The past two weeks things here have taken a slight turn. After slogging through a couple weeks as roommate to a woman with a warped sense of reality, I moved... again. Yeah. I'd really like to be finished moving for a while. The move was a short one, just across the street, and I'm now living in the basement of my tutor-ee's house.
My junior year in college I got an offer to do an hour's-worth of tutoring in basic chemistry over a break from classes. I decided it couldn't hurt to earn a few extra bucks, never realizing how awesome the arrangement would become. After helping out with chemistry I offered my services up for any other subject- the sciences, math, some English, etc. As a result, I received consistent work once or twice a week for the remainder of my college career. And I became pretty good friends with the family, a single mom and her 16 year-old daughter.
I kept in touch with them this summer while in Wyoming, and they were the ones to suggest the arrangement with the crazy woman across the street when I returned home. They felt bad that things hadn't worked out as planned with the house, so they offered me a way out and invited me to move in with them. After a strange series of unpleasant events across the street, I decided my living situation couldn't get any worse than it was and made the move. Long story.
So now I'm comfortably arranged in the basement with the mom and her daughter. And five dogs. And four cats. And a llama. And four goats. And two pigs. And six calves. And two miniature ponies. And two normal-sized ponies. And a fish. And my three rats.
Oh, and did I mention the 13 horses? As in the 13 performance horses used on a regular basis for competition in rodeos? Those horses?
Yeah. Much nicer over here on the other side of the street.
I've been busier this past week than I was the entire time I was in Wyoming. On top of grad school applications (which I'll hopefully, someday, be finished with), I've been walking dogs, pitching hay, mucking stalls, feeding horses, and riding. And riding, and riding, and riding. Thirteen horses and two ponies take a lot of work, and to keep them in good condition they need a lot of exercise.
Which is where my newest brand of pseudo-employment comes in. Yes, I continue to tutor, to run errands and do odd-jobs, and to walk dogs to cover my room, board, and incidental expenditures. But on top of that I've been requisitioned to help work the horses, at least two every day, to keep them in good shape and prevent them from picking up bad habits. During week one, my butt had never been so sore. During week two, I fell back into my groove, dug up a recollection of a proper seat from deep in my muscle memory, and starting building back muscles that I haven't felt in years.
This weekend, to benefit some of the lesser-used steeds, our group (the girl and her mom, myself, and the horse trainer) took three horses to a gymkhana (a casual rodeo, more or less translated into "games on horseback") to compete. I rode Cash, an antsy quarter horse cross who needs work staying calm at the starting gate. Having never before been in a rodeo, I got a five-day crash course in the events, then entered in the senior's (14+) novice class. We competed in four events: barrels, pole bending, flags, and a "mystery event" that turned out to be "turn and burn."
Most people are at least somewhat familiar with cloverleaf barrels. Pole bending consists of weaving in and out amongst a series of six poles. In both events, knocking over a barrel or a pole will result in a time penalty. Flags is a straightforward course where the rider races in an oval pattern around the arena, first planting a flag in a bucket of sand and then picking another flag out of a bucket before returning to the gate. Turn and burn is a long stretch followed by a complete circle around a barrel before the return (the worst event, since most horses are trained to go only a half-circle around a barrel, not a complete turn). All the events are done at speed and are timed.
Cash and I placed fourth in barrels and second in flags, out of 10 and 15 riders, respectively, in the novice class. In turn and burn Cash got confused about making a full circle around the barrel and pulled wide, and in poles he spooked coming around the first end pole, which a). cost time for me to reset him and b). threw his stride off, which resulted in a downed pole and a time penalty. Ah well...Can't place in everything in your first rodeo after only five days of practice, right?
So I guess thus far, I've been doing pretty well for myself without a job. I'm loving being back home with my family and friends, and I'm living well as a "ranch hand" on a horse ranch. Funny that I spent nearly half a year in the "Cowboy State," and it's only after I leave that I get to cowgirl up.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Friday, November 13, 2009
17 Days
The world is a very strange place. Just a few weeks ago I spent most days alone, hiking through sagebrush or winding between dense stands of ponderosa pine. I would wake early, work, return home in late afternoon, and spend the remainder of the day leisurely, searching for schools, writing emails, reading... Yet somehow, even though I was working overtime and fit the other bits and pieces in elsewhere, I never felt as if I had all that much going on.
Since I've moved to Nearby Town, though, it's as if there aren't enough hours in the day. I get up only moderately later every morning. Most days I go immediately to feed the horses, then the dogs, then the cats. Afterwards there are hosts of other things that need to be taken care of. My "roommate" will have some question about the complexities of technology (Why can't I take pictures anymore with my camera? Because your SD card is full.), my across-the-street neighbors (my pseudo-employers) will ask for the completion of some task, an errand to run or a horse to exercise or an animal to feed or a subject to tutor. And then, after all the stuff that happens at the whims of others is completed (an absolute necessity in order to keep myself afloat without a job), I have my own bits to take care of.
Grad school applications.
I know, it must be getting old for you all to read every week now for months. Grad school applications, grad school applications, grad school applications. Perhaps you didn't realize just how involved and extensive the application process can be. I took the GREs in April, started researching schools in June, contacting prospective advisers in July and early August. I maintained contact with promising leads throughout September, worked on finding fellowships through the end of October, and I've just now started working on the actual applications. Which just happen to be due starting the 1st of December. Which is only 17 days from now.
The applications themselves, of course, are no joke. Each school wants answers to its own questions, essays formatted to its own specifications. 1-3 pp., 2500 words or less, 4000 characters including spaces. Each school wants copies of GRE scores, transcripts, recommendation letters, all at different times and in different numbers and sent to different places. Keeping it all straight is enough of a mess. The hardest part? Trying to make myself stand out.
I'm not great at selling myself, at identifying characteristics that might make an admissions panel take a second look. Many of the students applying likely have similarly strong academic backgrounds and research experiences. Many students will likely have more research experience, perhaps some have already been published. What do I tell the admissions committee there? I'm working on it, okay? And some schools leave no room for explanations.
