I don't bear a grudge against my body, it did what it thought it was supposed to do, and I can't blame it for that.  I try to help it as much as I can, maintaining a fairly tight control over what I eat and when, and taking those long walks and hikes even when I just want to curl up and watch Grey's Anatomy (and read horoscopes, and eye that bottle of cheap merlot).  But this isn't a cold, this isn't a diet I can cheat on, this is my life.  Between diagnostic tests, endocrinologist consults, blood tests, lipid panels, c-peptide checks, and other lab work, costs add up quickly.

Gov. Romney's position on health care reform is, for lack of a better word, tricky.  As governor of Massachusetts he signed a health reform bill that was quite similar to the ACA.  However, he believes that health insurance should be privatized and left in the hands of individual states (and would grant waivers to all 50 states, giving them the choice on whether or not to adopt the ACA regulations).  A true politician, he has essentially said (of his own bill), that it's a good idea, but it should be up to the states to decide whether or not to implement it (source). 

To me, and those of us who have been at the mercy of coverage denials and skyrocketing premiums, this is the equivalent of allowing a felon to choose their own punishment. We'd all like to believe the thieves and killers would choose to impose justice and hellish conditions upon themselves, just as we'd all like to believe that every state will adopt regulations that will immeasurably help their citizens' health, but we all know what will actually happen.  I'm a pretty optimistic person, but even I don't have that much faith in humanity.

There's also the argument that real savings in health care will only come from privatization, and that many elements of the ACA are already found in the marketplace.  To this, I can only quote NPR:

"The problem is, no one knows which would work better because neither has really been tried. So the choice is to let the new law continue to play out, or repeal it and see whether Congress can pass something else. That is, if it doesn't take Congress another generation to reach another compromise."

So with Romney's position, it's a toss-up as to what will happen, but as I'm still a resident of the very red, yet still beautiful, state of Kansas, I can go ahead and assume my worries are far from over.  I'm not saying the ACA is the perfect plan, but as my father says, it would "take the edge off." 

With Obama, at least I know that by 2014, I can't be denied coverage or charged more because of a condition I did everything to prevent.  I won't have to hoard test strips or slip into malnutrition because I'm trying to make insulin last as long as I can.  I'll be able to afford the eye exams and treatment that will detect early signs of blood vessel damage, the precursor to blindness.  I'll be able to pay for the blood tests that tell my doctors how my kidneys are functioning, the tests that will alert us if they begin to fail.

Please believe me when I say that I want to be able to pay my fair share of medical expenses.  There is both pride and humbleness to being able to pull your own weight in the country you love so much.  I want to be a part of something bigger, something that makes life easier for others like me, to know I can help and be helped.

But right now, I can't.

And I need the help that the ACA promises. 

I understand the arguments against "ObamaCare."  I understand that government involvement freaks people out.  I understand that my idea of freedom - to live without a financial burden I did not ask for, to pursue happiness without waiting for the other shoe to drop - stands in contrast to others' freedom to not have to buy insurance if they don't want to, to pursue their own happiness in profits and savings, and I get it.  I know by supporting the new health reform laws, people will see it as me making someone else pay for my test strips. 

I suppose, when it really comes down to it, I really don't need Obama to win.  But I do need a candidate to win who is willing to move forward, who will look at the citizens like me, who are quite enamored and proud of being American, but struggling, and choose to help us.  I need someone who will stand up to insurance companies and tell them it is not okay to treat me only as a pre-existing condition and refuse coverage.  I need someone who will provide me, and the other 26 million people with diabetes, with the same health care coverage they would want for their own children.  I need someone who will look around and see that we are all still created equal, and that as a woman I am entitled to the rights to my own body.  I need someone who will look to the rising costs of higher education and realize that if we don't make it more affordable, then we might as well resign as a world power right now and save ourselves the embarrassment later.  I need someone to give our teachers and veterans the respect and resources they have earned through decades of sacrifice.  I need someone to look at the market and see that even though we believe in fair trade, we teeter on the edge of corporate oligarchy. 

