The California Learning Curve

Well, family and friends, it's been quite a long while since I have written to all of my cyberspace fans and I figure (with a little encouragement from mom and apparently her coworkers) that the time has come for a long overdue update on life here behind the redwood curtain. I'm afraid I have no pictures (hold the tears, please) because my camera had an unfortunate accident over New Years (you have no idea how many times I warned it about drinking too much) so all you'll have to hold you over are these dime a dozen words of mine.

I'm sitting here in Redwood National Park trying to think of what the hell I've been up to for the past six months (has it really been that long since I've seen your smiling faces??) and all I can come up with is this: living. I haven't done anything spectacular or incredibly worthwhile. I went to school full time again this past spring (history, statistics, political science, speech, blah) and managed to get three As and one B+ without really going to class or doing homework. Couldn't tell you how I pulled it off; I guess I'm just lucky. Aside from school I got a new job on campus in January as a gardener which I quit in early April and I also did odd jobs for my friend Roger (a local landlord) as well as continued to watch Zoe (and her parents just had a new baby!!! He's so cute....) . I guess you could say I was busy? I didn't really feel swamped though.

I'll be going to Humboldt State University this fall to work towards my forestry degree and this summer I'm working for Redwood National and State Parks as a bonafide, federal, slavin' for the man employee. Woo hoo! With luck in the funding department I'll get to stay on through the school year part time, a resume builder for sure! Anywho, as you might deduct, summer life is work, work, work, work, three day weekend, repeat. Pretty sweet! And best of all, one of the crew is my good friend Jesse from Berea College. It's been so nice having that connection to home so close by and it will definitely be a sad day when he leaves. We all work hard and laugh constantly. The chemistry of my crew is unbeatable; we hang out with each other outside of work, you know, barbeque and play ultimate frisbee on the beach and stuff like that.

This summer we are mostly marking stands for thinning, I think about 300 acres total. Right now we are in Unit "K" which is about 27 acres and we almost finished it up today. Jesse and I were flagging riparian management zones (they require a special thinning treatment because of the intermittent streams that run through them) and then tracking their perimeters with a GPS. That kind of task entails traversing steep slopes, walking on top of 50 year old logs that are still perfectly intact (and some of them the size of buses), falling down a few times an hour, occasionally sinking into the ground (usually a covered up, huge, rotten log) and a face full of spider webs every few feet. It was actually really fun and in the end I think we hiked about 7 miles all over the side of this mountain.

So, I'm pretty tired right now and it's going on 7 and we haven't eaten yet but it's nice to come home and shower, drink a cold beer, and kick it by the fire, which I haven't built yet but it's on my list of things to do tonight, right after I finish writing this thing. Speaking of which, my writing has deteriorated with my increasing hunger so I guess the main points of this whatever it is are I am doing well, I work and hike a lot, oh yeah and did I mention it's pretty likely I'm moving back in December?? I'm planning on hiking the Appalachian Trail starting on the spring equinox of 09. But there's always the chance that I'll like school so much I'll stick around until I get the degree that I should've had this past spring. I see that as highly unlikely but never say never.
Okay folks, I'm hopping off this blogging train and I'll be headed your way soon so don't you fret your pretty little heads one bit about this gal cause she's doing just fine.
As always, love you, miss you, see you soon,
Jess