Ivy League School, for example, which has been my school of choice since I began the whole process, is cutthroat. With ILS, there is only one essay. 1000 words to explain why I want to go to ILS, who I want to work with, what I'd like to work on, and how my academic background and research experiences make me a suitable candidate for admission.
Schools like ILS, Yet Another UC, U Big City (all schools to which I'm applying) accept, on average, only 5 to 7 students a year to their ecology programs.
Yeah.
I'm screwed.
Dear Ivy League School,
I'm so adjective, I verb nouns.
Sincerely,
Jax
Since I've moved to Nearby Town, though, it's as if there aren't enough hours in the day. I get up only moderately later every morning. Most days I go immediately to feed the horses, then the dogs, then the cats. Afterwards there are hosts of other things that need to be taken care of. My "roommate" will have some question about the complexities of technology (Why can't I take pictures anymore with my camera? Because your SD card is full.), my across-the-street neighbors (my pseudo-employers) will ask for the completion of some task, an errand to run or a horse to exercise or an animal to feed or a subject to tutor. And then, after all the stuff that happens at the whims of others is completed (an absolute necessity in order to keep myself afloat without a job), I have my own bits to take care of.
Grad school applications.
I know, it must be getting old for you all to read every week now for months. Grad school applications, grad school applications, grad school applications. Perhaps you didn't realize just how involved and extensive the application process can be. I took the GREs in April, started researching schools in June, contacting prospective advisers in July and early August. I maintained contact with promising leads throughout September, worked on finding fellowships through the end of October, and I've just now started working on the actual applications. Which just happen to be due starting the 1st of December. Which is only 17 days from now.
The applications themselves, of course, are no joke. Each school wants answers to its own questions, essays formatted to its own specifications. 1-3 pp., 2500 words or less, 4000 characters including spaces. Each school wants copies of GRE scores, transcripts, recommendation letters, all at different times and in different numbers and sent to different places. Keeping it all straight is enough of a mess. The hardest part? Trying to make myself stand out.
I'm not great at selling myself, at identifying characteristics that might make an admissions panel take a second look. Many of the students applying likely have similarly strong academic backgrounds and research experiences. Many students will likely have more research experience, perhaps some have already been published. What do I tell the admissions committee there? I'm working on it, okay? And some schools leave no room for explanations.
Ivy League School, for example, which has been my school of choice since I began the whole process, is cutthroat. With ILS, there is only one essay. 1000 words to explain why I want to go to ILS, who I want to work with, what I'd like to work on, and how my academic background and research experiences make me a suitable candidate for admission.
Schools like ILS, Yet Another UC, U Big City (all schools to which I'm applying) accept, on average, only 5 to 7 students a year to their ecology programs.
Yeah.
I'm screwed.
Dear Ivy League School,
I'm so adjective, I verb nouns.
Sincerely,
Jax
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Another Week, Another Move
Nearly another week has passed since my return home, and my time in Wyoming seems very far away. Every once in a while I'll see some sagebrush, or hear the far-off echo of a distant train, but otherwise little reminds me of my former life. I have occasionally thought of Capone, and of the dogs at the Weston County Humane Society. Otherwise, the entire experience seems to be quickly fading.
I miss living alone.
Last year, my senior year of college, my best friend and I rented an apartment a few blocks east of campus. It was an old, run-down place with plenty of cracks and creaks and came complete with a treacherous staircase. It had its charms, though, and we both liked living there. I certainly didn't mind living with my best friend, either. There were times I greatly enjoyed the company. Especially when she made cookies.
But there's something about living on my own, alone, that I really appreciate. It's a type of independence and solitude that's hard to otherwise gain. Hiking by oneself is extremely short-term, camping by oneself is somewhat dangerous. But an apartment with a good deadbolt in a decent part of town is worth its weight in gold. Feeling sociable? Invite someone over, meet a friend for lunch or a movie, visit the parents, hit the town. Want to stay in for the night? No problem. Just lock the door, pull the shades, and the world is yours and yours alone.
I wish I could do that now.
Just a week after my return home, I moved a second, albeit less complete, time. After transporting the great majority of my belongings to and then from Newcastle, I packed up my bedroom furniture and my more often-used clothes and transported them all to Nearby Town, a small town on the fringes of My Home Town (MHT). I was offered a "deal" of sorts by a friend of a friend. A woman looking to move to several hours away needed a house sitter to watch her horses, dogs, and cats while she stayed up north in a search for an appropriate place to live.
Initially, this sounded like a good idea to me. I've been house sitting since I was 11, and I thought that having my furniture along seemed like a bonus. The original plan was this: I would live in the house for a month while the woman stayed up north, possibly returning to Nearby Town one day a week. Good deal, right? A whole month of house sitting, with only a few awkward days co-inhabiting with someone I don't know.
And what ended up happening? Well, the woman left on Monday, and came back yesterday. With all her stuff. To stay. Here.
What?
After only three days she'd placed an offer on a house, and returned to Nearby Town. She told me all about the place, showed me pictures and then proceeded to tell me the two possible outcomes: One, her offer is accepted and she is allowed to move in December 1st, leaving about three weeks of awkwardly uncomfortable co-living time (I would continue to house sit until her house in Nearby Town is sold, to keep it in "show order"), or two, she is outbid (by one of the two other offers on the place) and will then wait until the spring to look again for another home to buy up north.
Meaning....? If the offer isn't accepted, where does that leave me? There is absolutely no reason for me to stick around here if she's planning on calling off the search until spring. When I agreed to all this, I thought that I'd be here by myself the great majority of the time, with her only stopping by occasionally.
I am so sick of moving I could vomit. I find it hard to believe that she wont get outbid on the house up north, and I'm certainly not planning on staying here if she's going to be around.
Things are no better on the job-front. Every single one of the 18 biology-related jobs for which I've applied have turned up negative. I don't even know where to go from here.
I miss being in school, where crap like this never happened. It's why I'm trying so hard to make my graduate school applications shine. I'm feeling a great deal of pressure to make them as appealing as possible. They're all more or less due on December 1st, and I can't imagine how badly it would suck if I didn't get in. It's hard enough to have to wait until March to find out, one way or the other. I'm already tired of not being in school, and I really don't want to have to face another year of stuff like this.