I'm not asking for perfect answers, for pefect policies.  In a country such as ours it is impossible to make everyone happy.  It took a long time for bad policies and decisions to get us into the economic mess we found ourselves in, and it's going to take at least that much time to get us out.  I believe we are facing the right direction, and I am asking you to try this with me, I'm asking you to believe one more time.  Let's see if it works, and if it doesn't, then let's try something else. 

Don't give up.  Let's keep moving forward. 

All You Need Is Love

Once upon a time, two people met, fell in love, and stayed in love. 

Favorite, from this post and this post and this blog, and her Mister tied the knot in a beautiful, self-uniting and self-written ceremony earlier this month that made everyone laugh and cry and cheer at some point or another. 

Sometimes all at the same time.

The wedding was held in a Community Arts Center that was once an old estate.  Grand, gorgeous, elegant are the words that come to mind.  To give you mental picture, the ceremony was held upstairs in the ballroom (due to Hurricane Isaac crashing the wedding), and the reception was held below in the converted art gallery. 

And this is what the backyard looked like:

A water tower on the grounds where Rapunzel may or may not have been kept.
And yes, those are purses marking where the aisle would've been had
the rain stayed away.  The women of Favorite's family are ingenious.

And that, dear friends, is how this tree hugger ended up in the fifth largest city in the United States for a weekend filled with amazing people, good food, laughter, and of course, lots and lots of dancing.

I arrived in Philadelphia on a Friday afternoon, and Favorite was there to pick me up even though she had a thousand things to do for the wedding.  Unfortunately, my seasonal allergies and high altitude had done quite a number on breathing, hearing, and speaking capabilities, but we managed just fine. 

The couple had outdone themselves in providing for their guests: a welcome bag awaited me at the check-in counter complete with snacks, water, and sightseeing guide to the different parts of the city, ways to get around, and maps to get there - all put together by the groom.  They had also hired a shuttle bus for the day of the wedding to take people from the hotel to the venue and back again to save everyone the dizzying trip along the highways and residentials areas of the city.  To put the icing on the cake, they either drove or arranged rides for those of us wanting to explore the city the day before the wedding.  There isn't a word for that kind of selflessness.

So on Saturday, thanks to the coordination efforts of a lot of people, I found myself in the middle of a city I really only knew from a Bruce Springsteen song.



On the streets of Philadelphia

The trip into Center City was brief, but awesome.  I stumbled upon a farmer's market in a swanky neighborhood, made my way to Independence Mall with its attractions and hoardes of tourists, and then enjoyed a rather warm, stomach-churning taxi ride with two other wedding guests back to the hotel.  Then it was Rehearsal Dinner Time, followed by the After Parties.

This doesn't have much to do with anything.  I was just captivated by
the colors in the rehearsal bouquet.

By the time I finally crawled into bed that night, delerious from allergy and cold medications, I had been the victim of so much hospitality I was almost overwhelmed. Maybe if I had been expecting it, I wouldn't have been taken so aback by how innately good everyone was.

I'll admit it, I once held only smug disdain for the sprawling cities of the east.  Too crowded, too much anonymity, too many people trying to be too cool for school...in a manner of speaking. 

My Midwest is a place of soul-filling emotion, where family and friends crowd around in a constant swarm no matter your mood, where the ability to laugh and make laugh is prized above all else, where dirt under your fingernails is a mark of pride and worth, where people love strongly and deeply and face horrendous obstacles together knowing that they will not part.  That weekend in September, I found I could describe my ephemeral microcosm of strangers and friends in almost exactly those words. 

Somehow, miraculously, I was welcomed by both the bride's and groom's families, who treated me like one of their own despite never having laid eyes on me before.  Not once did I feel like an outsider, but instead like I had always been there, had always been a part of everyone's lives. When meeting other friends and relatives, I was repeatedly amazed by the generous and gregarious nature of them all. But then, I shouldn't be surprised. As the father of the groom once remarked, 'such good people are only going to attract good friends. They wouldn't have anybody but good people around them.'

And so, on September 2, 2012, it was under that blanket of love, light, and hope, that we welcomed Mr. and Mrs. Favorite.

