penn

101 things: month 15

a 101 things in pictures

39. Grow something edible and make a meal with it

my first tomato! I ate it sliced up and plain. Very sweet!

95. Visit dinkytown

A friend was visiting this weekend, and we checked out the scene at the University of Minnesota. The highlight was visiting Annie's for a cherry shake, burger, and fries. Yum!

98. visit a Minnesota tourist attraction

The ball o'twine in Darwin, Minnesota. Fun times for all!

0 more in progress for 5 total in progress
3 more completed for 41 total completed

Glorious Summer

It is now officially summer here in Minnesota, and the weather is certainly reading the calendar. Today, it was hot and humid. In the upstairs of our house, it hit 102F (tho my roommate using the oven was probably a contributing factor). Matt set up a heat-sink of sorts by pointing a fan out the kitchen window, and it cooled off down to 90F in about an hour and a half.

Apparently, the heat index was 103F here. Maybe I am glad that the nature center has air-conditioning.

Tonight, we took a walk through the nature center. We both got bit up by mosquitoes, but it was still lovely. The prairie was covered in firefly light, and a bounty of frogs was calling in the ponds.

Right at this moment, a nighthawk is calling outside my window.

It's a good start to summer.

Jobs and money

One of the trials of being a naturalist is the dearth of full-time, year-round positions. Currently, I'm teaching summer camp at the same place where I interned for the school year. This lets me stay close to Matt, and I'm having a lot of fun playing with kids. We do all the camp planning, so it's also good experience.

I've finally gotten a position for the fall, and I'm quite excited. I'll be heading to Maine to teach ecology at a residential center (email me if you'd like more details -- I'm just trying to avoid google). It will be much busier than here, since the kids spend the night, but it will be a fun and different experience. This will mean a few months away from Matt, but we're planning a fun Thanksgiving roadtrip for my return to Minnesota.

For these jobs, I definitely took a pay-cut from what I was making as a grad student. Michigan paid us quite well, so I was never hurting for money. Of course, at the time, it always seemed like I didn't have enough. But "not having enough" meant that I was saving up less than $500 a month.

This does highlight the importance of strong money-management for me. I'm glad I built up a substantial savings cushion while in grad school; this allows me the financial freedom to pursue enjoyable jobs without worrying how I'll pay all the bills each month. Currently, I'm making $700 a month (after taxes) with free housing. Some months, this is more than enough money for me; other months, that savings cushion gives me the float I need to make it through. Months where I pay car and health insurance are particularly tight -- car insurance is $430 for 6 months, and my meagre health insurance is $130 a month.

I really enjoy the naturalist thing. We'll see if I'm able to make a career out of this for the long haul. If so, awesome. If not, I've learned a lot of fun games and alternative teaching methods, and I'll eventually figure out a job that works out well for me. In the meantime, I'm enjoying the ride and glad to have this luxury of exploration.

Vegan Chocolate Cake

By request of Janet, my vegan chocolate cake recipe. I got it from my friend Shalene, a fabulous now-doctor of ecology that I met in grad school. This is one of my favorite recipes -- simple to make, rarely requires a store run, and easily adaptable to a variety of flavors.

Things I have done to this recipe: added cinnamon for a Cinco de Mayo party, topped with sliced strawberries, added in maraschino cherries + juice, put in orange/vanilla/mint/whatever extract, topped with powdered sugar etc etc. So fungible!

FYI, some changes mean the cake is no longer vegan. Also, to be *truly* vegan, you need to know where your different ingredients come from. For example, sugar is sometimes whitened using bone char. No bone char stays in the sugar or anything, but strict vegans don't like using white sugar unless they know the source.

INGREDIENTS:
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder (I like putting 1/3 or 1/2 cup for a more chocolatey cake)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon distilled white vinegar (I use lemon juice -- I find white vinegar gives a strange aftertaste. not all agree with me)
• 1 cup water

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease one 9x5 inch loaf pan. Or a 9x13 pyrex. Or whatever pan you like.
2. Sift together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda and salt. Add the oil, vanilla, vinegar and water. Mix together until smooth.
3. Pour into prepared pan and bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 45 minutes or until a piece of spaghetti inserted in comes out clean. Remove from oven and allow to cool.

Teaching

Wow, 10 days. I have been quite busy at work -- on June 1, I made the transition to being a "summer" intern, which means I learned a whole new set of duties and have had a huge amount of planning to do for summer camps.

Last week, as part of training, they decreed it was "your turn" to teach something to the rest of the group. Appropriately, this was about the same time as Janet's lovely I can teach you post. She went to a "Creative Mornings" event where all the participants wore badges that said "I can teach you to _______." This (and the "your turn") got me thinking -- what can I teach?

For the my turn, I geeked out and taught all my coworkers how to make greeting cards with rubber stamps, stencils, and mixed media. I'm pretty sure it was a hit, as everyone stayed engaged for the whole hour I had. It had also been a long time since I pulled out all my craft supplies, so that was fun. Everyone was impressed at how much I had, so, a big thank you! to my mom for giving me stencils, rubber stamps, and ink as presents for years. I've had some of the stamping supplies since I was 12, and the ink is still good on most of them. Way to go good quality equipment!

Other things I can teach you:

+ how to compose a photo
+ what you can see under a log
+ how to make a vegan cake
+ the proper form for weight lifting
+ the difference between a: (1) turtle and tortoise, (2) frog and toad, and (3) bison and buffalo

To the Wild

The thing I miss most about being out west is the sheer expanse of wilderness. Minnesota isn't bad for this . . . but further west is even better. There's just all this land that begs to be explored. And who cares that it was all mapped years ago? Obviously not April nor myself, as we couldn't be bothered to really worry about anything other than what was before us.

April drove me to a beautiful canyon, and we set out for a full day. This is the scene of my first picture from the trip; I fell in the river during a treacherous crossing, but April managed to save my camera bag, so all was well.

Classic Cars

One of the highlights of visiting April was seeing a classic car parade. Mmmm, cars, my secret love.

The new desktop on my computer . . .

Yay Friday

Some interesting things this week:

1) I biked 16 miles on Wednesday night! It's the furthest I've ever biked in my life. Surprisingly, I wasn't too sore the next day. It was a group ride with some ladies from the nature center as part of a biking class. I've got two weeks to train on my own before going on an even longer bike ride. We do two hours every other Wednesday for the summer, and it will be interesting to see how far we can make it by the end. Matt's goal is to bike a particular 80 mile round-trip stretch, and I'm hoping to get good enough to do that with him.

2) I'm in training for summer camps this week, and we got our schedule all figured out. One fun camp I will be doing is a field trip camp for 8-10 year olds. We'll have four days to visit various state parks within an hour radius from where we are, and I'm looking forward to all the possibilities.

3) I had book group on Monday night. We read Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson. Interesting book about post-WWII Norway and an old man reflecting back on his life. I'd recommend it.