I miss living alone.
Last year, my senior year of college, my best friend and I rented an apartment a few blocks east of campus. It was an old, run-down place with plenty of cracks and creaks and came complete with a treacherous staircase. It had its charms, though, and we both liked living there. I certainly didn't mind living with my best friend, either. There were times I greatly enjoyed the company. Especially when she made cookies.
But there's something about living on my own, alone, that I really appreciate. It's a type of independence and solitude that's hard to otherwise gain. Hiking by oneself is extremely short-term, camping by oneself is somewhat dangerous. But an apartment with a good deadbolt in a decent part of town is worth its weight in gold. Feeling sociable? Invite someone over, meet a friend for lunch or a movie, visit the parents, hit the town. Want to stay in for the night? No problem. Just lock the door, pull the shades, and the world is yours and yours alone.
I wish I could do that now.
Just a week after my return home, I moved a second, albeit less complete, time. After transporting the great majority of my belongings to and then from Newcastle, I packed up my bedroom furniture and my more often-used clothes and transported them all to Nearby Town, a small town on the fringes of My Home Town (MHT). I was offered a "deal" of sorts by a friend of a friend. A woman looking to move to several hours away needed a house sitter to watch her horses, dogs, and cats while she stayed up north in a search for an appropriate place to live.
Initially, this sounded like a good idea to me. I've been house sitting since I was 11, and I thought that having my furniture along seemed like a bonus. The original plan was this: I would live in the house for a month while the woman stayed up north, possibly returning to Nearby Town one day a week. Good deal, right? A whole month of house sitting, with only a few awkward days co-inhabiting with someone I don't know.
And what ended up happening? Well, the woman left on Monday, and came back yesterday. With all her stuff. To stay. Here.
What?
After only three days she'd placed an offer on a house, and returned to Nearby Town. She told me all about the place, showed me pictures and then proceeded to tell me the two possible outcomes: One, her offer is accepted and she is allowed to move in December 1st, leaving about three weeks of awkwardly uncomfortable co-living time (I would continue to house sit until her house in Nearby Town is sold, to keep it in "show order"), or two, she is outbid (by one of the two other offers on the place) and will then wait until the spring to look again for another home to buy up north.
Meaning....? If the offer isn't accepted, where does that leave me? There is absolutely no reason for me to stick around here if she's planning on calling off the search until spring. When I agreed to all this, I thought that I'd be here by myself the great majority of the time, with her only stopping by occasionally.
I am so sick of moving I could vomit. I find it hard to believe that she wont get outbid on the house up north, and I'm certainly not planning on staying here if she's going to be around.
Things are no better on the job-front. Every single one of the 18 biology-related jobs for which I've applied have turned up negative. I don't even know where to go from here.
I miss being in school, where crap like this never happened. It's why I'm trying so hard to make my graduate school applications shine. I'm feeling a great deal of pressure to make them as appealing as possible. They're all more or less due on December 1st, and I can't imagine how badly it would suck if I didn't get in. It's hard enough to have to wait until March to find out, one way or the other. I'm already tired of not being in school, and I really don't want to have to face another year of stuff like this.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
What Kind of Day Has It Been
I had good intentions to update this post this weekend, after I first returned home. I assumed that Saturday, after all my things had been unloaded and stored, that I would spend the evening leisurely contemplating the events of the past five months, and that Sunday morning I would be ready to write it all down. But Saturday evening I was more concerned with making a visit to Chipotle, and Sunday I couldn't quite convince myself to write anything. Also, I had to make another visit to Chipotle.
Despite the fact that my life has suddenly become much less interesting, my brain is saying it's Thursday and it's time to finish this post.
Last Friday I said goodbye to the BLM. You may remember my very first post here, in which I mentioned that on the first day of my internship, my boss was not at work. How ironic, then, or perhaps just fitting, that he should also be absent on the last day of my internship. Dwayne left on Thursday afternoon, after he'd been assured that I'd turned in all my equipment and finished the reports for which he'd asked. He and I never really "clicked," but we did get along well enough, so we amicably went our separate ways. And, in a gesture I've interpreted as a parting gift, Dwayne let me write and send official government correspondence, complete with letterhead, signatures, and pre-paid postage. Cool.
Friday morning our office was nearly empty. I had little to do, since I'd returned nearly everything to Dwayne and had already completed all my work. I whittled away the morning breaking the government rules about internet use in the office, reading and sending personal emails, running pointless Google searches, and looking for job openings. I emptied my desk, returned various borrowed items, took down my posters, and picked out my three favorite deer and pronghorn sheds to bring home. R brought in a chocolate cake (mmm... chocolate cake) and M took me out to lunch (mmm... lunch).
And that was that, really. I had a brief meeting with the field manager, Tulip; an attempt at a proper evaluation. Nonetheless, I was given the opportunity to voice my concerns, and the two of us had a good conversation about the benefits and drawbacks of the program, and all the things the internship could stand to improve. I turned in my keys, bade everyone well, and left.
The next morning, I loaded all my things, vacuumed out the apartment, and made the long drive home.
Several people have asked me what it's like to finally be back, how I felt to be leaving Wyoming. I was obviously enthusiastic about returning home, leaving the tiny, dirty town of Newcastle far behind. My mom asked me recently if my time in Wyoming now seemed a bad dream. So it might surprise everyone, much as it did me, to find that leaving Wyoming and my job with the BLM wasn't quite as easy as I'd imagined.
Don't get me wrong... For the most part, I couldn't stand the BLM's multiple-use land management policies, the bureaucracy, the ridiculous, languid pace at which tasks are completed. Nor could I stand the town in which I was living, the incessant, unrelenting noise from the trains wearing down my last nerve, the ever-present sour smell from the oil refinery, the brooding, suspicious people, the endless stream of hunters.
There were times when I was terribly lonely, when I wanted nothing more than a companion with which to go hiking or camping or visit nearby tourist attractions. I butted heads with landowners, bit my tongue in the office, forced myself to appear neutral in the face of competing interests. There were countless times in the field when I wasn't sure where I was going, when I got lost or turned around. There were times I'd drive into places not knowing whether I'd be able to get out.