After which came one of the best parties I've ever had the pleasure to attend, and one that extended well into the night.  It had all the ingredients for a good time: fun-loving people, dancing, the best bus ride ever, and enough belly laughs (due to jokes that cannot be repeated here) to make my face and stomach hurt.

Philly, you were pretty swell.

These Boots Were Made For Walking

Every once in awhile, you sit down at your computer on your day off, tea steaming beside you as you check your daily horoscope, and remember you have a blog you swore you were going keep updated. 

It's not that I totally forgot, I just haven't had much time (or lets face it, motivation) to do any reflection, photo-editing, or thesaurus-ing.  But finally, I bring you updates, such as they are. 

For starters, I turned 27 back in July.

When you turn 27, you become mightier than the Yellow River.

How did I celebrate, you ask?  One of my best friends came to visit from Kansas so we could go camping and kayaking to celebrate my entry into my late-twenties.  I've had some awesome birthdays during my years of travel, but this one easily makes the top three.

Not hard to figure out why.

Let's also take a moment to appreciate the very first fire I made all by myself.
Candles on a cake just can't compare.  Say that five times fast.

I also took a much anticipated trip to Kansas to make sure my nephews don't forget me and for my annual tune-up (variety of doctor's appointments and check ups).  For those who haven't heard me complain about the drive before, the trip takes about 10.5 to 11 hours of driving depending on how much liquid I consume.  It also entails looking at a lot of cornfields.  Also usually manage to get sunburned on my left arm.

The drive is long enough that I end up having to do this with my sunglasses:

...otherwise I feel like my skull is being reshaped.

The visit to Kansas has the same effect as it always does: that a sense of home will follow me wherever I go.

Metaphor.  Also a nice way to kill time while waiting in a construction zone in the middle of nowhere.

Upon arriving back in the Driftless, August decided to challenge July as the most hectic month of the year.  This was accomlished mainly by the end-of-summer rush of visitors and special programs/activities at work, along with the Interp Division's enthusiasm for socials and get-togethers.  Exhausting as it all was, I'd go back and do it all again...I think.

One of the big events was this last Saturday.  It was the 96th birthday of the National Park Service, and we had a special Moonlight Hike. A Moonlight Hike is a cross between a guided tour, historical reenactments with living history characters, and a good ol' fashioned night hike.  They're fun for everyone, especially for the rangers who get to do different characters.  This was my first year to be an actual character, in years past I would lead groups up the hill to the different stops, so I decided to go all out.

Photographs of women's uniforms from the 1970s have been floating around the office for as long as I've been there, and everyone is always amazed that women had to wear THAT.  I decided that was going to be my talk, how women's roles and their uniforms have changed through the years.  After doing the requisite research and photograph analysis, I bought fabric, hot glue sticks, and borrowed black stiletto boots.

I became "Gertie," a young ranger in the '70s who tried to prove to her male coworkers she could climb the hill no matter what and ended up spraining her ankle.  While filling out her incident report, Gertie waxed nostalgic about the good ol' days of women being able to wear camping clothes and riding gear (and a real badge) in the early years of the NPS and lamented the change to skirts and heels as women became the eye candy in the visitor centers.



Can't quite reach Eye Candy status on my own,
so I grabbed a tray of tasty treats.

Hidden in the above picture is another little newsworthy item.  You all out there in my imagination internet-land might not know this about me, but I once had long, flowing locks of blonde hair.  Here is a dramatically enhanced photo to prove it:



Angst-y and weighed down.

That is, until last week.  With very little planning, and probably as a result of my own inner crisis, I had just shy of eight inches sheared off.  I dig it.

Less angst-y.  Somewhat lighter.

That's all I got, folks.

Next up on the radar: Taking on Philadelphia. 

The Rain on Kapiti Plain

There's a story my parents used to read to me when I was kid, and for the past few months as the Driftless suffers through a burning drought, parts of it have been running through my head. 

This is what everything looks like here now, minus the African wildlife and looming clouds.

It's called Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain, and it's about a herdsman who shoots down the rain with an eagle feather-laden arrow and saves the animals (including his herd of cattle) of Kapiti Plain from a horrible drought.  The link takes you to the old Reading Rainbow version with James Earl Jones narrating, which makes it way cooler than anything else you're going to hear today.