I drove on washed out roads and into narrow, steep canyons. I climbed up and down canyon walls and the nearly vertical edges of crumbling drainages. I fought with broken posts and rusty barbed wire. I trespassed far more times than I would have liked. I slipped across hills, slid into ravines, jumped across creeks, and received more than a few cuts and bruises from meeting up unexpectedly with stumps, rocks, and yes, even the ground.
So... why do I feel like I've lost something?
Perhaps because, in the end, the internship represented a lot more than the sum of its negative parts.
Wyoming is gorgeous. Take away the fencing, the train tracks, the highways, get rid of the cattle, the hunters, the far-right-wing, anti-environment, hostile landowners, the oil and gas rigs, the weathered, beaten-down farmhouses... and what's left is incredible. Stunning. Endless stretches of fragrant sage... hundreds of species of flowers, each week a new one blossoming... towering, ancient cottonwoods. Groves of spruce and ponderosa pine...tracts of quaking aspen.... miles of canyon bottoms laced with grasses and gentle rays of sunshine. Every time I hiked off somewhere and dropped out of sight of the man-made world, I felt completely at ease, almost deliriously happy.
There were good people, too. Ally, who willingly works for the BLM full-time. Neela, who runs the Weston County Humane Society. Amanda, who came to walk the dogs there nearly every single day. Steve and Bob Carter, whom I visited with several times. David, who doesn't own a phone but was more than happy to show me around his property when it came time for me to trespass there. The Mills, who unlocked gates for me more than once. Paul, who was always grateful when I gave him a courtesy call. Ed , an absentee landowner who called me once from Iowa to warn me of a particularly temperamental bull on his property. Perino, Christensen, Simmons, and Popham, graciously giving their permission for me to traipse out on their land every week to look for grouse. Oil Roustabout Guy, who I often ran into and chatted with on Fridays when driving out to find 45. And of course, Russell Davis, who very nearly restored my faith in humanity.
And, aside from the people I met and the nuances of my job is this: my five months in Wyoming provided me a great deal more responsibility, flexibility, independence, and freedom than I've ever had. I spent nearly half a year entirely on my own. I saw things that most people will likely never see, drove on roads most people will never drive, traveled to areas few people have ever traveled.
As I made the drive back home, rain lashing down on my windshield, I surprised myself by thinking wistfully of the places I'd visited over the course of the summer... roads I'd taken, creeks I'd crossed, hills I'd summited, drainages I'd followed... places where the radio signal for NPR was good... places where the radio signal for NPR was bad...places I'd found my grouse... places I'd stopped just to be... places where I wondered "WTF am I doing out here?"... places where I'd never felt better. And as I thought back over everything I'd done and everything I'd seen and everything I'd felt and every place I'd been, I found myself wondering, just what kind of day has it been?
Despite the fact that my life has suddenly become much less interesting, my brain is saying it's Thursday and it's time to finish this post.
Last Friday I said goodbye to the BLM. You may remember my very first post here, in which I mentioned that on the first day of my internship, my boss was not at work. How ironic, then, or perhaps just fitting, that he should also be absent on the last day of my internship. Dwayne left on Thursday afternoon, after he'd been assured that I'd turned in all my equipment and finished the reports for which he'd asked. He and I never really "clicked," but we did get along well enough, so we amicably went our separate ways. And, in a gesture I've interpreted as a parting gift, Dwayne let me write and send official government correspondence, complete with letterhead, signatures, and pre-paid postage. Cool.
Friday morning our office was nearly empty. I had little to do, since I'd returned nearly everything to Dwayne and had already completed all my work. I whittled away the morning breaking the government rules about internet use in the office, reading and sending personal emails, running pointless Google searches, and looking for job openings. I emptied my desk, returned various borrowed items, took down my posters, and picked out my three favorite deer and pronghorn sheds to bring home. R brought in a chocolate cake (mmm... chocolate cake) and M took me out to lunch (mmm... lunch).
And that was that, really. I had a brief meeting with the field manager, Tulip; an attempt at a proper evaluation. Nonetheless, I was given the opportunity to voice my concerns, and the two of us had a good conversation about the benefits and drawbacks of the program, and all the things the internship could stand to improve. I turned in my keys, bade everyone well, and left.
The next morning, I loaded all my things, vacuumed out the apartment, and made the long drive home.
Several people have asked me what it's like to finally be back, how I felt to be leaving Wyoming. I was obviously enthusiastic about returning home, leaving the tiny, dirty town of Newcastle far behind. My mom asked me recently if my time in Wyoming now seemed a bad dream. So it might surprise everyone, much as it did me, to find that leaving Wyoming and my job with the BLM wasn't quite as easy as I'd imagined.
Don't get me wrong... For the most part, I couldn't stand the BLM's multiple-use land management policies, the bureaucracy, the ridiculous, languid pace at which tasks are completed. Nor could I stand the town in which I was living, the incessant, unrelenting noise from the trains wearing down my last nerve, the ever-present sour smell from the oil refinery, the brooding, suspicious people, the endless stream of hunters.
There were times when I was terribly lonely, when I wanted nothing more than a companion with which to go hiking or camping or visit nearby tourist attractions. I butted heads with landowners, bit my tongue in the office, forced myself to appear neutral in the face of competing interests. There were countless times in the field when I wasn't sure where I was going, when I got lost or turned around. There were times I'd drive into places not knowing whether I'd be able to get out.
I drove on washed out roads and into narrow, steep canyons. I climbed up and down canyon walls and the nearly vertical edges of crumbling drainages. I fought with broken posts and rusty barbed wire. I trespassed far more times than I would have liked. I slipped across hills, slid into ravines, jumped across creeks, and received more than a few cuts and bruises from meeting up unexpectedly with stumps, rocks, and yes, even the ground.
So... why do I feel like I've lost something?
Perhaps because, in the end, the internship represented a lot more than the sum of its negative parts.