Stifling heat, humidity, and dry conditions are fairly common in my home state of Kansas.  In fact, we even beat Death Valley at one point this summer.  So when my parents came to visit the second week of July, it was as if they had never left Kansas.

Well...almost like they'd never left.

We all know I could write paragraphs (pages, novels, epics, etc.) about how much I love my close-knit family, so I'll sum up my feelings on their visit:  It was awesome.  It always is. 

They just bring out the best in me.

During my parents' visit, one thing was certain: we needed to forget about the drought for awhile.  Recreating my previous journey, I returned to Heritage Farm with two more people in tow.  And it was even better than I had remembered it.

One of the many gardens next to the Visitor Center and barn.

Five Color Silverbeet Swiss Chard (which WILL be in my garden next year!)

A bloomin' onion, literally. 

Just a little pollination going on...

Deliciousness.

The orchard we hiked to turned out to be blocked off by a high chain link fence. 
Thank goodness for zoom.

Whenever my parents visit, I tend to get nostalgic for when my sister and I were kids, and we would come up to Wisconsin to see my aunt and uncle and cousins.  The most vivid memories are the ones with all of my cousins crowded around my aunt and uncle's kitchen table, everyone talking at once, shouting jokes, laughing with abandon, the whole kitchen alive.  I remember epic games of Uno that required four decks of cards and left us all hoarse the next day.  That was when I first saw my dad as the storyteller he is, a trade he passed on to his children. 

But Time goes on whether we want it to or not, and my cousins grew up and grew out of the house, having families and kitchen tables of their own.  Instead of meeting at one central table, there is a constant flux of people through everyone's houses, and everyone's kitchens are fair game.

These days, when my parents come to visit, and we go see my aunt and uncle, the kitchen and its table are smaller, there are fewer visitors, but there are just as many jokes and stories flying back and forth.  The kitchen is no less crowded with people stopping by and walking in the back door (front doors and knocking are for strangers).  And for every person who pops in, they are still met with shouted greetings, a scramble for another chair, and demands that they sit and visit for awhile.

All too soon, the indescribable comfort of having my parents in the same town came to an end.

On the morning of my parents' departure, we met up for breakfast at Simply's, everyone's favorite cafe in town.  The air was already heavy with humidity, and I was dreading having to put on my polyester-wood blend ranger pants for work later that day.  Following our family rule of "Everyone order something different so we can all try it," we each began devouring a different combination of eggs, cheese, fresh baked bread, and fresh veggies. 

Then, it happened. 

My mother's surprised voice caught us all off guard as she stared out the window.  "It's raining!!" 

Sure enough, someone had shot an arrow into the big, black cloud that shadowed the plain, and brought the rain to our Kapiti Plain.

There wasn't much else to do but go and stand in it. 

And so it happened that instead of the long, melancholy goodbye hugs where we try to put off the inevitable, we ran across the street to our cars through the rain, laughing as we embraced each other, and drove our separate directions.  One car headed south, the other east, but both keeping the other in view as long as the sheets of rain would allow.

Loincloth Weekend and Other Ordinary Happenings

Because I don't want anyone to think I spend my days lost in a existential crisis or in a haze of intense introspection, I'm devoting this post to what I do the vast majority of time.

Which would be the opposite of the activities just mentioned.

The past few weeks have been, to put it simply, ca-RAZY.  But in the good kind of way. 

Allow me to give you a photo recap:

For starters, Favorite came to visit!  You'll remember her from this post.

And I made her hike.  In the heat.  But she just got back from the jungles of Colombia, so I was pretty sure she could handle it.