Wyoming is gorgeous. Take away the fencing, the train tracks, the highways, get rid of the cattle, the hunters, the far-right-wing, anti-environment, hostile landowners, the oil and gas rigs, the weathered, beaten-down farmhouses... and what's left is incredible. Stunning. Endless stretches of fragrant sage... hundreds of species of flowers, each week a new one blossoming... towering, ancient cottonwoods. Groves of spruce and ponderosa pine...tracts of quaking aspen.... miles of canyon bottoms laced with grasses and gentle rays of sunshine. Every time I hiked off somewhere and dropped out of sight of the man-made world, I felt completely at ease, almost deliriously happy.
There were good people, too. Ally, who willingly works for the BLM full-time. Neela, who runs the Weston County Humane Society. Amanda, who came to walk the dogs there nearly every single day. Steve and Bob Carter, whom I visited with several times. David, who doesn't own a phone but was more than happy to show me around his property when it came time for me to trespass there. The Mills, who unlocked gates for me more than once. Paul, who was always grateful when I gave him a courtesy call. Ed , an absentee landowner who called me once from Iowa to warn me of a particularly temperamental bull on his property. Perino, Christensen, Simmons, and Popham, graciously giving their permission for me to traipse out on their land every week to look for grouse. Oil Roustabout Guy, who I often ran into and chatted with on Fridays when driving out to find 45. And of course, Russell Davis, who very nearly restored my faith in humanity.
And, aside from the people I met and the nuances of my job is this: my five months in Wyoming provided me a great deal more responsibility, flexibility, independence, and freedom than I've ever had. I spent nearly half a year entirely on my own. I saw things that most people will likely never see, drove on roads most people will never drive, traveled to areas few people have ever traveled.
As I made the drive back home, rain lashing down on my windshield, I surprised myself by thinking wistfully of the places I'd visited over the course of the summer... roads I'd taken, creeks I'd crossed, hills I'd summited, drainages I'd followed... places where the radio signal for NPR was good... places where the radio signal for NPR was bad...places I'd found my grouse... places I'd stopped just to be... places where I wondered "WTF am I doing out here?"... places where I'd never felt better. And as I thought back over everything I'd done and everything I'd seen and everything I'd felt and every place I'd been, I found myself wondering, just what kind of day has it been?
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Eight Days from Home
Eight days. Eight short days separate this moment in time from my departure from Newcastle. Leaving this place is something for which I've been waiting the last five months. To say that I'm excited to be returning to home would be an understatement. And yet, despite my anticipation to finally be going back, I can't shake this uneasy feeling of uncertainty, insecurity.
I would love nothing more than to say that as soon as my things and I are back at home that I'll be set and secure to spend the next nine months comfortably enjoying my time, waiting to enter grad school. But the truth is, my immediate future is anything but certain. Some problems do seem to be slowly working themselves out- I think I've found a place to stay, for instance- but there remains a chance that the next nine months could be much the same as the last five.
As I see it now, there are two likely possibilities for me. One, that I return home for a brief period of respite, only to have to move again within the next month or two for work, or two, that I stay at home but end up having to take a low-paying job that I hate just to get by. There is the third possibility, of course, that I'll find a great job doing something wildlife/environment-related at home, but I feel my odds for such fortune are slim at best.
I suppose the best I can do for now is focus on the near-term future. Namely, my sights will be set on March, when I'll hear if I've been accepted to, and subsequently make visits to, grad schools, and August, when I'll (hopefully) be making a more permanent move elsewhere to begin my graduate studies.
In the interim, I've been finishing up things at work, wrapping up loose ends in the field and trying to fill long stretches of time in the always-boring office. This week I had two days of work on a 300 acre parcel of BLM land along the Wyoming/South Dakota state line, known as "Mallo" for its proximity to a summer camp of the same name. Mallo is considered one of the nicest pieces of land managed by our field office, and with good reason. The area sports a 2.5-mile hiking trail, a meadow, extensive aspen groves, tracts of white spruce along a narrow drainage, and one of the last remaining stands of old-growth ponderosa pine in the Black Hills.
Despite only having two days of work at Mallo, I had to bide my time to get there. The cold, wintry weather from last week persisted through the weekend, with additional snow falling heavily west of Newcastle. Tuesday's forecast looked more promising, but Tuesday morning dawned grey and cold with freezing rain and high winds. Finally, on Wednesday I decided to take my chances. I am, after all, running out of time.
No freezing rain on Wednesday... or at least, no "freezing." Though the temperature hovered near the mid-forties, it poured down rain all morning, and between the rain and the six inches of snow on the ground, it made for a day that was cold enough. Especially because the Gore-Tex on my hiking boots just isn't up to scratch. Despite the slightly uncomfortable weather, I enjoyed my time on Wednesday, and enjoyed today even more, when the weather cleared and the sun shone for the first time in days.
You might be tempted to think that the forest is relatively empty. A few birds here and there, perhaps, but not much else around. After all, take a hike around an area of forest and you're not likely to see much. Birds, the occasional squirrel, maybe some deer droppings... Nothing to suggest that there's a lot of activity. But walk that same tract of forest after a good snow, and your opinions might change.
A fresh coat of deep, white snow betrays even the most inconspicuous forest occupants. Deer trails and turkey highways, rife across hilltops, bypassed here and there by the tracks of lone elk. Small, clawed fox prints run along the meadow's edge, near the tracks of a rabbit. Around the bases of trees, the characteristic rodent stride, red squirrel, chipmunk, and the prints of mice, so close together they resemble tiny, crisscrossing train tracks. Near one tree, the larger prints of a porcupine. Along the trail in one spot, the dinosaur-like marks of a ruffed grouse. Then, perhaps most impressive of all, the tracks of the Black Hill's last remaining apex predator. The mountain lion.
The pug marks of the cat- a large one, probably male- are spread across a hilltop, wavering, circling, stopping briefly to spray his strong scent on a tree, then returning downhill to the cover of spruce in the low-lying drainage to the south. Later, more tracks, along the old logging road, along the trail, near the fence line, his path marked intermittently by spore, an obvious sign of a newcomer staking his territory.
Had I the time, and perhaps a friend with me, I would very much have like to follow his trail down into the drainage. The tracks on the hilltop were fresh, only an hour or two old. The chance to see an elusive animal is hard to resist, and the odds were good that he'd taken refuge in a tree not far downhill. Despite my longing to glimpse such a prince, my common sense is strong enough to win over temptation, and I reluctantly moved on.
Now I have only two days of fieldwork remaining before my internship ends, both to be spent tracking the sage-grouse. Leaving the sage-grouse behind will likely be the hardest part, perhaps the only hard part, about leaving Newcastle. I'm happy to have two tracking days left, to get a last chance to see where the grouse are spending their time, and if they're starting to move towards a winter range. The best part about my last two tracking days? Pronghorn and deer season both ended today, which means I and the other denizens of the prairie will be, for the first time in weeks, safe.
I would love nothing more than to say that as soon as my things and I are back at home that I'll be set and secure to spend the next nine months comfortably enjoying my time, waiting to enter grad school. But the truth is, my immediate future is anything but certain. Some problems do seem to be slowly working themselves out- I think I've found a place to stay, for instance- but there remains a chance that the next nine months could be much the same as the last five.
As I see it now, there are two likely possibilities for me. One, that I return home for a brief period of respite, only to have to move again within the next month or two for work, or two, that I stay at home but end up having to take a low-paying job that I hate just to get by. There is the third possibility, of course, that I'll find a great job doing something wildlife/environment-related at home, but I feel my odds for such fortune are slim at best.
I suppose the best I can do for now is focus on the near-term future. Namely, my sights will be set on March, when I'll hear if I've been accepted to, and subsequently make visits to, grad schools, and August, when I'll (hopefully) be making a more permanent move elsewhere to begin my graduate studies.
In the interim, I've been finishing up things at work, wrapping up loose ends in the field and trying to fill long stretches of time in the always-boring office. This week I had two days of work on a 300 acre parcel of BLM land along the Wyoming/South Dakota state line, known as "Mallo" for its proximity to a summer camp of the same name. Mallo is considered one of the nicest pieces of land managed by our field office, and with good reason. The area sports a 2.5-mile hiking trail, a meadow, extensive aspen groves, tracts of white spruce along a narrow drainage, and one of the last remaining stands of old-growth ponderosa pine in the Black Hills.
Despite only having two days of work at Mallo, I had to bide my time to get there. The cold, wintry weather from last week persisted through the weekend, with additional snow falling heavily west of Newcastle. Tuesday's forecast looked more promising, but Tuesday morning dawned grey and cold with freezing rain and high winds. Finally, on Wednesday I decided to take my chances. I am, after all, running out of time.
No freezing rain on Wednesday... or at least, no "freezing." Though the temperature hovered near the mid-forties, it poured down rain all morning, and between the rain and the six inches of snow on the ground, it made for a day that was cold enough. Especially because the Gore-Tex on my hiking boots just isn't up to scratch. Despite the slightly uncomfortable weather, I enjoyed my time on Wednesday, and enjoyed today even more, when the weather cleared and the sun shone for the first time in days.
You might be tempted to think that the forest is relatively empty. A few birds here and there, perhaps, but not much else around. After all, take a hike around an area of forest and you're not likely to see much. Birds, the occasional squirrel, maybe some deer droppings... Nothing to suggest that there's a lot of activity. But walk that same tract of forest after a good snow, and your opinions might change.
A fresh coat of deep, white snow betrays even the most inconspicuous forest occupants. Deer trails and turkey highways, rife across hilltops, bypassed here and there by the tracks of lone elk. Small, clawed fox prints run along the meadow's edge, near the tracks of a rabbit. Around the bases of trees, the characteristic rodent stride, red squirrel, chipmunk, and the prints of mice, so close together they resemble tiny, crisscrossing train tracks. Near one tree, the larger prints of a porcupine. Along the trail in one spot, the dinosaur-like marks of a ruffed grouse. Then, perhaps most impressive of all, the tracks of the Black Hill's last remaining apex predator. The mountain lion.
The pug marks of the cat- a large one, probably male- are spread across a hilltop, wavering, circling, stopping briefly to spray his strong scent on a tree, then returning downhill to the cover of spruce in the low-lying drainage to the south. Later, more tracks, along the old logging road, along the trail, near the fence line, his path marked intermittently by spore, an obvious sign of a newcomer staking his territory.
Had I the time, and perhaps a friend with me, I would very much have like to follow his trail down into the drainage. The tracks on the hilltop were fresh, only an hour or two old. The chance to see an elusive animal is hard to resist, and the odds were good that he'd taken refuge in a tree not far downhill. Despite my longing to glimpse such a prince, my common sense is strong enough to win over temptation, and I reluctantly moved on.
Now I have only two days of fieldwork remaining before my internship ends, both to be spent tracking the sage-grouse. Leaving the sage-grouse behind will likely be the hardest part, perhaps the only hard part, about leaving Newcastle. I'm happy to have two tracking days left, to get a last chance to see where the grouse are spending their time, and if they're starting to move towards a winter range. The best part about my last two tracking days? Pronghorn and deer season both ended today, which means I and the other denizens of the prairie will be, for the first time in weeks, safe.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Will Work for Money
Over the course of a single week, things have changed. The weather went from sunny and low nineties to snow in just a few days. No gradual transition into wintry weather here... after a couple brief weeks of pleasantly mild days, we've dropped into the twenties and thirties, and have had light snow every evening for a week. But of course, there's always work.
With my vegetation surveys finished, I determined that, aside from weekly grousing, I only have two days of fieldwork remaining. (These days will have to wait until next week, when the snow is supposed to let up.) After tallying all the overtime hours I've worked and haven't yet used as flex time, I figured that I could stand to take five days off. What better way to take that time off then to use all five days consecutively at the end of my internship? After talking it over with Dwayne, he conceded that I could finish a week early. So my last full day in Newcastle is, officially, two weeks from tomorrow, on October 23rd!
I have plans to move back to home on October 24th.
The end is in sight, and my freedom from this town is almost tangible. Just two weeks, and I leave the armpit of Wyoming far behind. I'm anxious to leave, glad to be headed back to someplace with people my own age, mountains, non-oil-refinery-tainted air, food, and a house that isn't a half block from a train crossing. Yet my departure from Newcastle signifies something undesirable, too: unemployment.