When not hiking, wine-tasting, and otherwise showing off local attractions, we sampled the local fare:

Pete's Hamburger Stand

I barely had enough time to recover from Favorite's visit before Rendezvous weekend, which coincided with Ladies Weekend.  How do I explain what The Rendezvous is?  Allow me to go into historian/interpreter mode:

This little corner of the Driftless has long been known as a meeting place of different peoples.  The first written accounts of this place make mention of what would later be called St. Feriole Island as a great center of trade between tribes, and as the years went on it became a trading center between American Indians and French-Canadian fur-trappers, and then between American Indians, French-Canadian fur-traders, and Euro-American settlers.  To celebrate this heritage, groups of fur trade-era enthusiasts gather together every year, set up their tipis, tents, campfires, wares, and trinkets and just have a fine time.  There's also a big flea market, and lots of food venders offering Indian fry bread, homemade ice cream, and buffalo burgers.  So at any given time, you can have a typical family perusing the beads and drums for sale by a woman in a bonnet as a man in a loin cloth walks by.  Hence the name of this post.  Sadly, no pictures of loin clothes made the final cut to posting.

In general, it's a very colorful place.

I bring you beads.

I forgot to mention the fried catfish.

Show me your wares!

Dye your own rabbit's feet!!

Immediately following Loincloth Weekend (leaving no time to catch up on sleep from the outings involved with Ladies Weekend), was an event that encapsulated everything I love about the Driftless.

The Bottomlands for Birds river cruise.

I actually had no idea this particular river cruise had a name until about halfway through.  I was just told to show up and knew there would be a lot of bird talk.  They had me at "river."

Essentially, the cruise forced a lot of professional birders, bird enthusiasts, authors, photographers, landowners, and natural resouce managers into one place for an extended period of time.  Audubon, Fish and Wildlife, NPS, the grass-fed beef industry, we had all the agencies covered!

There's nothing quite like it.

We stopped at a small beach to listen for ceruleans (no dice) and then stopped again for a fish fry - which I had not expected, and that made it all the more delightful.  While we waited for the fish to cook, we learned a bit more about Bottomlands for Birds.  It's a nifty program designed to help private landowners manage their holdings in a way that benefits some of the most vulnerable bird species in Minnesota and Iowa: the prothonotary warbler, the red-shouldered hawk, and the cerulean warbler.

Those of us on the boat know how important the Upper Mississippi is to birds, not just in terms of habitat, but also in terms of migration.  Songbirds, waterfowl, and raptors all use the river to find their way to either their breeding grounds or wintering grounds.  When this point was emphasized, as if by magic, a flock of American White Pelicans flew overhead:

This would've been a better picture, but I was lost in a haze of avian conservation-induced euphoria.

They were so close!  Show-offs.




After the excitement of the pelicans, we got down to the business of gorging on freshly fried fish, potatoes, and watermelon.

Don't be fooled, this was my second plate.

But alas, all things must come to end.  As the sun set, we headed homeward.

In the time since then, my time has been occupied by the smaller things life:


Like the blossoms on my eggplants!



And the blossoms on my dark opal basil plant...right before I snipped them off.

So the garden has been coming along fine.  Until a tree fell on it.  Twice.  Ah, nature.



Then of course, came the first Independence Day I've had off of work for as long as I can remember.  Like my birthday, I seem to spend the 4th of July somewhere different every year.  Was it really a year ago I was in Hamburg, IA about to have the time of my life? 

To celebrate, I went with my cousins to the parade in Eastman, WI - with an obscene amount of Flav-or-Ices, candy, tractors, and standing on the asphalt for two hours during an Excessive Heat Warning.  Nothing really gets more American than that.

Except of course, this.

Happy (belated) 4th of July!!

The Path Less Traveled

The quiet revelation that came of my trip to Heritage Farm has turned out to be the only one I would have time for, as the Universe does not run on my time schedule and has seemed to judge my whiny cries for contemplation a nuisance.

But I'm getting ahead of myself, and this story requires a short trip into the past.

My love for the outdoors can be blamed on a handful of people: My grandfather and uncle who showed me how to fish in my aunt's pond, and my parents who took me to Dillon Nature Center in my hometown.  Every summer I was signed up for Adventure Camp and spent my days rarely seeing the inside of a building.  I wrote a short post on it in December if you need more of a backstory.

Flash forward twenty years, and I'm two weeks into the summer season at Effigy Mounds when by luck, chance, and/or planetary alignment, a former director of DNC comes walking into my Visitor Center.  His wife would later describe this event as synchronicity, and I couldn't agree more.  The former director of DNC is now the current director of Indian Creek Nature Center in Cedar Rapids, which became my next destination on this little self-imposed journey of (re)discovery.