Living at home is better than living in Newcastle. Having a job is better than not having a job. Is having a job in Newcastle better than not having a job at home? A tough question. Right now, my answer would obviously be that the latter is much preferable to the former. But what happens if I end up living at my mom's for two months and can't find someplace to work? Then a job in Newcastle might not look quite as bad. Or maybe it will... I don't know. I really don't like Newcastle.
I've spent the past few weeks scouring the internet for job openings, and applying for everything from a interpretation position at a national park in Florida to a naturalist internship at a science school in Colorado. So far I haven't heard anything, but I keep hoping that one afternoon after work I'll check my email to find that someone has contacted me about setting up an interview. I've become accustomed over the past 4-odd years to not living with my mom, and to be perfectly honest, I never planned on living there again. Job = money = rent. No job = no money = no rent. Pretty simple.
Monday is Columbus Day, and since I work in a federal office, I get the day off. Apart from the continuous job search, I'll be starting my graduate school applications. I have no idea how to even begin writing a personal statement, but I shouldn't have too much trouble filling in the basics. Right now I have five schools on my list: UC Somewhere, UC Somewhere Else, U Big City, Yet Another UC, and Ivy League School. I'm still keeping my fingers crossed that I'll hear from two or three more professors before the application deadline on December 1st. Not aiming high or anything....
In a convoluted way, I'm starting to link the outcomes of my job search and graduate school. I feel as if finding a job is imperative for a successful application. Not that I can't get in somewhere without working for the next nine months, but rather, I'm worrying that if I can't even get something as simple as a job, then how am I going to convince an admissions committee that I'm good enough for a competitive PhD program?
With my vegetation surveys finished, I determined that, aside from weekly grousing, I only have two days of fieldwork remaining. (These days will have to wait until next week, when the snow is supposed to let up.) After tallying all the overtime hours I've worked and haven't yet used as flex time, I figured that I could stand to take five days off. What better way to take that time off then to use all five days consecutively at the end of my internship? After talking it over with Dwayne, he conceded that I could finish a week early. So my last full day in Newcastle is, officially, two weeks from tomorrow, on October 23rd!
I have plans to move back to home on October 24th.
The end is in sight, and my freedom from this town is almost tangible. Just two weeks, and I leave the armpit of Wyoming far behind. I'm anxious to leave, glad to be headed back to someplace with people my own age, mountains, non-oil-refinery-tainted air, food, and a house that isn't a half block from a train crossing. Yet my departure from Newcastle signifies something undesirable, too: unemployment.
Living at home is better than living in Newcastle. Having a job is better than not having a job. Is having a job in Newcastle better than not having a job at home? A tough question. Right now, my answer would obviously be that the latter is much preferable to the former. But what happens if I end up living at my mom's for two months and can't find someplace to work? Then a job in Newcastle might not look quite as bad. Or maybe it will... I don't know. I really don't like Newcastle.
I've spent the past few weeks scouring the internet for job openings, and applying for everything from a interpretation position at a national park in Florida to a naturalist internship at a science school in Colorado. So far I haven't heard anything, but I keep hoping that one afternoon after work I'll check my email to find that someone has contacted me about setting up an interview. I've become accustomed over the past 4-odd years to not living with my mom, and to be perfectly honest, I never planned on living there again. Job = money = rent. No job = no money = no rent. Pretty simple.
Monday is Columbus Day, and since I work in a federal office, I get the day off. Apart from the continuous job search, I'll be starting my graduate school applications. I have no idea how to even begin writing a personal statement, but I shouldn't have too much trouble filling in the basics. Right now I have five schools on my list: UC Somewhere, UC Somewhere Else, U Big City, Yet Another UC, and Ivy League School. I'm still keeping my fingers crossed that I'll hear from two or three more professors before the application deadline on December 1st. Not aiming high or anything....
In a convoluted way, I'm starting to link the outcomes of my job search and graduate school. I feel as if finding a job is imperative for a successful application. Not that I can't get in somewhere without working for the next nine months, but rather, I'm worrying that if I can't even get something as simple as a job, then how am I going to convince an admissions committee that I'm good enough for a competitive PhD program?
Thursday, October 1, 2009
A Night Out
Two posts in one week!
HAPPY WORLD VEGETARIAN DAY! This is the first day of Vegetarian Awareness Month. I heart being vegetarian.
As September slipped towards October, I had one last big project to finish, the vegetation surveys I've been working on for the last three weeks. The tedium of measuring tract after tract of grass and sage should not be underestimated. Although the weather has been lovely and the deer and pronghorn out in droves, I was beginning to yearn for the day when I would finish veg surveys.
I'd been progressing nicely, much more quickly than I'd anticipated, but one last hurdle loomed. Nineteen survey points lay in northern Crook county, many less than 10 miles from the Montana/Wyoming state line. With a two- to three-hour drive between the field office and the southernmost survey point, I knew I had only two options: spend five or six days with a five- or six-hour commute to complete only three or four surveys per day, or spend two long days in the field separated by a night's camping. In the end the choice was obvious. I hate driving the same long route day in and day out.
So Monday evening I packed my sleeping bag, two days-worth of food, my camera, and my latest library book (A Naturalist and Other Beasts: Tails from Life in the Field, by the world's most eminent field biologist, George Schaller), and prepared to spend two full days in northern Crook county. Tuesday morning I departed early from the field office, making good time to my first survey point, only two miles from the Montana border.
I spent the remainder of Tuesday (and I mean the remainder) trekking across the plains, traversing private land and state trust land and bits of BLM to 13 different survey locations, dutifully stretching out my 50-meter tape at each one, recording species' percent composition and diversity and measuring the heights of sage brush and various grasses and forbs.
Around 6:00 PM I stopped for dinner, parking the Durango along the banks of the north fork of the Little Missouri River. I was pleased to find a variety of birdlife there, including American pelican, double-crested cormorant, western grebes, the ever-present Canada geese, and, fantastically, a group of around 300 sandhill cranes, taking a brief rest from their southward migration. I was tempted to remain by the river until dark, but knew if I wanted to get home at a reasonable hour the following day I'd need to keep working.
I reluctantly continued on, laying out transect after transect until the sun had set and I could no longer see. I packed up my field gear and drove south to a nearby tract of forested BLM land, trying to park the car in the most inconspicuous place possible. I pulled up under a few ponderosa with intertwining branches, rolled down the windows, folded down the back seats, and unrolled my sleeping bag in the back of the Durango.
It was still fairly early, only around 8:15 PM, so I spent some time stargazing (most of the sky was obscured by the light from the nearly-full moon), then read by headlamp until I was tired enough to sleep. I was tempted to psych myself out, being admittedly nervous about spending a night alone in an area that, although rarely visited, has public access. But I quickly fought down any misgivings, knowing I was safer in the car by myself than I would have been in a tent with another person. It was a warm night, and as a result I slept fitfully, first too hot, then not warm enough. Eventually, however, I awoke to find the sky lightening gradually in the east.
I checked the time on my watch: 5:45 AM. I got up, packed up my bag, raised the seats, and started my work again, taking advantage of the earliest light possible. As I'd completed so much on Tuesday, Wednesday's fieldwork went quickly. Just six transects laid between me and completion of my surveys, and my early start allowed me to finish by 11:30 AM. I was back to the field office by 2:00 PM, and made quick work of my end-of-the-month reports before finally leaving to head home.
I was glad be back to the apartment, but even happier to finally be finished with the repetitive vegetation surveys. And all-in-all, the trip was a success. I completed my fieldwork, the weather was great, the wildlife abundant, the solitude peaceful, and my survival refreshing.
Yesterday afternoon as I returned home it began to rain, and early this morning the rain turned to the season's first snow. The snow continued into the early afternoon, small, wet flakes that refused to stick to the ground. I had planned on grousing today, as I'm taking tomorrow off. But rain and snow makes many of the roads in the national grassland so muddy they become impassable, so I spent the day in the office catching up on data entry. It was a good decision on more than one count. When Dwayne arrived at the office, he reminded me that today marks the first day of open season on pronghorn. He suggested I not go out for several days... evidentally, people around here are just clamboring to go out and kill something right now.
HAPPY WORLD VEGETARIAN DAY! This is the first day of Vegetarian Awareness Month. I heart being vegetarian.
As September slipped towards October, I had one last big project to finish, the vegetation surveys I've been working on for the last three weeks. The tedium of measuring tract after tract of grass and sage should not be underestimated. Although the weather has been lovely and the deer and pronghorn out in droves, I was beginning to yearn for the day when I would finish veg surveys.
I'd been progressing nicely, much more quickly than I'd anticipated, but one last hurdle loomed. Nineteen survey points lay in northern Crook county, many less than 10 miles from the Montana/Wyoming state line. With a two- to three-hour drive between the field office and the southernmost survey point, I knew I had only two options: spend five or six days with a five- or six-hour commute to complete only three or four surveys per day, or spend two long days in the field separated by a night's camping. In the end the choice was obvious. I hate driving the same long route day in and day out.
So Monday evening I packed my sleeping bag, two days-worth of food, my camera, and my latest library book (A Naturalist and Other Beasts: Tails from Life in the Field, by the world's most eminent field biologist, George Schaller), and prepared to spend two full days in northern Crook county. Tuesday morning I departed early from the field office, making good time to my first survey point, only two miles from the Montana border.
I spent the remainder of Tuesday (and I mean the remainder) trekking across the plains, traversing private land and state trust land and bits of BLM to 13 different survey locations, dutifully stretching out my 50-meter tape at each one, recording species' percent composition and diversity and measuring the heights of sage brush and various grasses and forbs.
Around 6:00 PM I stopped for dinner, parking the Durango along the banks of the north fork of the Little Missouri River. I was pleased to find a variety of birdlife there, including American pelican, double-crested cormorant, western grebes, the ever-present Canada geese, and, fantastically, a group of around 300 sandhill cranes, taking a brief rest from their southward migration. I was tempted to remain by the river until dark, but knew if I wanted to get home at a reasonable hour the following day I'd need to keep working.
I reluctantly continued on, laying out transect after transect until the sun had set and I could no longer see. I packed up my field gear and drove south to a nearby tract of forested BLM land, trying to park the car in the most inconspicuous place possible. I pulled up under a few ponderosa with intertwining branches, rolled down the windows, folded down the back seats, and unrolled my sleeping bag in the back of the Durango.
It was still fairly early, only around 8:15 PM, so I spent some time stargazing (most of the sky was obscured by the light from the nearly-full moon), then read by headlamp until I was tired enough to sleep. I was tempted to psych myself out, being admittedly nervous about spending a night alone in an area that, although rarely visited, has public access. But I quickly fought down any misgivings, knowing I was safer in the car by myself than I would have been in a tent with another person. It was a warm night, and as a result I slept fitfully, first too hot, then not warm enough. Eventually, however, I awoke to find the sky lightening gradually in the east.
I checked the time on my watch: 5:45 AM. I got up, packed up my bag, raised the seats, and started my work again, taking advantage of the earliest light possible. As I'd completed so much on Tuesday, Wednesday's fieldwork went quickly. Just six transects laid between me and completion of my surveys, and my early start allowed me to finish by 11:30 AM. I was back to the field office by 2:00 PM, and made quick work of my end-of-the-month reports before finally leaving to head home.
I was glad be back to the apartment, but even happier to finally be finished with the repetitive vegetation surveys. And all-in-all, the trip was a success. I completed my fieldwork, the weather was great, the wildlife abundant, the solitude peaceful, and my survival refreshing.
Yesterday afternoon as I returned home it began to rain, and early this morning the rain turned to the season's first snow. The snow continued into the early afternoon, small, wet flakes that refused to stick to the ground. I had planned on grousing today, as I'm taking tomorrow off. But rain and snow makes many of the roads in the national grassland so muddy they become impassable, so I spent the day in the office catching up on data entry. It was a good decision on more than one count. When Dwayne arrived at the office, he reminded me that today marks the first day of open season on pronghorn. He suggested I not go out for several days... evidentally, people around here are just clamboring to go out and kill something right now.
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