The visit was everything a gal could hope for, and I not only got to meet up with The Director again, but also met a lot of the wonderful and friendly staff.  Then I got a personal tour of the major restoration projects, starting with the hillside. 

There are a lot of pictures of wooded hillsides out there in the world, but this one is special because the trail is actually an important boundary of intense ecological restoration proportions.

The best way  to see the difference is to compare the left side of the photo with the right side.  The right side, which is the sunnier side, is the result of years (possibly decades) of prescribed burning which has kept back a lot of woody growth and made it more of an oak savannah.  The left hand side has not been subject to burns and so has more shrubs, bushes, and shade-tolerant trees like maples.  Regular burning is quite a project, and turning a dense wall of tangled shrubs and trees all trying to choke each other out into an open space dominated by oaks is pretty impressive. 

And easy on the eyes.

But not quite so impressive as the restored prairies.

You've heard my rambles on prairies before, so I'll only say this: It took a decade to get the pictured prairie to look like it does today.  Collecting and planting seeds, burning year after year, and keeping those fingers crossed. 

As the old saying goes, If you burn it, they will come. (or something along those lines)

Aphrodite Fritillaries on Common Milkweed

There were dozens of these flying around a patch of milkweed, it was a little surreal.

Purple coneflower

Daisy Fleabane

Rattlesnake Master (super badass)

Twelve-spotted Skimmer (female)

Tallgrass prairie plants are well-adapted to disturbances like fire, grazing, and wind, and it can be said that they may even thrive on periodic destruction.  With this in mind, the folks at Indian Creek have come up with an absolutely ingenious way of bringing both disturbance and people to the prairie.

A Prairie Labyrinth

As much as I'd love to delve into the philosophy and history behind labyrinths, I'll simply let the nearby sign do the talking:

I really liked the labryinth, and it might have even been my favorite part.  In so many places, a prairie trail is straight, and you only get to see what's on either side of you.  Here, your path goes into a prairie, winds around, turns in on itself, and allows you to see more of the plants than you would with a traditional straight path.  And the red-winged blackbirds have more opportunities to dive-bomb you.

After having my fill of scenic beauty, the Director and his wife invited me to dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant in Cedar Rapids (where I had some of the best spring rolls of my life!).  Afterwards, I headed homeward.

Stone steps over part of a slightly dried out wetland area.

Maybe it was the quietness of woods, or the prairie pulsating with life, or maybe it was the inward circle of the labyrinth where I didn't have to choose a path, but somewhere along the way, a sense of calm and assurance crept up on me.  As I drove home my thoughts drifted to where I want to be in five years, and I finally felt myself pulled more in one direction than the other.  I had begun to almost imperceptibly lean towards going, rather than staying.

This shaky insight was tested the next day, as it was brought to my attention there was a small chance my term would be extended to two years.  The emotional hurricane that followed as I decided whether I would even be interested in something like that left me both exhausted and resolute:  For my own sanity, I will choose the path(s) that lead to permanent employment in environmental education/outreach, preferrably closer to my family in Kansas.

Or I'll just build myself a house in a prairie and call it good.

As things worked out, the extension was deemed unneccesary, and I'm fine with it.  My boss/mentor, who by then was aware of my hesitation, called me into his office for a good ol' fashioned talkin'-to.  I'll only relay one line from the hour-plus conversation, but it might sum up his advice fairly well: "...it seems as though you know what you want to do, but you need a kick in the butt to do it, and if this is it, well then so be it."

So there it is folks, a cautious step forward on a new path, followed by waves of intense fear and unsteadiness, and a swift kick back on the trail from someone who has traversed those mountains before.  I know now that one day I will pack my bags and not return, and while that makes me very sad, it means that I'm ready to let go of the Driftless and find my new place in the world.  The rivers and bluffs may no longer hold the same sway over my heart as they have in the past, but the Driftless will always, always be a part of who I am and who I want to be.

The next stage is, of course, deciding exactly where to go, but I as I look through job boards and graduate programs alike, I can't help but feel the small spark of excitement that comes with knowing you're headed into the unknown.


Or headed right where you're supposed to be.